New Delhi, Feb. 9: A woman carrying a garbage bin appears on a balcony. She looks here and there and then empties the bin on the street below.

Nobody, she thinks, is watching.

She must have been kidding herself. A group of children playing on the street jeer her.

For long, the brief for ad filmmakers has been to lure customers towards brands: potato chips, long-duration batteries, cars, suits, even banks; in fact, all perishable and non-perishable symbols of a brand-conscious world.

But things have changed since the Narendra Modi government hired professionals from top advertising agencies in the country topromote some of its key initiatives-from the Clean India and Make-in-India campaigns to women's safetyand messages against female foeticide.

The idea is to get people to change long-standing habits, but in a "different" manner.

Malavika Mehra, who has spent 20 years as a wordsmith forging messages to tempt customers into lightening their wallets, is now doing precisely that. Mehra,national creative director atGreyGroup India, led the team that created the Swachh Bharat ad.

"Selling branded goods and changing attitudesdemandsa different treatment," said Sunil Lulla, chief managing director, Grey Group India. "Here we're trying to influence the mind, the heart or both to change attitudes."

But "preachy" - often the trait of traditional government ads - is out. The accent now is on "subtlety".

Take, for instance, the ad that shows a young girl looking lost on a deserted railway platform late at night. But the Jab We Met moment passes soon. Two policemen appear and urge the girl towaitin the lounge inside. She refuses.Then a woman cop appears.The girl breathes a sigh of reliefand walks inside.

The message: more womenare needed in the police force.

An official in the information and broadcasting ministry said the government, which hired A-list agencies to spread the messages, "made it very clear about what it wanted".

Maneka Gandhi, for example, said officials in the women and child welfare ministry, was so keen on catchy,professionally made adson theBeti Bachao andwomen's safety campaignsthat shespent hours brainstormingwith members of creative teams of ad agencies.

"In the Beti Bachao ads, we've tried to drive home the point that the killing of female foetuses is both unethical and illegal and raise awareness about India's decreasing sex ratio," said Samir Datar, vice-president with the Grey Group.

Other ministries have been equally focused on spreading their message. "We worked closely with top officials in the finance ministryfor 10 days after which the campaign layout was finalised and it took usanothermonth to create ads for them," said Sangeetha N., executive creative director at RK Swamy BBDO that worked on theJan Dhan Yojana, a scheme that opened bank accounts to millions of India's poor.

"We have doneadsfor the governmentbefore,but the intensity of government involvement was much higher this time,"said Sangeetha, whose work covers a gamut of clients and is known for catchy taglines, including "The Complete Man" for Raymond, "Why go anywhere else" for the Life Insurance Corporation and "The Future of the automobile" for Mercedes Benz.

Senior executives at Weiden and Kennedy that designed Modi's much-touted "Make In India" campaign,which has emerged as a key plank of the Prime Minister's economic agenda, said it was put together after weeks of interactions with topofficials,including Amitabh Kant, secretary, department of industrial policy and promotion.

According to officials intheDirectorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity- the nodal agency for expenses on ad campaigns- the government has spent about Rs 150 crore on these multimedia campaigns.

The campaigns, they say, are going to get more intensive.