Episode 4: Swati Bhattacharya - The Ad Queen Changing Hearts and Minds - 'Against the Odds' podcast series

Our guest this week is Swati Bhattacharya, the first woman to become the Chief Creative Officer of a major advertising firm in India. She has fought throughout her career against advertising stereotypes, particularly around the traditional roles of women in India, whether as mothers, daughters, wives or widows. What makes her different from many of her male colleagues she says, is that, ‘Whatever project I work on I put my heart into it, I have never looked at my audience as product users, they are human beings.’ Her ground-breaking approach has won her company accolades and scores of international awards. Swati has never been afraid to speak her mind, and a strong focus of her work has been campaigns to battle the widespread discrimination and stigma against transgender children and adults in India and around the world. In her opinion, most people have been battered and bruised in some way or another, but transgender particularly suffer -from homelessness, from sexual violence and from mental illness. She recalls that transgender women are up to 40% more likely to be HIV positive. But if advertising is traditionally a means of increasing a company’s bottom line, how do you persuade a client like the Times of India to take on such controversial themes as a means of expanding business? And what has been the wider impact of Swati’s groundbreaking work? Swati’s on Twitter: @techyswati