By Misbah Quadri
So it’s “THAT time of the year!” By THAT, I mean – International Women’s Day, the day when brands go all guns blazing on their OTT campaigns to highlight sensitive and crucial issues like gender pay gap, free childcare, maternity leaves, menstrual sabbaticals, breaking taboos around ageism, sexism – you get the drift.
From women’s day discounts to inspirational films, from celebrating exceptional female talent to launching new initiatives or donating to charities, there are plenty of ways that brands have chosen to become an active part of the ongoing conversation and engage with their existing and potential customer base.
Or is it the day where brands and businesses make empty gestures, weaving in their sales and product offers in a manner which seems like they care about #equality.
There have been globally documented examples of shoddy PR & marketing campaigns by giants like Flipkart that some years ago floated a IWD message with a promotion for kitchen appliances, Ford India was forced to issue an apology over a poster that featured three gagged and bound women in the boot of a car.
It also showed former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the driver’s seat grinning and flashing the peace sign. This advert for Ford’s new Fido hatchback was posted online soon after India passed a new law on violence against women following a fatal gang rape.
You must recall routinely encountering those pesky, OTT-series interrupting HARPIC ads with women plastered all around the glittering toilet seat with (hearts for eyes) unabashed enthusiasm for bathroom cleaning detergents – Cliché much? Which woman on earth honestly looks forward to scrubbing tiles or a commode seat with such elation?
In a personal twist of events, my experience with a leading feminine hygiene brand has been startling and physically damaging – while this brand in question has invested millions in marketing, advertising, branding, hiring big ticket influencers to back its promotional strategies – it fails to live up to its advertising and branding claims that centre entirely around women’s wellbeing. I fell prey to their misleading advertisements of ‘safe to use’ women only products.
Actual, on ground execution of packaging and marketing claims become pivotal for a brand to build its long term goodwill in the market. This particular brand has lost all credibility for me and those close to me after a single glance at the injury I have incurred as a result of a faulty product. This is where brand accountability, transparency and due diligence come into play. I truly believe that brands must function with the motto – ‘One disgruntled once-brand loyal customer lost is worse than ten newly gained ones.’
On a positive note, my research online suggests that in 2021, Swiggy launched an initiative to change the search results displayed for desi masala, which showed images of women and not spices.
The campaign invited users to share pictures of their spice boxes and the foods they make on social media with the caption ‘this is Desi masala, not women’. The idea was to get enough user generated images of ‘Desi masala’ food to change how the Google algorithm displays search results. So much so that a search for ‘desi masala’ shows restaurants by that name and newspaper coverage of the Swiggy initiative – so the campaign did turn out to be a success.
Not too long ago, Hindi daily, Dainik Bhaskar had announced that it will no longer accept ads that specify the colour of a woman’s skin.
Over the years, I have come across some truly strong and moving messages but majority have been just another means of mere tokenism. Being born to two journalist parents – yep you read that right, TWO journalists, working in the same publication group which happens to be the largest of the country is nothing short of auditioning before Gordon Ramsay for a food trial. Fiery speech, freedom of expression and an apparent sense of nationalism is what I grew up with. Be it the Plague of 1995, the Gujarat earthquake of 2000 or the Godhra riots in 2002 – the two, middle class krantikaris I was born to seemed to be able to take on the entire world with a measly pen!
Mezmerized by the sheer power that words hold, I too, quite “organically” (as we tend to say in the world of PR), drifted towards the world of writing and hence this piece today. I hope you enjoyed reading this opinion column as much as I enjoyed writing it for you.
Here’s hoping that brands avoid major gaffes and take to March-ing to the tune of new beginnings this year…
Happy International Women’s Day!
( Author is a PR professional based in Goa. The views expressed in this piece do not reflect the policies or positions of Biznewsweek)