The Campaign

For the first time Dalda decided to not talk to their primary TG – the women, but men. Because to empower these women completely, we needed to enlist the support of their loved ones – in this case, their husbands. In India, women spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food for their families. However, tradition dictates that when it comes to eating they must serve their families first, before they sit down to eat. The criticality of this issue goes beyond just gender equality to include the health and well-being of women. This, more often than not, leads to insufficient nutrition and affects their health negatively and further reinforces an unfair tradition. This led to the birth of Pehle Tum (First Bite To You) – a movement urging men all over the country to offer the first bite of every meal to their wives.

Execution

Once the social experiment was conducted and filmed, we announced the Pehle Tum pledge to the entire country through a press conference in Lucknow, on International Women’s Day 2018. The social experiment was then taken to the digital medium with teaser videos, followed by a longer un-skippable YouTube ad. We also tied up with YouTube chefs to help us build a new cooking culture in India. Next we tied up with a pan-India radio channel BIG FM that saw 25 RJs from across India take the Pehle Tum oath. They also urged men to dial in and take the pledge. But we didn’t want to stop there, we designed and distributed the ‘Pehle Tum’ pledge plates at restaurants, inspiring diners to rethink. Lastly, we took the message to school kids by composing a short lunch time prayer urging them to be the upholders of this change in their families.

The impact was tremendous and we got the entire country to sit up and re-think an age old unfair practice. Even the biggest domestic news network in India – NDTV – decided to pick up our cause for a panel debate on their channel! The panel composed of psychologists, sociologists, the Dalda brand team and our celebrity duo championing the importance of ‘First Bite To You’ for the wellbeing of women. Other significant results include: • Brand interactions increased by 13587%! • The campaign had a total reach of 24 million and an absolute reach of 13 million to unique audiences on Facebook and YouTube. • There were 2 million completed video views in just a span of 5 days after launch

The Situation

Dalda is an iconic 80 year old cooking oil brand in India. In a country where homemakers are never seen as the change agents, Dalda believes that cooking is not a mere chore but a medium to build a new value system for the family. In this campaign, we leveraged the voices of the most popular influencers and the most effective media/news platforms to achieve scale. We garnered a record number of organic views for content created in the history of edible oils category, a conversation that reached 24 million people across the country and increased brand interactions by 13587%!

The Strategy

We crafted a social experiment that showcases a typical dinner table situation, but this time outside the house – at a restaurant where couples came to dine. We asked the waiters to ignore the women at each table, and just serve the men seated with them. As expected, the men weren’t pleased with waiters giving secondary treatment to their female partners. We termed this as the moment of truth and demonstrated how deeply ingrained some unfair, age old practices are in their minds, practices they never question at home. We amplified this moment by delivering our message through a popular celebrity couple featured regularly on prime time television– Hiten Tejwani and Gauri Pradhan.