New Delhi, June 18: It will be a lean and mean campaign for the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme '97 which will shortly get off the blocks. Over the next six months, till the closure of the scheme on December 31, HTA and O&M will plug the scheme in India and target NRIs across the globe.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes which is mid-wifing the VDIS has issued out instructions to the two advertising agencies to create a focussed campaign, `shorn of any high-falutin flamboyance'. The CBDT has not ``allocated a definite budget for VDIS,'' but expenses on the campaign will ``be increased or curtailed depending upon the response to the campaign,'' CBDT sources disclosed.

To start with, the campaign budget is not expected to cross Rs 50 crore. Both the agencies are bending over backwards to kow-tow to the CBDT mandarins. In an effort to please CBDT with frills, HTA after securing the account brought in sister company Indian Public Affairs Network (IPAN) to `handle public relations'. To balance the added advantage of IPAN on HTA's side, O&M has brought in its group company O&M Direct to ``do the direct mailing''.

The four units (comprising the two agencies and their two sister companies) have formed a common pool to work on different aspects of the campaign. All the work it seems has been apportioned out to the common pool which leaves no scope for one up-manship by the agencies.

According to ad agency sources, this is a miracle of sorts as the two agencies have a history of rivalry which goes back to several decades. It is not going to be easy for both of them as ``their styles and their philosophies belong to inimical schools of thought.''

This will be manifest in the different approaches that the Delhi-heads of the two agencies will bring to the table. Achin Ganguly, O&M's head is an old O&M hand steeped in the classical advertising philosophy of David Ogilvy, while Sunil Gupta, HTA's head in Delhi is viewed as a professional who subscribes to ``a brash and aggressive approach to advertising''.

In this context it is significant that no one from any of the two agencies has been appointed as the campaign-head. Interestingly, internationally both O&M and HTA are owned by WPP; notwithstanding this the rivalry continues to be keen.

The nature of the campaign will not in any way be similar to that of campaigns for toiletries and and tobacco. The brief given to the agencies is too woo the tax avoiding high net-worth individual to come forward and avail of ``100 per cent peace of mind by paying 30 per cent tax.''

To target this group the common pool of the two agencies will first try and discover the many profiles of the tax avoiding population. ``As black money is present in disparate pockets as Malabar Hill and old-Delhi the campaign cannot speak in one idiom,'' CBDT sources said.

On this score CBDT is reluctant to help the agencies discover potential tax payers by allowing them to take a peek into their records.

Once the difficult task of vaguely identifying the ``target population has been done,'' O&M Direct will step in to talk to each of then directly through mailers.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.