Bollywood and Behavior Change

Last week, YouthSave members from CGAP, Margaret Miller and Tanaya Kilara organized a panel event at the World Bank called “Entertainment as a Catalyst for Social Change in India,” which focused on how to integrate social messaging into mainstream Indian entertainment, namely film and television, towards achieving behavior change. Panelists elaborated on past, failed experiences with social messaging efforts and identified challenges in 1) attracting viewership towards entertainment that addresses controversial issues such as HIV/AIDS and women’s abuse 2) financing social messaging for films and television given its low demand and 3) measuring the linkages between social messaging and behavior change. As a member of the YouthSave team, I thought about these challenges in the context of a non-controversial topic: financial education.

Panelists at the event included Bollywood actresses - Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, famous Indian playwrite - Girish Karnad, director - Andoor Gopalkrishnan, and musician - Vidya Shah. I was excited and star struck to meet Azmi and Das, who are prominently known for their roles in provocative films, rather than the usual love-triangled musicals (yes such Bollywood movies do exist). Their practice of acting in films that either subtly or overtly relay important socio-political messages to broad audiences translates into their non-film activities: advocating for women’s rights, education development, and other social issues challenging Indian society. Although conversations at the event focused on how to induce behavior change, I thought about what social messaging should encompass, specifically financial education.

Financial education is believed to be an important component (along with access and use of financial products) to developing financial capabilities, an integral issue for the YouthSave Consortium and more recently for India’s finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee. Since developing financial capabilities for youth and adults entails a level of behavior change, logically, there should be a space for integrating financial education messaging into mainstream entertainment, right?

Well, other organizations have already started exploring financial education messaging for radio and television soap operas. Microfinance Opportunities, is one such example, having created a series of videos on insurance, savings (generally) and youth savings (specifically), and debt management. And while the potential for integrating similar innovations exist in India, strategic partnerships between the government, entertainment players, and NGOs would be germane to promoting financial education through entertainment messaging. Interestingly, Margaret Miller and other recipients of the World Bank Innovations Grant seek to develop a sustainable mechanism for using mass media and entertainment to promote behavior change and development in finance, health and other sectors, by currently focusing on the Indian and Mexican media markets. As for YouthSave, findings from our market research show that television and radio usages are high among youth in our Project countries, and I believe should be tools used for financial capability development and behavior change.