Background

Women in Saudi Arabia have recently experienced the freedom to express themselves. However, when they make an effort to express their beauty beyond a defined space or express their voices, they face appearance-based judgements which seed self-doubt and restricts them. Lux wanted to change this equation. Rather than giving the control of her beauty expression to cultural norms and societal judgements, Lux wanted to empower women to take ownership of it, making the mirror their source of strength vs a vehicle for self-editing. Instead of viewing herself in the mirror negatively, we wanted to empower women to see themselves via a broader view, a view beyond self, through the eyes of other women just like her. We wanted to reassure Saudi women that they aren’t alone in this, no matter which part of the world they’re from and that when women unite, they can overcome judgements.

Describe the strategy

Our approach was to create data twins with similar choices and preferences and connect them to have a conversation around judgements, open up and take strength from each other to drive stronger conviction in one’s own beauty and expression of it. We focussed on women, 25 – 35 years. We then downloaded a universe of female profiles from Google in a similar age band and behaviour, gathering information in the beauty space. With the help of IBM Watson and personality insights, we could infer some key behaviour characteristics that built their online persona. From that persona, we then searched for someone in major cities across the world using initial survey methods and a matching algorithm that matched the Saudi women with their very own data mirror from distinctly different part of the world who was an exact match. Imagine meeting your data twin, your mirror.

Describe the execution

Optimising on the latest technology, we gathered detailed and precise information about several women across the world. Data points such as their recent purchases, the places that they visited, their likes and dislikes, passion points helped us infer some key behaviour characteristics that built their online persona. From that persona, we then searched for someone in major cities across the world using initial survey methods and a matching algorithm that matched the Saudi women with their data mirror from distinctly different parts of the world which are culturally very different – USA, Singapore and Thailand. These women were then connected through a video call where they opened their hearts to each other and realised they weren’t alone in facing judgments. These videos were captured and showcased on Miraa.me a popular women centric website in the Saudi region where women face the most appearance-based judgements.

List the results

1. The campaign reached an audience of 25m on Miraa.me, 14.5M across social media platforms from May 2020 to June 2020 with 14.2 million impressions. 2. On Youtube, Trueview, the campaign saw a 10.7% uplift in Ad Recall. 3. Adding to the above, interesting to note that the long films have delivered VTRs better than benchmarks indicating the content resonated well with the TA. VTR was 36% ; better than benchmark for long digital films. 4. On Youtube Bumpers, the assets saw a 9.4% uplift in Ad Recall and 9.5% uplift in favourability. 5. A positive rub off on brand equity results in Q2, 2020.

Please tell us about the social behaviour that inspired the work

Saudi women have been in the shadows for very long. Although the leadership in Riyadh officially lifted the ban on driving for women in June 2018 and earned international recognition for it, the action was flanked by the arrest of numerous Saudi Arabian women's rights activists. Slowly the restrictions have eased but Saudi women are not confident enough to express themselves and tend to self-edit or tone down their voices or feelings. They also feel that the judgement is limited and intrinsic to their culture and not to other women who live in more progressive societies. We wanted to change this equation. Rather than giving the control of her beauty expression to cultural norms and societal judgements, Lux wanted to empower women to take ownership of it, making the mirror their source of strength vs a vehicle for self-editing.