Creative Execution

Almost every profile picture on LinkedIn follows a uniform: stiff, corporate mugshots. We asked Dads who feel their workplaces are insensitive to young fathers, to turn their profile pictures into a quiet but powerful tool to showcase the magnitude of the problem. By turning them into pictures with their kids. Through InMail, we approached some of the country’s biggest CXOs (who were fathers) with the idea. They instantly embraced it and lead the way. Within hours, the face of LinkedIn India was changing. Black and white corporate mugshots were being replaced with heart-warming moments of men with their children. Users proactively added the fact that they were ‘fathers’ to their designations, making sure every new visitor to their profile knew what their priorities were. 1000s of Indian fathers on LinkedIn came together & changed their first impressions online, to symbolically remind their professional circles to change their impression about them.

Fathers from over 150 Indian companies including Oracle, Amazon, Myntra, GE, Accenture and HUL participated in the first movement around fathers on LinkedIn. It received tremendous support from both female entrepreneurs in India & internationally- lauding the men for making an important point, in a way that’s not trying too hard. Users who are conditioned to speaking about only work with their LinkedIn connections began discussing parenting. “Equality at work” being a necessity for “equality at home” quickly became a point of discussion within LinkedIn. For the first time, an activity on ‘LinkedIn’ was spoken about in Indian pop-culture, including coverage on rural, regional media- reaching over 150,000 Indian professionals.

To send a message to the Indian professional world, we united fathers on the world’s largest professional platform: LinkedIn. LinkedIn was home to more fathers than the top 100 highest employers in the country, combined. And the only platform that allowed free communication between professionals, to support a network effect. Through an outreach program, fathers on LinkedIn came together to speak up about workplace bias… without saying a word. Our target audience were professionals across the hierarchy- from CXOs to Management trainees, in India’s top 150 MNCs, SMEs and start-ups. The movement was simple: change your display picture to a beautiful moment with your child, and express why through a status that follows it.