Case Study: Ariel Matic: Share The Load

Source: Warc Prize for Asian Strategy, Grand Prix, Special Asia First Award, 2016

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This case study shows how Ariel, a laundry detergent brand, used a social campaign to engage with its Indian audience and increase brand awareness.

Lagging behind its main competitor and its strong social message, Ariel needed to redefine its message beyond product efficacy and into social impact.

Working on deep-rooted cultural views that put Indian women in charge of household duties, Ariel devised a campaign that pushed for a social movement where both men and women shared the weight of all household chores, by creating a campaign film as well as campaign-specific packaging.

The film was spread across online, cinema and TVCs, while celebrity endorsements, earned media outlets and campaign-specific live events carried on the conversation.

As 1.57 million men pledged to 'share the load', Ariel more than doubled value and volume sales, which grew 106% and 105% respectively.

Rajat Mendhi, Manisha Sain

Campaign details

Brand: Ariel Matic

Brand owner: P & G India

Lead agency: BBDO India

Contributing agencies: Red Ice Films

Country: India

Industry: Cleaners & detergents

Media: Cinema, Events & experiential, Integrated, Newspapers, Online video, Packaging & design, Point-of-purchase, in-store, Public relations, Social media, Sponsorship - event, property, Television, Word of mouth, advocacy

Budget: 500k - 1 million

See all the winners of the 2016 Warc Prize for Asian Strategy

Executive summary

Some campaigns change a brand's fortunes within a category.

Some campaigns disrupt and redefine categories.

Some campaigns move society forward in a small but meaningful way, redefine categories and change a brand's fortunes.

Ariel - one of India's leading premium detergent brands - did the latter with '#ShareTheLoad' - a provocative social movement that didn't focus on clothes stains, but on the cultural stain of gender inequality at home to liberate women from the obligation of doing laundry.

'#ShareTheLoad' wasn't just a new idea for Ariel, but a social movement for the nation. One that tapped into forces of progress - hidden, yet seismic- that demanded Indian women be treated and respected as equal to men. And in doing so incited a national debate about gender inequality at home.

Our delivery was as progressive as our mindset. Provocative content through unexplored media like packaging, matrimonial

websites and the forgotten wash care label on clothes.

The result was that the movement more than delivered on objectives it sought. As 1.57million men pledged to share the load, Ariel benefitted from USD 10million in earned-media publicity. Thanks to the resulting increase in purchase intent, Ariel more than doubled value and volume sales by growing 106% and 105% respectively.

Market background and cultural context

Communication in the premium laundry detergents category in India has traditionally been unengaging, with a focus on product performance and demos. Here, Ariel led the category thanks to its superior performance and stain removal claims.

This however changed with time as Ariel's key competitor, Surf, engaged the urban Indian woman with its 'Daag Acche Hai' campaigns ('Dirt is Good'). With its approach, Surf created a new context for the category - laundry is no longer just about stain removal, it was about creating a playful, learning environment for your children. Over the years, this social context made Surf more newsworthy and relevant to the urban woman in charge of laundry. (Source: Client data)

To combat this we needed to change our approach: focusing on product performance and stain removal alone wasn't going to work. More so a conventional advertising campaign approach was not going to move the urban Indian women because previous such campaigns were not working. And to make matter's tougher, the client wanted to lead the initiative with Ariel's most expensive detergent, Ariel Matic for washing machines.

In this context, we needed to find new deeper relevance for Ariel; a purpose that would get the attention of and engage the urban Indian woman in a contemporary conversation about laundry and the brand in a socially interesting and fame generating way to make Ariel more relevant and drive sales of Ariel Matic.

Objectives

Our objectives were:

1.Get the attention of the urban woman.

With the category awareness at almost 100%, especially for players like Surf, we had to deliver a campaign that was sufficiently interesting to get the attention of more urban women i.e. a campaign that would increase unaided brand awareness of Ariel by 20%.

2.Engage the urban woman in a conversation about laundry and the brand.

With few engagement benchmarks in the category, we looked at Facebook engagement rate since more urban Indian women are on Facebook Vs other social media platforms. Here we wanted to double our engagement rate on the Ariel Facebook page, a tough task for a low involvement category like laundry.

3.Drive relevance of the brand and as a result sales.

Increase purchase intention by 50% over the year before i.e. a purchase intent index of 150.

Critically, we had to aggressively grow value and volume sales of Ariel Matic, Ariel's most expensive detergent.

Insight and strategic thinking

To drive a deeper relevance for Ariel and sales of Ariel Matic, the brand's most expensive detergent, we had to explore new territories and social context that the category hadn't gone into before.

Our target audiences were women between the age of 25 and 35 years across India's top metros. We spoke with both working and non-working women and also conducted a quantitative study with Nielsen that included their husbands. What we found helped us shape our thinking and idea.

The cultural stain of gender inequality is deep-rooted in urban Indian homes:

2/3rds of women we spoke to said men don't help with household chores and 3/4th of them felt men prefer relaxing over helping with household chores (Source: Study commissioned by Ariel with Nielsen). This problem was especially acute for working women who were doing 2 jobs dutifully, one in the office and the other at home. They spent over 298 minutes (close to 5 hours) per day doing housework, while their husbands spent just 19 minutes (Source: OECD 2014 survey). This pointed us to a deep rooted culture of gender inequality embedded in urban Indian homes where outside the home women could walk shoulder to shoulder with men; but at home, the burden of housework still lies on their tired shoulders.

