The events:
IndiaCause launched protest on January 26 asking for an unconditional apology
from Maxim.
First 3 days Maxim received 5000-6000 protest mails. Maxim refused to make
even a single comment at the end of third day.
On January 28, we changed our target from Maxim to ‘Corporate advertisers’
(Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Nike, Unilever, Miller, Core). After first 50-100
emails to ‘Corporate advertisers’, Maxim PR Firm came out with statement "We
shall respond in May for Happy Resolution (but not the ‘apology’)"
On 29th IndiaCause site replied "You have insulted a nation of
1 billion people. If you are going to take three months to write 3 lines
apology, you are insulting us further. We can not change the appeal made on
Jan 28, until the apology is published or conveyed formally."
After 500-600 mails to Corporates, Maxim PR contacted and sent in an email
apology. We insisted for ‘Signed Paper Document’, which they sent in
immediately the next day. They wanted to resolve this issue at the earliest.
There is a ‘BIG’ lesson in this for Indians "If the target does not
respond – Contact the advertisers"
IndiaCause has made the difference every time there was a ‘Call For
Action’. The only difference this time was "The Campaign went on and
succeeded under the media focus" (Indian media must be given equal credit)
If you are taking on any target (even as a single individual), always try
to find who can make the difference (especially they are the financers). But
the issue should be strong enough for advertisers to consider.
Also mark a copy of your protest to IndiaCause (that makes a difference).
Now the western media knows IndiaCause well. When you win, let IndiaCause
know so that we can spread the news.
Hindustan Times reported:
Quote
Maxim vacillated a great deal before coming out with the apology. What
seemed to have finally worked was a threat by IndiaCause, the US-based
activist group, to approach advertisers with appeals to stop giving ads to a
publication that has "insulted the apostle of peace". It even put out a
sample letter to corporate heads on its website
For IndiaCause, which has spearheaded many protests of the kind,
extracting the apology from Maxim was a major success. Maxim’s initial stance
was it will address the controversy in its May issue, prompting the Indian
group to retort: "If you are going to take three months to write a three-line
apology, you are insulting us further."
UnQuote
Our protest page received 24,591 hits in first
six days while the protest was on. 7000+ may have sent in their protest.
Thanks again for your great support!
At the end of this campaign we are a strong team
of 6600+ Cyber Activists. If ever we can be a team of 1,00,000+ we can change
the way our ‘Corrupt, Demoralized and Criminalized’ India works (Too big a
dream for one individual). But I carried the same dream when I was a ‘Team of
ONE’ few years before.
Mahendra Joshi
