India Brand Refresh: Strategic and Creative Partner for Girl Effect

Top Line Objective:

Girl Effect India is looking to procure the services of a strategic and creative agency to help establish a culturally resonant content and technology brand for parents of adolescent girls from low-income households in Northern India. The agency will also be tasked with updating the brand positioning, architecture and identity of Girl Effect India’s existing youth brand, Chhaa Jaa.

Who We Are

Girl Effect is an international non-profit that builds media that girls want, trust and need.From chatbots to chat shows and TV dramas to tech, our content helps adolescent girls in Africa and Asia make choices and changes in their lives. We create safe spaces for girls, sharing facts and answering questions about health, nutrition, education, and relationships, empowering girls with the skills to negotiate and redefine what they are told is possible “for a girl”.

Our reach is 50 million and counting, and we use technology to reach girls at scale so every girl can choose to be in control of her body, health, learning and livelihood.

Because when a girl unlocks her power to make different choices that change her life, it inspires others to do so too. She starts a ripple effect that impacts her family, community, and country.

That’s the Girl Effect.

Our Approach

Girl Effect uses a branded media approach towards delivering behavioral change programmes.

We reach girls across the world, where they are -online and offline, to support them at the critical moments in life when choices around their health, education and economic future need to be made.

We use our expertise in behavior change science to motivate and equip girls with information and support to help them see a different future for themselves, act on those choices, and drive greater demand for the opportunities and services available to them.

Chhaa Jaa in India, Tujibebe in Tanzania, Yegna in Ethiopia – are some of our youth brands. They exist across multiple channels – digital ( Meta, Google and other SM platforms), TV, radio, print and offline. Where required and relevant, we also use white label brands for specific campaigns.

Girl Effect in India

In 2019, Girl Effect launched Chhaa Jaa, a digital-first youth programme that helps girls in India build the confidence to make choices and changes in their lives – from accessing information about her body and services around her to negotiating about education choices or whether to use contraception. Chhaa Jaa was designed keeping in mind adolescent girls between 17-19 years, currently in higher education, and accessible online via mobile – whether girls own or borrow a mobile phone.

Over the last four years, we have invested in setting up key online assets and infrastructure that can be leveraged to deliver programmes under a range of thematics for older adolescent girls. We have built a multi-product digital ecosystem of products – across ‘broadcast’ and ‘interactive’ features – that are social media-based and available to girls whenever they need it.

This includes:

• Inspiring and enabling social and behavior change content on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube
• A chatbot on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp that allows girls to explore taboo topics in a safe 1:1 space and nudges them to connect her with health services.
• And a website aggregating youth-friendly services and is updated regularly with blog content.
• A girls-only Facebook group to experience social support and a sense of community

Project Context

Since 2006, the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Vaccine has been available in many countries, and many adolescent girls and young women have been vaccinated against HPV in higher and upper-income countries. With the power of social media, one can only imagine the magnitude of information and misinformation that could potentially be circulated about the HPV vaccine, especially as it is exclusively launched for adolescent girls only. The social and mental barriers linked to adolescent girls and their health and immunization provide additional impetus to understand the barriers and enablers to the uptake of the vaccination, what shapes and defers intent and most importantly, how to convince adolescent girls of the uptake of the HPV vaccine. At the nascent age of 9-14 years, parents of adolescent girls are the primary decision-makers around matters related to health and immunization. These decisions are also influenced by other key actors in the community, such as teachers, health system actors, and counsellors amongst others.

Girl Effect aims to leverage its digital programming expertise to support the Government of India’s National roll out of the HPV vaccine with a programme that leverages social media and technology to cut through potential misinformation and reach parents with critical and credible information on the HPV vaccine building mass awareness and acceptance of the vaccine. While the primary audience for the National rollout is parents, Girl Effect will additionally develop on-ground programme components to build awareness and acceptance of the vaccine amongst girls themselves.

The product mix includes –

1. A social media awareness campaign targeted at parents
2. An app that can be used offline to support teachers, partners and healthcare workers in disseminating relevant content and engaging with 9-14 year old girls.
3. A new WhatsApp chatbot that parents will be encouraged to engage with – which will be able to answer any questions or concerns they may have about the vaccine,

Summary of Scope of Work

Chhaa Jaa, our existing online youth brand, is aimed at girls between 18-24 years. We have, in the past, built a separate, short brand campaign targeting young mothers with communication on routine immunization. This brand was called ‘Point To Hai’. The new HPV programme requires us to speak to a new set of audiences, i.e. girls between the ages 9-14 years and their parents, i.e. men and women potentially between the ages 31-55 years across the 11 Hindi-speaking States in India.

