Expat female domestic workers are employed in many homes in the Middle East, often working for years for the same families, living away from their own families.

They come from all over the world.

But while they work in towering skyscrapers and big villas, their rooms remain very small spaces.

These rooms are furnished with second-hand or third-hand furniture that's mismatched, worn-out or dingy.

These conditions also impacted the female domestic workers' mental wellbeing.

Home Box is a furniture and home furnishings brand in the Middle East, with stores across UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.

Its brand purpose is centered around, 'Smart solutions for everyone to make their home their own."

While Home Box couldn't change the size of living spaces assigned to domestic workers, with its smart living solutions, why couldn't Home Box help transform those spaces so the workers felt at home in homes they worked in?

The Hidden Room:

Through moving content, we shone the light on the unseen rooms of female domestic workers in the Middle East.

The initiative's centerpiece is somber and poignant narrative short film tells the stories of 4 women domestic workers in homes across the Middle East, as they describe their favourite place in the homes they work in.

Out of all the rooms they speak about, 1 room remained hidden: Their own room.

And we created a new product line.

We designed a specially curated collection, in collaboration with Home Box’s design team, that provides cost-effective, beautifully designed furniture and furnishing items for the small spaces where domestic workers live.

Insight:

329 domestic workers in the Middle East were asked about their favorite place in the homes they work in, and out of all the places they spoke about, the workers’ rooms, their living spaces, remained hidden. And they stated how it depressed them and made them feel lonely.

It is a segment that the home furniture and furnishing category, in general, has always excluded n their products and their communication.

Additionally, 96% of home owners across the Middle East admitted that the one room they hide when guests come home is their domestic worker's room.

In contrast with the luxurious, decorated and anointed homes they live in, this disparity and inequality needed to be addressed.

PR Strategy:

We wanted to transform and decorate the hidden rooms, bringing them out of darkness into the light.

And in doing so, include domestic workers as a segment in furniture design and marketing.

A narrative short film, featuring domestic helpers, challenged this disparity.

The film directed home owners to uncover a new collection for their house-helps - online and in-store.

But challenging culture and people's prejudices, resulted in negative sentiments towards the initiative from Home Box.

Despite backlash, Home Box was persuaded to persist with changing the living conditions of domestic workers.

TV news, talk shows and media features helped with highlighting the inequality and propagating a positive change, along with continuing to promote the film and the collection.

In stores, the shopping experiences were disrupted. home owners experienced cramped living spaces of their house-helps. Feeling what their helpers felt, guilt-tripped them, driving and provoking purchase.

Layout generators and configurators helped choose products fitting room sizes and budgets.

Shoppers started sharing their stories of purchasing The Hidden Room collection from Home Box for their house-helps.

And eventually, sentiments changed from negative to positive.

By tapping into the unexplored segment of female domestic workers, we created significant cultural and societal impact, bringing light to the cause, and shifting the way homeowners perceived the rooms they allocate to their helper.

A post-campaign survey to gauge perception impact on homeowners, indicated 84% of mass affluent homeowners targeted agreed said their house-helps were deserving of more.

And in turn, the initiative drove a significant upturn towards its core cause, with 78% positive sentiments (vs. -64% negative sentiments when it first launched).

This data validates the boldness of marketing and the perseverance of stay true to the intent behind an initiative that could have been misinterpreted and manipulated to harm the brand’s image.

We also achieved $4.1 million earned media value.

We reached 110+ million people.

We uplifted of 137,000+ hidden rooms.

And we contributed to a change in the law on living conditions of domestic workers too.