Every chore, especially dishwashing, has been considered a woman’s domain since times immemorial. Cumulatively put together, a woman ends up spending two and half years of her life dishwashing. And if men happen to do any chores, they do it like they are doing a favour. They don’t think of household chores as their own responsibility. Vim, the largest and fastest growing dishwashing brand of India, took it upon itself to stand for the women it served. However, this time, we needed to talk to the men, as it’s their mindset that needed changing, but also to the society that labels chores as only a woman’s job. The society exempts men from dishwashing therefore men conveniently blind side these conversations. We needed a bold provocation to get their attention.

Strategy: During COVID lockdown, household chores were being shared by all members of the family, but we saw men brag about this. They were positing videos on their social handles washing dishes. Our research further validated that men think that if they do dish washing, they are helping their wives and mothers. We thus decided to talk to the bragging men of India who believed that chores weren’t their assigned job. We used male influencers known for their machoism to give dishwashing a brag-tag and then let the society see the flaw in it and trash this bragging. We got female influencers to reveal that it is a fake product. A fake launch to ignite the woke brigade to shame the bragging and then a reveal to reinforce our stance on bragging-free equality was our strategy.

Impact: Our biggest victory was getting social communities, industry veterans, leading publications of India to debate this male behavior seeded in prejudices. India’s no.1 financial daily Economic Times, editorial covered how this brand triggered a much-needed conversation. The bragging men even got discussed on the prestigious stage of FICCI, Federation-of-Indian-Chamber-of-Commerce, in presence of renowned state ministers. Key metrics that reinforce the social impact we achieved:

• $427 paid media. 4.2mln $USD earned media which is 10X of paid media. In just 72 hours
• +330mln earned media impression.
• 93% positive conversations
• +150 press articles of which 95% were organic.
• Women care for brands that care for them:
• +5000% increase in search trend on Google
• +1 mln Instagram searches for Vim page
• 20% engagement of branded content which is 6X that of industry standards.
• Improved 200 bps on “Brand I trust” attribute on brand track.
• 20% increase in Vim Liquids sale
• Fastest growing brand in the world at Kantar@Cannes 2022 for effectiveness.
• Added 400 mln people – larger than the US population.
• Won the un-stereotype category award at Kantar@Cannes 2022 for creative effectiveness.