‘Touch the Pickle’ for sanitary pads directly addressed and defied a ridiculous Indian taboo that a girl who has her periods should never touch the pickle jar, as it would cause its contents to rot.
Earlier,
if an Indian woman was seen coming out of the closet, it was usually with some
cleaning implements in hand; to make the floor sparkle and shine — before her
husband brought his muddied boots home from the office. Now, it is to declare
her sexual preference, not her floor-cleaner preference. Jai ho, Indian
advertising!
Even as the recent Myntra commercial sold
clothes woven around a story of two women (deeply in love with dressing, and
each other), came the news of a shattering of glass ceilings; a noise heard
around the world of international advertising. India had won the Cannes Grand
Prix for a P&G campaign: The Glass Lion for addressing gender inequality
and prejudices.
This brand new category created quite a buzz
at Cannes, the ultimate award show celebrating the best of advertising from
around the world. India, rife with gender inequalities and stereo types, seemed
a happy Lion-hunting ground, and had some worthy contenders for this most
coveted prize. And win India did — not once; but twice, with two path-breaking
ideas for P&G.
‘Touch the Pickle’ for sanitary pads directly
addressed and defied a ridiculous Indian taboo that a girl who has her periods
should never touch the pickle jar, as it would cause its contents to rot. The
phrase was a war-cry to challenge many other hushed no-nos that we in India
know so well: don’t enter the kitchen, don’t play vigorous sports, don’t enter
a temple. This provocative insight by Creative head Josy Paul’s team at BBDO,
Mumbai, was the core idea that freed sanitary pads from coy references to
‘those four days’, not to mention doing away with the mandatory brand-demo
every client insists on putting in; (undoubtedly confusing a lot of ignorant
males that girls ‘bleed blue’ once a month).
The Indian win was even more creditable as it
beat the Internet favourite #Likeagirl campaign from the American sanitary pad
brand Always. After winning the Facebook Award just a week earlier, Likeagirl
somehow paled into an already-heard-that-one idea. To the jury (eight women,
two men) of the Glass Lions Award, ‘Touch the Pickle’ must have scored high on
quaintness and Third-World charm, even as they exclaimed to the press: “This is
a gender issue that impacts every single woman worldwide, it’s innovative and
disruptive, entertaining and engaging…” They were also referring to the huge
body of work supporting the idea — from TEDx talks to stand-up comedy routines
— that made Whisper shout it out for young girls. (Curiously, not against male
prejudice, but women themselves — elder women perpetuating age-old meaningless
customs, despite suffering so much themselves as teenagers.) True, not one of
those modern upper-class girls depicted in the ad would’ve even heard about
that pickle superstition; but the insight became a curious catch-phrase to
build up a huge ‘movement’ around the brand. The results were stunning too:
Whisper’s share of voice went up from 21 per cent to a remarkable 91 per cent.
And then lightning struck twice in the same
place: BBDO won for fighting gender bias — again! This time, not that strike of
lightning we know so well telling us how to get whiter whites but a detergent
brand that put laundry advertising in a new spin altogether.
The main TV commercial shows a very real-life
drama unfold, even in the most liberated of Indian homes. An elderly lady
comments on how far working women have come, and even shares with her friend,
the fact that her daughter-in-law earns more than her son — said with a hint of
pride, and no prejudice. Even if the commercial had ended right there, it
would’ve been a strong message to society that it’s ok for a woman to earn
more, even the son’s mother doesn’t have an ego problem… Just as we are
silently applauding the moment, we hear an interaction between the
daughter-in-law, busy with her laptop, and her banian-clad husband. “Why didn’t
you wash my green shirt yesterday, yaar?” asks he, in mild annoyance. Three
women turn very slowly to look at the man. In the moment of profound silence
that follows, comes the sledge-hammer of a thought: Why is laundry only a
woman’s job? Silence. Ariel. #ShareTheLoad.
