In order to help people, we decided to tackle a serious problem in Old Delhi-traffic congestion. We found that a key contributor to traffic in Delhi were cows on roads, slowing down and even blocking traffic. Cows are revered in India and allowed to roam free. We turned these roadblocks into guiding beacons. One application, for the collars, was created to track longitude, latitude and collect data to track the cows, and a user end app was created with google maps open API allowing commuters to avoid a very common source of congestion, the cows themselves. They could even follow the unique gullies and lanes used by cows to navigate the city. We did this by equipping the cows with special transmitter collars. Each collar housed a recycled smartphone with a solar charger. The GPS capabilities of the phones allowed us to easily track the cows.

To help commuters, we created special transmitter collars for Gaaye’s (Hindi for cow, pronounced guy). Each collar had a recycled smart phone and a solar charger. Using existing GPS capabilities of the phone we were able to track cows, follow their movements and provide updates on nearby traffic to people. One application, for the collars, was created to track longitude, latitude and collect data to track the cows, and the Traffic Gaaye app was created with google maps’ open API allowing commuters to avoid a very common source of congestion, the cows themselves. Users could see where the cows were, receive tweets with traffic updates and even follow unique routes the cows used to navigate the city. The Traffic Gaaye initiative was implemented on April 7th, 2016 and was launched on the google play store.

A key result was changing the way people navigated the city. Because of the Traffic Gaaye app, users found easier ways to navigate the city, through the same streets and gullies the cows used. The initial phase has had about 5000 downloads of the app. With 6,000 km covered by the cows, we had a data bank of hundreds of unique routes created. These combined with the traffic updates and alerts showed that commuters journeys were reduced by an average of 15 minutes. There was a 13% increase in the Videocon brand affinity amongst its user base. Through daily usage, the app indirectly affected the larger population and other commuters in Old Delhi. As a result, congestion was reduced, causing a decrease in fuel consumption and air pollution in Old Delhi.

This work is relevant for the Direct category because the idea behind the campaign was to impact peoples lives positively. We succeeded in influencing commuter behaviour, changing the way people moved through the streets of Old Delhi. Our challenge was to tackle a huge traffic problem and find a smart solution to help our target audience while simultaneously helping to combat Delhi’s massive traffic congestion problem. In achieving this we found a uniquely Indian solution to a problem that is itself very Indian. We turned cows into traffic guides, going to the source and helping thousands of people.

Using the data collated by the Delhi Police we determined vehicle density. Delhi has over 96 lakh vehicles on its road network of 33,198 km, with about 30,000 free roaming cows-also a constant cause of congestion. Our strategy was to tackle this problem intelligently, showing how innovative Videocon is. For the Traffic Gaaye initiative, our target audience were phone savvy smartphone owners, living in and around Old Delhi. Videocon’s goal was to increase its market share by making an intelligent connection with the user base. We did this by creating an app to beat the traffic problem people. What made our idea different was that we turned a common cause of traffic into a unique, never before seen solution. By using cows as transmitters to help people navigate traffic, we showed how innovative Videocon was; making them the smart choice to make when it came to smartphones.