IDENTITY – Soolkaama

SOOLKAAMA – Madhya Pradesh

Soolkaama — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 08:30:10 +0000

Soolkaama

Soolkaama, Madhya Pradesh, India

Content Development, Storytelling, Marketing strategy

A tiny hamlet of around 30 huts in MP, about 50 Kms from Maihar MP, there lies a village of sheep and cattle herders called Soolkaama. A visit to this village is one of the first reasons why the founder of Soolkaama decided to do something about rural crafts in India. Every household here is involved in weaving rugs made of sheep wool. Organic, hand made, exquisite rugs. Sold for Rs. 400 a piece to customers in adjoining villages.

Soolkaama, the village, has no external intervention of any kind. They have no access to a marketplace. Their culture and artistic history is beautifully preserved in these hand-made rugs. The youth are not interested, as 400Rs for something that takes 10 days to make is, understandably, not a worthwhile effort. Most of the young men from the village work menial jobs in Maihar.

At Soolkaama, with minimal intervention and by documenting the craft and telling the story about the weavers, we were able to sell the products at a premium of Rs. 2000. Although not a perfect case study for Soolkaama, the positive take aways from this project gave us the purpose to do what we do today.

EXIDE INDUSTRIES CSR – West Bengal

Soolkaama — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 07:43:27 +0000

Exide Industries & Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)

Dhansol, West Bengal, India

Marketing strategy, Advertising strategy, Content development. Branding strategy for local design firm which was an integral part of the project

Soolkaama was commissioned by Exide Industries and CII in the Jhargram Tribal belt of West Bengal to develop branding and marketing collateral for their CSR efforts. We teamed up with the Kolkatta based design firm, Paul Design Centrum and local NGO, Jhargram SEVA, to develop a content strategy. The commission resulted in producing video content, photo content for online campaigns and product images for catalogue printing.

The Jhargram tribal belt is inhabited by the Santhali Tribe. This tribe is listed as a PVTG (Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group). Decades of civil strife between the Indian government and maoist rebel groups within the forest of this region had left this area severely under developed and the people in the remote villages struggled for years to life without fear for their lives.

But since 2012, the region has experienced stability after the rebels surrendered themselves and reached a peace deal with the government. This CSR effort was to train local village women in new design techniques to produce contemporary products using rope. The villagers have been producing rope using local sabai grass as raw material for several generations. The price they earn for the effort is paltry. With new designs and new products an effort is being made to ensure the women are able to earn a sustainable alternate source of income.

KUMBAYA – Madhya Pradesh

Soolkaama — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 04:02:08 +0000

KUMBAYA

Samaj Pragait Sahayog (SPS), Bagli, MP, India

Branding, Advertising, Content and Catalog management. Workshops on producing creative collateral for marketing using locally available resources. Tools to manage tasks and advertising related activities with existing resources.

Kumbaya is a textile based social venture run by women from one of the most remote, marginalised and economically deprived regions of India. The uniqueness of the venture is the creation of a new craft based skill and employment opportunity in a predominantly agrarian region. Kumbaya has been teaching and employing women to sew fabrics.

Although this region had no cultural history per-se about the craft they were engaged in, the team failed to capitalise on the general heritage of the region and the artistic history of the people who are producing the crafts. As one of the main goals of this venture is empowerment of women and the disabled, most of the stories about brand Kumbaya are around these aspects of their work. While it is important to highlight these stories, it is equally important to present the people as a proud people. The pride lies in history of the people.

Soolkaama worked with the local team and helped them develop processes to manage in-house content development. We also helped create a structure to better understand the brand proposition. This aided in creation of a messaging strategy that was true to the ethos of the brand. The messaging strategy enabled the team to put in place an advertising plan they could execute without external help.