The Campaign

While there is a lot of talk about women empowerment and gender equality in India, with significant progress in a woman’s outside world – at home, many old traditions still prevail. Cooking is the sole responsibility of women in most Indian households, and they only eat their meal after everyone else has eaten.Most people have witnessed this tradition their entire upbringing. As a result, the gesture is taken for granted by everyone in the family. We decided to use the brand’s voice to stand-up against this social injustice for our target consumer (women aged 25-50), by shaking up the entire ecosystem and influencing positive change. A pledge, #PEHLETUM (“#YOUFIRST”), was created, urging husbands and families to offer the first bite of any meal to the women of their household. By using multiple relevant touchpoints, we would really drive the message “home” that a woman deserves to eat alongside her family.

Creative Execution

A video was created in a restaurant, capturing diners’ unpleasant reactions when waiters suggest they serve women after men. Celebrity couple, Hiten and Gauri Tejwani, explain “the same thing happens at home” and urge audiences to take the #PehleTum pledge. This launched at a press conference on International Women’s Day. We followed this with: •Digital - #PehleTum teasers and longer un-skippable YouTube ads •TV - a national news channel held a prime-time debate on #PehleTum •Radio - 25 RJs across India took the pledge and got listeners to call in and take it •Print - Newspapers featured celebrity couples taking the pledge, encouraging others to We then drove the message “home” further with: •Influencer chefs promoted “first bite to a woman” as their final ingredient •Restaurants carried plates with #PehleTum •Furniture stores featured dining tables decorated with #PehleTum •Children’s meal-time prayers in schools integrated #PehleTum

The response was overwhelming and heart-warming. By reaching 14 million hearts through various touchpoints,Dalda got the entire country to stand up and address an age-old unfair practice with #PEHLETUM, thereby meeting its set objectives, receiving massive traction on media, and sending its brand relevancy scores through the roof. Reach & Engagement: •13.2 Mn unique audiences reached via the videos •2 Mn+ completed views in a span of 5 days •4.65 Mn+ absolute engagements •10 Mn+ audience through offline media And most importantly, brand relevance went up! Key parameters for Dalda Cooking Oils that showed significant improvement: •Stands for something unique – Up by 17% •Brand I trust – Up by 18% •Recommendation by family/friends – Up by 85% •Good for health – Up by 100% #PehleTum, two words that changed an age-old unfair social practice, and made a brand lost to the times relevant again for current and future consumers.

The campaign was based on a strong consumer insight and deployed through a judiciously woven media mix. Each medium was planned and integrated in a manner that at every step, it added relevance, weightage and a new meaningful layer to the core communication. Individually, each medium carried the campaign idea on its shoulder, reaching out to not only the core consumers, but the entire ecosystem surrounding our audience. All of this contributed to making the campaign participative, collaborative, inclusive and cohesive, which was key to effecting positive change for our consumers in a society that is deeply rooted in tradition.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

As our target audience widened extensively to include broader demographics who can impact change for our consumers, our planning approach had to involve mass reach and engagement. To ensure mass reach, we would need TV (80% penetration) and chose a prime-time slot on a national news channel where debates gather the largest audiences. Incremental reach was then garnered from Print and Digital (60% penetration). Though penetration is 25%, radio is still an impactful medium with RJs’ influence. To further engage our target audiences and make them question tradition, we planned for RJs and YouTube influencers to interact with different demographics in creative ways that would resonate with them. We didn’t stop there, as this planning approach wouldn’t be complete without unconventional yet relevant touchpoints like restaurants, furniture stores and schools, allowing us to ensure we had reached and influenced all the stakeholders who could effect change for our consumers.