It is easy to understand how this ad resonated
with every member of the jury, even without cultural contexting. In 90 per cent
of urban Indian households, laundry is considered a woman’s job — not just for
ensuring promotions at work for the husband, or an impromptu dance with the
adoring slave-wife, as she puts out the tightie-whities to dry. Housewives
almost always operate the washing machines…as many men, it appears, who so love
the knobs and touch-screens of their cars and music systems, can’t figure out
the dials of washing machines, and anyway who has the time to separate
coloureds and whites and dainties. Perhaps a dirty secret of even first-world
Western households…
In a witty ad campaign that uses humour rather
than strident berating, P&G pushed guilt-struck males into sharing the
load, and even earn bragging rights, by blogging about it in a contest that
took off like a washed handkerchief in the wind. Extensions of this huge core
idea found their way to celeb fashion designers endorsing their labels, quite
literally: “Can be washed by both men & women’’ said the label at the
collar. Next, the most watched-space for young men and women was hit too, with
Ariel. “Will you Share the Load of household chores with your partner” appeared
on online Matrimonial websites. A moment for reflection for every male
chauvinist contemplating marriage, for sure.
The banter-with-a-serious message continued
with encounters with newly wed celebrity couples. The message Share the Load,
percolated to many other household chores. The dabbawallahs of
Mumbai carried the message on their shirts, even as they delivered lunch-boxes
(lovingly filled by the wife at home, perhaps). But even as one senses the fun
the agency must’ve had coming up with this good-humoured washing of dirty linen
in public, the dazzling results came in: sales registered an increase of 60 per
cent as women must have added Ariel Matic to their shopping cart to further
remind the man of the house that it’s not about who wears the pants but who
washes them too.
Cannes awards apart, we can look back on the
past year and recollect a number of gender-benders that have hash-tagged their
way to fame. Havells had ideas as endless as their gadgets. One laugh-out loud
example: at a girl-seeing-ceremony, the mommy-ji laments that her
darling phoren-returned son seeking a wife suffers so much in his
bachelor life abroad, stepping out even for coffee. Thump! The defiant girl
firmly places her coffee-maker before the startled boy, saying take this one
and settle down, no visa problem either; as she herself wants to be a wife, not
a kitchen appliance. Havells#Respectforwomen. Undoubtedly!
The much-hailed Titan Raga went on from its
widow re-marriage theme, to showing poised single women moving with the times,
despite running into ex-lovers at airports making dumb observations (“we
could’ve made it work, if only you’d quit working”). Nimrit Kaur’s amused
rejoinder said it for all of us who encounter retrograde male attitudes.
The Airtel wife-who’s actually-the-boss. The
Bournvita competitive mom. The Fastrack convention-defying teen. The HDFC
parent-supporting daughter. The Sofy imnotdown Gal.
What a different face of the woman of today!
One wonders if planners in ad agencies arrive for work with a checklist in
hand, ready to pin their next advertising message on a sharp arrow that carries
a gender issue shooting out of TV screens. Well, we’ve had them push the
pay-packet envelope already with the Ariel ad, but why, wonders my friend in
advertising, didn’t they push that Whisper insight to a far edgier level than
the rather unheard-of but cute ‘Touch the Pickle’ superstition? Isn’t ‘Enter
the temple’ the more real and prevalent issue to highlight?
Meanwhile, it is refreshing to take the
conversation away from the clichéd fairness creams and powders that once
represented the empowered woman. Or the ‘empow(d)ered’ woman, as a wag put it.
With gender-fighting enzymes and ego-boosting enhancers, Indian advertising is
firmly keeping stride with today’s aware Indian woman.
Indu Balachandran is the author of Don’t Go Away, We’ll Be Right Back: The Oops and Downs of
Advertising. Email is indubee8@yahoo.co.in
The article was featured
on http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/indu-balachandran-on-the-bold-new-face-of-women-in-indian-advertising/article7460411.ece
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