Beyond the immediate requirements of the HPV programme, under its larger 5 year vision, Girl Effect aims to impact the lives of 65 million AGYW within 10 Hindi-speaking States. The ambition is to support AGYW across a broad spectrum of thematic areas- from encouraging them to pursue their dreams & aspirations to supporting their health and wellbeing by building their self confidence and agency to navigate difficult situations and access products and services. To increase the depth and sustainability of our impact, we aspire to include key stakeholders such as parents, partners, teachers and healthcare workers as programme audiences.

Our ambition is to build strong brands and assets that endure beyond immediate programme needs and lend themselves to being leveraged across multiple thematics and audience demographics.

We require the services of a creative agency to assess our existing brands along with requirements for the new HPV programme in conjunction with our 5 year vision towards a new brand architecture to fulfil immediate and future programme needs.

Detailed Scope of Work

Girl Effect is looking for a creative agency that will lead the strategic thinking around Girl Effect’s brands in India, especially in the context of the new HPV program and its requirements towards building and engaging an expanded audience. One of the main tasks the agency will undertake is to evolve and build a brand for a brand campaign targeted towards parents.

The scope of work includes:

1. Dive into the research on TG and work closely with the GE team to develop a brand that is resonant and credible and can speak to parents about vaccinations as well as allied topics like nutrition, sexual and reproductive health and other subjects concerning the wellbeing of their children, especially girls. This brand will exist within the Chhaa Jaa context and ecosystem but will target married women and parents. Draw on the learnings from ‘Point Toh Hai’ – the campaign earlier developed to target parents with content around routine immunization. Sub-activities must include building the brand DNA positioning and identity, testing the brand in collaboration with Girl Effect, incorporation feedback from Girl Effect and building brand guidelines, sample assets and sample briefs that will enable the creative teams developing the program to understand how to use the brand.
2. Determine whether ‘Chhaa Jaa’ the brand can flex to 9-14 year old girls in alignment with the campaign’s objectives and what the implications are in terms of tone of voice, positioning, identity, etc. or if we need a sub-brand for the same. ( a ‘younger’ version of Chhaa Jaa) . If it turns out that a sub-brand or a ‘younger version’ of Chhaa Jaa is definitely needed, develop the sub-brand DNA, positioning, tone of voice, identity, etc. and establish the brand in collaboration with GE with the same sub-activities as described above.
3. With Chhaa Jaa’s expanded scope in mind, re-look at its DNA and positioning. Define its brand architecture – how do these new or refreshed brands and existing products fit within the Chhaa Jaa ecosystem? What links them together? How are they connected? How does that show up in our communication? This thinking should be clarified and locked down – and guidelines around it should be included in the brand guide.
4. Support the Girl Effect team in coming up with ideas and concepts around the launch of the new brand (s) and communication campaign.

Deliverables:

1. Regular check-ins with the team, 3-4 workshops around key moments.
2. Documentation of strategic decisions around Chhaa Jaa’s expanded scope, validation of the ‘Point to hai’ brand for the campaign, validation of Chhaa Jaa’s brand positioning and DNA, as well as finalized brand architecture and strategy.
3. End to end testing of the brand – from a positioning and identity perspective.
4. Brand guide with the new brand identity and sample assets developed for the campaign targeting parents. Sample briefs that will enable the creative teams developing the program to understand how to use the brand.
5. If it turns out that the Chhaa Jaa brand needs a refresh, deliver an updated brand guide – with DNA, positioning, tone of voice, identity and sample assets, including for a ‘younger version’ of the Chhaa Jaa brand.
6. Brand launch ideas and sample assets – developed in collaboration with the GE team.

What Success Looks Like:

1. Development of a tested brand for parents of 9-14 year old girls in the Hindi belt – a brand that parents resonate with and feel trustworthy, reliable and credible
2. Clear understanding of how this brand will inform the development and launch of a branded campaign and access to all the tools and assets that are necessary for the effective implementation of the brand within the campaign.
3. A clear understanding of whether and how the Chhaa Jaa brand can speak to a younger audience of 9-14 year olds. Guidelines around what must change to do that. If some adaptation of the current brand is necessary, a well explored and defined direction with guidelines, tools and assets around how to do that.
4. The team has a clear, rationalized and well articulated understanding of the Chhaa Jaa brand architecture – and how its sub-brands fit within this framework.

Project Work Plan Timelines

RFP sent out

6 Nov ‘23

Proposal Submission

20 Nov ‘23

Final decision on agency

25th Nov ‘23

Contract, Safeguarding agreement, etc.

