The Campaign

There are no relevant restrictions related to the category Ariel operates in. But having said that, over the years branded content has become a powerful way to engage with consumers whose attention is fragmented across media and screens. As a result, brands across the board are investing in branded content to engage the consumers.

Results

Ariel is the most expensive detergent in India. The problem it was facing was loss of emotional equity and relevance. The client brief – get the attention of and engage our consumers around Ariel’s promise of ‘best stain removal in one wash so that anyone can do laundry’ to make the brand more relevant. Here we unearthed an interesting statistic: ‘76% of married-women feel men prefer relaxing over helping with household chores’. Deeper analysis into this pointed us to an inequality embedded culturally in each and every Indian home… where women can be equal contributors to the family income, but the burden of household chores still lies on their shoulders. With this understanding Ariel decided to stand up for women’s equality at home with #ShareTheLoad – a provocative social movement that exposed the inequality embedded in each and every Indian home. We kicked off the movement with an ad that asked an important question – ‘is laundry a woman’s job?’ This provocative message sparked a national conversation. The campaign started by raising an important question – Is laundry only a woman’s job? While this was provocative, it was not enough. We needed to reach out to men and women in ways that created impact and got them to talk about our message. Hence we created the world’s first gender neutral wash care label. This label was embraced by leading clothing brands, manufacturers, retailers and designers. Not just that influential Indians came out in support of the label and the message of equality behind it. It also generated huge amounts of interest in media and social media. In a landmark move, Ariel tied up with matrimonial websites where marriages are arranged. Here the willingness to share the load was made mandatory in the matchmaking profiles.

The world’s first gender neutral wash care label was introduced with a new set of instructions - 'can be washed by both men and women.' With this design innovation, suddenly an ignored part of the garment now caught attention of the nation.

As the branded content piece got shared, it added to the success of the #ShareTheLoad movement The campaign got the attention of and engaged with our TG: • Unaided Brand Awareness increased by 132% within the first month. • The campaign generated free-media worth USD 9.5 million • Over 1.57million men pledged to ‘Share the Load’ across the country through mobile, social media, mall activations and purchase of Ariel Matic His& Her pack • 1.6 billion free earned Impressions • Over 6.8MM views on YouTube for the movement video. • On Facebook, engagement-rate went up a record 225%. The campaign drove preference for Ariel • Sales grew 60% versus a year ago.

More than ‘76% of married women feel men prefer relaxing over helping with household chores’ according to our research. Ariel decided it was time to address this inequality at home and so we launched #ShareTheLoad. We started by raising an important question – Is laundry only a woman’s job? This immediately provoked a national conversation. To get our message of equality at home out, we decided to reach men and women in ways they would least expect. We turned an unexpected medium – the wash care label – into an advocate of gender equality. We tied up with retailers, manufacturers and designers to carry our message on their wash care labels. Here we created new icons that symbolized how easily the piece of garment can be washed by both genders. With this, an ignored part of the garment caught the attention of the nation for the first time.