The Campaign

Indians prefer sons to daughters. So when a girl is born to an Indian family, everyone’s disappointed. The father, like many other Indian fathers, decides that he won’t call his daughter, daughter. Instead he will address her as beta, an Indian word for son. As the girl grows up, the patriarchal elders keep challenging her free spirit but the father keeps stepping up for her. Because she is a son! He even sends her to get a technical degree from Samsung Technical School. Training that comes in handy when the power generator gives way during a wedding in the family. As our girl saves the day, even the patriarchal elders of the family concede that she is as good as a son. The father, however, has a realisation. He declares that a daughter is a daughter. And he decides never to deny her identity by calling her a son again.

Creative Execution

The video was released on YouTube on 29 May 2017. The story was inspired by the life of Seema Nagar. A student of Samsung Technical School. Her father, like so many other Indian parents, used to call her beta, or son. Till one day she used her technical training to prevent a family disaster. And proved how special daughters can be.

– Highest Ever Female Viewership For An Indian Ad – 81M Views 54K Likes 70K Shares - 128K New Followers Added – No 1 Viral Video in the World according to Ad Age – Total Playing Time Online - 257 Years - Kalraj Mishra, Cabinet Minister in the Government of India not just tweeted the film but also felicitated Seema Nagar, the girl who inspired the story - Seema Nagar was also felicitated by the Chief Minister of her state - Prominent Indians like Rajan Anandan, Head of Google India and Jose Cavaco, MTV VJ came out in support - Twitter was flooded by Indians promising to never call their daughter, son

Our message was relevant and necessary for the entire country. Naturally, television or print would have been prohibitively expensive for such a wide reach. Therefore, the only apt medium was the ubiquitous Internet. Deep network reach and the cheapest data rates in the world further strengthened the case for an Internet film. We realized that Indian men might not want to share a video that challenges age-old patriarchal practices. So we decided to target women in the first phase. Genres that they prefer like Bollywood, fashion, lifestyle, and home improvement were used to push the content. And it worked. Women liked and shared the video like never before. We then upped the game and spread the net to include male viewers as well. The momentum of the campaign ensured that men came out in full support as well.