Laundry was the symbol of the cultural stain of gender inequality at home:

Digging deeper into our researches we found laundry to be the one housework that symbolized the gender inequality at home.

According to our Nielsen study '76% of Indian men believed laundry is a woman's job'.

In challenging the cultural stain of gender inequality at home, Ariel finds a higher purpose:

Ariel Matic's tough stain removal promise was 'one wash stain removal'. But in the context of the cultural stain of gender inequality at home, it was more than that. It was about making the job of laundry so easy that anyone can do it, even men. Here is where we believed lay an opportunity for Ariel. By challenging the cultural stain of gender inequality at home, Ariel's deeper purpose was to liberate women from the obligation of doing laundry.

This we believed was far more meaningful to the urban Indian woman because while Surf's approach was progressive, it still positioned the urban Indian woman as the dutiful housekeeper while Ariel pushed the gender rails further.

Thus was born Ariel's 'Share The Load' cultural stain of gender inequality at home

- a provocative social movement by Ariel that didn't focus on clothes stains, but on the to liberate women from the obligation of doing laundry.

Creative and/or channel execution

We knew in 'Share the Load' we had an idea and message that had the power to make the brand more meaningful to the urban Indian woman in-charge of laundry. But to turn this into a movement that gets the attention of and engages the urban Indian woman to become a force of change we needed to tap into forces of progress - hidden, yet seismic - demanding that Indian women be treated and respected as equal to men.

So we started by raising an important question: 'Is laundry only a woman's job?' This was brought to life through a provocative video on national television, cinema and online. It immediately sparked conversations. Influential Indians stepped forward to push our message online. Celebrity couples became the ambassadors of the movement - from newly-weds like Soha Ali Khan and Kunal Khemu, to Arbaaz and Malaika who are married with teenage kids.

As the conversations grew we knew we needed to push our boundaries in how we spurred the movement to turn this into a genuine national debate and push men towards their responsibility of sharing the load. For this we explored innovative and otherwise unexplored media.

For starters, gender equality at home had to start with the product. So Ariel launched the 'His and Her' pack - a first of its kind with instructions on how to share the load of doing the laundry.

Next, we took up the most forgotten part of our clothes - the wash care label - and we reinvented it by adding a new instruction: 'Can be washed by both men and women'. Celebrated designers, India's leading clothing brands and online portals like Amazon and Flipkart embraced the idea and even changed their wash care labels.

In addition to that we tied up with leading matrimonial websites, where millions of marriages are arranged, to take up the message of gender equality at home by making sharing the load of laundry a mandatory requirement while signing up.

With all of these playing out in conversations online and articles by leading national publications and newsroom debates, we also directed men towards sharing the load through various events across the country - from giant installations in malls that taught men how to do laundry and become 'laundry graduates' to 'basketball laundry' in multiplexes that turned the boring task to a fun game that men would enjoy and want to be a part of.

Together these turned the issue of gender inequality at home into a genuine national debate that pushed Ariel's message of 'Share the Load'. We began to see the change with men across the country coming out in large numbers to pledge to share the load.

Lessons learned

Taking on the deep rooted cultural stain of gender inequality is an act of 'high-risk, high-reward'. The following principles helped us stay the course throughout challenging conversations and various dilemmas.

1. Be guided not by the "average" consumer response, but by the power to provoke.

Conventional consumer research would have killed the idea. Focus groups or surveys would have highlighted the risks and given

voice to the naysayers. By setting out to disrupt, and by understanding that conversations are fuelled by provocation, controversy and genuine "tabloid" talk value.

The immediate and overwhelming response by the target audience helped us realise that there are a few conversations that are silently simmering in the society and need a slight nudge from a person or a brand that holds credibility on the subject. One look at youtube displays how people were almost waiting to erupt on the discussion. There have been various celebrities and activists who have taken up and spoken about the issue soon after the movement began.

"Share The Load" is a good example of a campaign that has truly changed the focal point away from "brand message" and towards "conversation".

2. Be the change you want to see in the world, and live the brand promise

We also learned that in challenging the cultural stain of gender inequality at home 'Share The Load' was deep rooted in Ariel's brand promise of making the job of laundry so easy that anyone can do it, even men. By redeploying this to our own values and behaviour, we retained the courage to push through on the agenda and set out the clearest, strongest expression that demands women be liberated from the obligation of doing laundry.

For a gender issue that is deep-engrained in our society, what worked well for Ariel is the sheer simplicity of the provocative question "Is laundry only a woman's job?'. This helped us stir urban India women to become a part of this national movement and allow Ariel to become a platform for them to have open conversations and challenge the cultural stain of gender inequality at home.

3. Stay close to the heart of the category

Brand purpose, and campaigns-as-social-movements are not new. Indeed, there is evidence of some consumer fatigue surrounding brands that extol and cheerlead for social change. Many of these movements are generic, with only indirect connection to the category and brand in question.

Whilst it is tempting to "ladder up" your movement to something broader, we insisted on staying right inside the topic of laundry and inequality at home. We had faith that you get more conversation mileage by going deeper into the topic, rather than going broader.

When championing for gender equality we were determined to not just create a 'generic' women's right campaign that could have been championed by any other women's category but have a much sharper category connect with 'Share The Load'.

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