Mumbai dabbawalas now have a new claim to fame. They are the latest to join the television bandwagon that thrives on publicity and ingenuous promotional campaigns. This time around, things are a wee bit different! Sahara One has taken on the services of the Mumbai dabbawalas to promote what they call Television Ka Naya Rang.

If you travel by Mumbai locals, it is easy to spot the dabbawalas going about their chores sporting a bright pink jacket with the channel's new logo firmly in place.

Under this campaign, initiated by the channel, close to 2500 dabbawalas across the city have being wearing the branded jacket for the last three days and distributing Sahara One's menu card and contest details for on air cricket contest Naya Rang Cricket ke Sang along with the dabbas. The five day promotion kicked started on 3 April and will go on till 8 April.

Due to the reach and network of the dabba system, close to 50,0000 people will be reached directly on a daily basis through the dabbas and unaccounted number of the people who watch the dabbawallas on the streets. The dabbawallas across 17 stations in Western and Central suburb like Churchgate /CST Dadar, Lower Parel Grant Road, Marine Lines, Mulund, Borivli, Bandra, Malad amongst others have been sporting the logo.

An interesting parallel can be drawn here with the current election campaign underway in West Bengal. With the Government banning any wall graphities during the campaigns the political parties especially the CPI(M) have resorted to using t-shirts and jackets as their promotional paraphernalia, quite like the one that the dabawalas are sporting here!

This is also a cost effective promotional gimmick as opposed to the expensive mobile hoardings that have come into vogue. And again this is a great way to make inroads into areas that cannot be reached by other campaign tools -- a dabawalla walks into an office wearing the jacket and the whole organisation takes notice! Publicity can't get better than this!

This is not the first time that Sahara One has utilised such an ingenuous tool. During the promotional activities of Hare Kaanch Ki choodiyan and Kohinoor too, the channel had tried doing things differently.

The dabawalas too are enjoying their moment under the sun. They joked and laughed as they posed for photographs, but took their job as mobile publicity tools very seriously -- and why not...they are doing the most important job in the biz of entertainment!

Click here to know what the dabbawalas were upto in the last five days!

Pics by Satej Shinde