Case Study: Surf Excel, when embracing dirt became an act of faith Background Pakistan is home to 11% of the world's Muslim population. Despite the bad press it regularly receives and its internal strife, it remains a large consumer-driven market of 180 million people. The economy has grown steadily at 5% and this has seen the entry of a plethora of international brands engaging in a search to create pieces of communication which would endear them to the local populace. India is one of the biggest consumer markets in the world. What gets seldom highlighted is the large number of Muslims living there - that number in itself would exceed the population of some European countries taken together. Intriguingly though, very few Indian brands have featured the Islamic community prominently in their brand messaging. This community sometimes feels it has not been given its place in the national conversation. In Pakistan, Surf Excel's share dropped from 20% to 18%, whereas Ariel's more than doubled from 5.5% to 11.5% in the last five years (2010-15) (Source: Nielsen). Surf Excel was losing relevance with consumers, with its brand equity scores on key attributes dropping from 70s to 60s in the last five years. In India, Ariel was narrowing the equity gap with Surf Excel. Despite the drop in numbers in both India and Pakistan, Surf Excel is the market and thought leader in the premium laundry detergent category. In large part this position has been achieved due to the higher, purpose-led conversation initiated over a decade ago - of embracing dirt rather than fighting it. The brand's point of view/purposeful stance was: "if dirt helps instil the right values in children, then dirt is good". This almost counterintuitive approach had enabled the brand to tell many an engaging story centred on children doing good deeds without the fear of getting their clothes dirty. In a sense, the brand leveraged dirt to instil the right values in children, thus truly entering uncharted waters for the category. However over time, the competition has also attempted in taking their detergent story outside the washroom with equal fervour in India, and narrowed the equity gap in Pakistan through constant high-decibel functional communsication. Which is why, this time around, we decided to push the envelope even further. Objective The broad objective of this drive was to initiate a new conversation around the brand during Ramadan. This would hopefully build new bonds and cement the relationship of the brand with people of the Islamic faith. The three key indicators which would quantify the progress of this journey were: 1. Brand metrics The idea here was to build and measure the increase in brand love. 2. Business metrics The intent here was to track the impact of the communication on business results. Get consumers to try brand - Purchase intent of 75% (75 level is considered very significant). Grow share in the two markets: In Pakistan, arrest decline and kick-start market share growth. In India exceed last year's share growth of 10%. 3. Social metrics The aim was to account for the spike in Internet activity with a surge in organic conversations around this ad - with a target of 2x industry benchmarks on digital metrics of engagement rate and completion rate. The key challenge There were several issues confronting us when we began devising the initiative. Firstly, Ramadan in Pakistan historically witnesses a lot of activity from brands in the food space. Given that context, how would a laundry detergent find relevance? In India, Ramadan sees the opposite phenomenon. Nothing special or specific has been done by any brand yet, so in many ways Surf Excel was treading new ground - and given the dynamics of the country this could be an extremely sensitive thing. Next, and more importantly, Surf Excel celebrates the 'Dirt is good' platform globally. Any brand initiative should ideally stem from that central theme. But how could Ramadan, the holy month which celebrated abstinence, have anything to do with a laundry detergent? How might Surf Excel create a narrative which was immersed in the spirit of the festival and communicate something inspiring and memorable, without ever stooping to hard selling the brand? The challenge was truly a daunting one! We wanted to seed the inherent 'Dirt is good' story of the brand, within the context of Ramadan, to create a powerful, emotional and empathetic connection with people of Islamic faith across Pakistan and India. Mother virtuous lady Despite an animosity between the two nations since independence, the Surf Excel consumer across Pakistan and India was remarkably similar in many ways. In both places the brand was talking to urban mothers with young children. The focus of the urban mother was the proper upbringing of her children. Her obsession lay in ensuring her children imbibed the right moral perspectives in addition to the education that they received at school. She wanted her children to experience life to the fullest. She wanted them to develop strong characters, something which she felt the present education system was not endowing them with. She thus saw herself as the teacher of cultural, religious and societal values to her children. Surf Excel empathised with her predicament, and endeavoured to help her in at least one aspect; that of unabashedly letting her