30th Nov ‘23

Brand design and refresh study

Dec ‘23- Jan ‘24

Final shareouts and handover of brand guidelines

15- 20 Jan ‘24

Who You Are

An agency with:

• Rich experience in global and local brand-building.
• The ability to think strategically and creatively to understand how to best position the new brand, draw from others’ learnings, use the test results to refine our understanding and finally, creatively execute the new brand identity.
• Experience in crafting strong brand strategies that resonate with youth demographics.
• Strong creative and design capabilities, as referenced by previous work examples.
• Experience developing large scale, successful youth brands. A deep understanding of youth culture, trends, and behavior.
• Strong understanding of the local context and/or team members who understand the local context
• Experience in developing social impact brands is desirable.

The agency will need to:

1. Put together a team considering the requirements of GE
2. Build an execution plan keeping our timelines in mind
3. Facilitate regular sessions with the GE team – for concepts, brainstorming, ideas and feedback
4. Execute the deliverables mentioned above

Expected Commitment

• The assignment is expected to take no more than 2 months from contracting to completion of final deliverables.
• The agency’s assignment period starts in November 2023 and ends in Jan 2024.

Procurement Timelines

• Terms of reference published:3rd November 2023.
• Questions/Clarification Deadline: 10th November 2023
• Deadline for proposal submission: 20th November 2023
• Supplier selection, contracting and briefing: End of November
• Project commencement: December 2023

Reporting:

This engagement will be managed by the Creative Lead in India and the Global Create Team, who will work with the successful consultant to ensure its timely and thorough execution.

Location

The agency should have local operations (or have done several projects) in India and must be conducive to working with teams in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, the UK, the USA, and India.

Proposal submissions:

Your proposal (max 10 pages), should you be interested, should cover the following:

• Your understanding of the brief and why you are well placed to deliver on the requirements.
• Credentials/Profile – Please showcase any previous work that you consider to be relevant to what we are trying to achieve and how we approach our work, and the audience that we cater to
• Proposed Approach, work plan, and timeline describing how you will implement the design and development process for this project.
• Information on Additional Services – please provide any information on additional services that you believe would be pertinent and align with GE’s mission, vision, and values.

Financial Proposal

• A breakdown of the financial proposal in INR indicating the daily or hourly billing rate, time input, and all applicable reimbursable expenses. Alternatively, you can provide a fixed fee for the requested deliverables.
• All applicable taxes should be quoted separately;

In their technical proposal, the bidder must demonstrate an understanding of the requirements described in the RFP and demonstrate how the bidder will meet the requirements of the evaluation criteria.

Technical and Financial proposals will need to be submitted as separate documents. Financial bids will not be opened until the technical evaluation and then only for those proposals deemed qualified and responsive.

GE is not liable for any cost incurred during the award/contract preparation, submission, or negotiation of the award/contract. All submitted documentation and/or materials shall become and remain the property of GE.

VALIDITY of the proposal shall be for 90 days from the date of bid closure.

Evaluation Criteria

The criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are listed below.

Technical Evaluation

• Interpretation and understanding of this TOR – [20%]
• Company Profile and Organizational Capacity [10%]
• Experience in carrying out similar assignments in Organizational Brand set-up/Revamp [10%]
• Geographical Experience in India [5%]
• Proposed methodology and approach criteria [20%]
• Evidence of a minimum of three contactable references – [5%]

Financial Evaluation

• Value for money/proposed budget breakdown – 30%

Tax

Applicants are advised to ensure that they have a clear understanding of their tax position with regard to provisions of India local jurisdiction tax legislation when developing their proposals.

Disclaimer

GE reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, the number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice, and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party. GE shall inform the ONLY successful applicant(s). The process of negotiation and signing of the contract with the successful applicant(s) will follow.

Safeguarding

You may be required to undertake safeguarding checks. Shortlisted consultants will be assessed on our organisational values at the interview stage. The successful consultant will be expected to adhere to our safeguarding policy. We encourage you to read and understand our safeguarding policy, the executive summary of which can be found here. We have zero tolerance for all forms of violence against children, beneficiaries and staff.

Equal Opportunities

Girl Effect Services is committed to equal opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace.

We are committed to building an organization that is increasingly representative of and works extensively with the communities that we serve. To this end, due regard will be paid to procuring consultancy service organizations and individuals with diverse professional, academic and cultural backgrounds.

How to apply

To apply for this opportunity, please submit a proposal by email with the subject line “India Brand Revamp” to [email protected] by 20th November latest.