Mumbai: HP Gas, the LPG SBU of HPCL, a fortune 500 company; a Mega Public Sector Undertaking with Navratna status and one of the major integrated oil refining and marketing companies in India, announced the launch of next Phase of its SurakshaSanchetnaAbhiyan (SSA)- ‘Art For Awareness’ across 24 cities in India today.

Today HP GAS serves the cooking needs of nearly 30 million homes all over India through a network ofover 2400 HPGAS distributors. HPCL believes in conducting its business in a way that protects the safety of personnel involved in the business including customer and public. The focus of HPCL has always been customer safety as it is paramount in all its operation. HP GAS continuously undertakes various initiatives to spread the message of safety so that no one suffers due to ignorance.

The SurakshaSanchetanaAbhiyan has been one such major initiative of HPGAS to empower its consumers with information on safe usage of LPG so as to avoid any untoward accidents related to LPG , due to lack of information. The SurakshaSanchetanaAbhiyan is a massive consumer engagement programme which has been designed keeping mind the media consumption patternof the rural and urban consumer.

The ‘Art For Awareness’ campaign has been designed keeping in mind the target audience- Women from Upper-middle class households, in the age-group of 25-40 years in 24 urban cities of India. This segment of LPG users use telecommunication tools for booking their LPG refills with their LPG distributor and do not visit the distributorship very frequently resulting in a very limited customer-distributor interaction-and hence it was a challenge to create a communication plan that would ensure reaching this segment with maximum engagement.

The innovative ‘Art for Awareness’ campaign will communicate with the target audience through a rather unconventional route- school going kids from these households in the age-group of 5-10 years of age and studying in 1st to 5th standard. Children in this age-group are increasingly becoming the influencers in their households. This was the driving force behind the decision to engage the kids to reach out to the mothers in the targeted households.

‘Art for Awareness’ is a School Contact Program whereby HP Gas endeavours to address the Kitchen Safety issue and empower the upwardly- mobile class with knowledge on safe usage of LPG at home. Special Workshops will be conducted in each of the selected schools over the month of December and January. Bearing in mind the age-group of kids, HP Gas has undertaken an info-tainment approach and hascreated a fun Animation, which will entertain the kids while educating them on the do’s and don’ts with relation to Kitchen Safety.

The ‘Art for Awareness’ Workshop will further engage the children by organizing an on-the-spot Drawing Competition to gauge their understanding of the issue. The winner will be rewarded on the same day.

In addition to the same these children will take home an ‘Art for Awareness’ Kit comprising of a Booklet that emphasizes on the various aspects related to LPG safety and conservation. It shall leverage the mothers ‘ with detailed do’s and dont’s related to safe LPG usage, besides providing some handy tips of LPG conservation. Besides it will also invite parents to participate in a National level drawing competition along with their kids, again emphasizing on Kitchen Safety and would act as an important response measurement tool.

The 24 cities that have been selected are Delhi, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Lucknow, Patna, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Vizag, Hyderabad, Indore, Raipur, Jabalpur, Chennai, Kochi, Bengaluru, Nashik, Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Surat and Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

HP Gas initiated SurakshaSanchetanaAbhiyanin 2009 with two clear objectives:

Encouraging rural masses to treat LPG as a safe and viable alternative

Re-emphasising the importance of safe usage of LPG with the lower strata of the semi-urban masses (existing customers)

SurakshaSanchetanaAbhiyanhas successfully covered 105 rural and semi-urban cities of India last year and 406 towns this year interacting with 1.5 million people,, using campaign carriers – exhibit buses loaded with information on LPG safety and conservation.”

Elaborating on the SurakshaSanchetnaAbhiyanMr.SubirSarkar, Chief Manager LPG Sales, HPCL reflected, “The first phase of SurakshaSanchetnaAbhiyan concentrated on the rural masses as well as lower middle-class segment of the semi-urban cities. Innovative Communication Platforms like Campaign carriers and Roadshows were implemented as Ground activation tools to get the message across to the rural audience. We hope to take similar initiatives in urban set ups also and Art for Awareness is a step forward in this direction. HP Gas is the can-beareron this front and will keep ensuring that its consumers’ safety is always its top-most priority.”

HP Gas is confident that the SSA- Art for Awareness Program will be as successful as its earlier initiatives and emphasise on the safety aspect in household kitchens.