About the Activity:
Vikas Sathaye, born and brought up in Mumbai suburb of Mulund and a resident of
Adelaide, Australia, was granted the Scientific and Engineering Academy Award at the
90th Oscar Academy Award Ceremony held on February 10, 2018. Sathaye and his team
of four members received the award for their contribution towards conceptualisation ,
designing, engineering and implementation of the Shotover K1 Camera System. It was
his wish for this news to be covered by the media in Mumbai, his hometown, as well as
across Maharashtra. He also hoped for the then Chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra
Fadnavis to consider and take note of this event.
Objective:
The main objective of this activity was to derive coverage from mainline media in
Mumbai as well as Maharashtra so as to popularise the extraordinary achievements on
Vikas Sathaye and his team.
It was also intended that through the coverage, the news about Sathaye’s achievements
reaches the higher authorities especially the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
Strategy:
As soon as the team received the client brief, a press release was drafted and shared
with Mr. Sathaye. The main media strategy was to share the release and other details of
the event to our trusted media representatives to increase the chances of coverage
instead of sharing the release to an entire group of target media. Following this, the
release was shared with one of the senior-most journalists at The Times of India. The
team was able to convince him and get assured and exclusive coverage from the
publication. The release along with Mr. Sathaye’s quote and other required details were
shared with TOI. The story was then published on page one in TOI.
When the team had assurance of coverage from The Times of India, the release was also
shared with Lokmat as an all-Maharashtra exclusive story. Lokmat carried the story in
all their editions.
Based on the story published by The Times of India, Vikas Sathaye was invited by the
then Chief Minister of Maharashtra at his office and was felicitated for his feat.
Thus in the shortest possible time, the team was able to achieve both the set objectives.
Prominent coverage was obtained in mainline newspapers within a day of sharing the
news which not only grabbed the attention of thousands of readers but also the highest
authorities in the state.