The Campaign

We told India the true story of Seema Nagar, a student of Samsung Technical School. She too was called BETA by her father. Till she saved the family major embarassment one day. This was done via a digital film, dedicated website and articles in the press. Watching the story of a girl who was like any other, with a family like any family on the street created empathy. And her eventual triumph proved that you don’t need superhuman effort to rid our families of this unfair practice.

Creative Execution

The online film was released on YouTube with a story inspired by the life of Seema Nagar, a student of Samsung Technical School. Her father, like so many Indian parents, used to call her beta, or son. This was followed by an extensive influencer campaign that involved many social media heavyweights. All of them took the lead in educating their followers about the prejudice hidden in calling a daughter son. They even pledged to never repeat the mistake prompting others to follow. Similar pledges were made by the thousands of students of Samsung Technical Schools across India. Consequently, the world’s largest English newspaper, The Times Of India joined the conversation and spread the world. Another part of the execution involved reaching out to the local and national government and adding our objective to their agenda. This provided that last mile push that made the campaign a national priority.

– 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

We believed that Indian men would be loath to initiate a conversation about age-old patriarchal traditions like calling a daughter, son. So it was decided to focus on women as the primary audience. Especially the urban, educated women who have a voice in the family. The plan was to get these women to stop calling their daughters, sons. And have the men follow suit. Since our message was relevant to the entire country, the ubiquitous Internet was chosen as the medium of dissemination. Genres preferred by women online like Bollywood, fashion, lifestyle, and home improvement were used to promote the campaign. Meanwhile, prominent male influencers took the message to our secondary audience – Indian men.