children get 'down and dusty' with the excitement and business of daily life, without the fear of getting their clothes dirty. In the 24/7 concern and stress-filled role of a doting mother, we felt this was our small contribution in eliminating one worry. Fascinatingly while political lines had separated two nations, the DNA of motherhood endured across the borders. The insight: The true spirit of Ramadan is not about fasting, it is about the niyat (good intentions) behind the fast, and children are largely unaware of this. Ramadan is a lot more than merely fasting! It represents a time to cleanse the soul. That destination is embarked upon using several of the rituals inherent to this month. Prayer, abstinence, charity and of course fasting, all represent a time for penance and purification. There is also an emphasis on charity in this month. Ramadan celebrates helpfulness and good intentions, rather beautifully called niyat in Urdu. But eventually it is all about performing good deeds. There is an ancient wisdom, common to all cultures that 'actions speak louder than words', and we wanted to speak to that. Interestingly, children, especially in today's modern times, participate rather mechanically in these rituals, without fully understanding the depth of wisdom which goes behind them. And while mothers do their best to educate them, they would welcome outside help in this regard, especially if it was rendered in an engaging story-like manner - something always likely to elicit a child's attention. We felt that this line of thought would find resonance across all the countries the campaign was to run in. The idea: Helping others might get your clothes dirty, but that represents the true spirit of Ramadan. Creative and Channel execution: We decided to bring alive the initiative through video content that includes cultural elements that are common across both India and Pakistan. Bollywood and cricket are common 'religions' across both countries. Pakistan serials and music are greatly loved by Indians. The culinary styles of both countries share much more than just the cooking process and spices. The rituals which mark festivals also feature similar actions. So, even if the commercial was being conceived in India, we were certain it would strike an empathetic cord in Pakistan - there were no borders when it came to our emotions. We chose digital media as the primary channel to air this message. This would ensure people across both nations would have an equal chance of viewing it. Putting common emotions on display on a common medium. The campaign was given the inspiring social media handle #MadadEkIbadat, which means 'helping someone is a true act of faith'. This set a spiritual, rousing tone for the script and execution. The message The video told a simple, warm and eminently relatable story. Set in the environment of Ramadan, the tale dwells on how three children witness a poor old man selling eatables on a cart. The man finds himself in trouble when his cart wheel gets stuck and he is unable to pry it free in time to sell his wares to the people leaving the mosque after their evening prayers... or so he thinks. The children help him by peddling his wares to the folks around, carrying them to prospective customers in their new Kurtas (Oriental jackets), which end up rather soiled, even if the intentions of the children are pure and spotless. An enchanting Sufi track adds to the emotion throughout the entire film. It ends by saying 'If helping someone gets you dirty, then dirt is good'. Therefore, Surf Excel urges the nation to help someone this Ramadan, because helping is truly an act of faith. This 2:30-second film was uploaded online, to give it a universal reach beyond borders and to facilitate viral possibilities, which would require consumers to become the biggest endorsers of this message. This move was also an economically smart strategy as it would help us avoid the high cost of television spots especially in Pakistan, where Ramadan spots were sold at a steep premium. The movement Believing that the spirit needs to be translated into action, we converted bus shelters across four cities (Karachi, Lahore, Multan, and Faisalabad) in Pakistan to 'Saaya-e-Mehrbani' (Shelters of Kindness). The 82 shelters were the first organised effort by a brand to galvanise people to bring in unwanted clothes and shoes and leave them for the needy. The brand intervened and washed the clothes with Surf Excel and put them back to be picked up cleaned and ironed! Operating in these four cities, home to 31.5 million people and with thousands of them donating within 20 days, we were able to help Pakistanis display faith in the truest sense by helping others. The brand was going beyond words and actually showing its intent through meaningful actions. The music Any spiritual message is always enhanced when set to a rhythm. An unintended, though equally unsurprising, outcome of the campaign was the popularity of the background track with requests pouring in the comments section of the video posts to release the song separately. What do you think, what the key takeaways from the above case study?(4) What do you think about their execution plan? Can you suggest a better execution plan for this initiative?(3) If you were the brand manager of Surf Excel, what better idea you would have executed?(3)