Expat female domestic helpers are employed in homes across 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 spacious villas, their own rooms remain very small spaces.

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

These unfortunate living conditions also impacted the female domestic helpers' mental wellbeing.

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

The Hidden Room:

An agency created a new product collection for a furniture retailer.

We worked with layout planners, and analyzed data of the layouts and sizes of the hidden domestic helpers' rooms across homes.

We segmented them into the 6 most common layouts.

Then, collaborating with furniture designers, we designed and created bespoke, cost-effective, beautifully designed, compact furniture and furnishing items fitting restrictive layout sizes - the first-ever furniture collection for domestic helpers.

Then, through moving and positively provocative content, we shone the light on the unseen rooms of female domestic helpers in the Middle East.

The initiative's launch piece - a somber and poignant narrative short film - tells the stories of 4 women domestic helpers in homes across the Middle East. They describe their favourite place in the homes they work in. Out of all the places they speak about, 1 space remained hidden: Their own room.

Insight:

329 domestic helpers in the Middle East were asked about their favorite place in homes they work in, and out of all the places they spoke about, the helpers’ 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 in 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 their darkness into the light.

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

A narrative short film, featuring domestic helpers, challenged the 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 HomeBox.

Despite backlash, HomeBox was persuaded to persist with changing the living conditions of domestic helpers.

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

Across HomeBox stores, people's shopping experiences were disrupted. Home owners experienced cramped living spaces of their house-helps. Feeling what their helpers felt, guilt-tripped them, driving and positively provoking purchase.

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

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

And eventually, sentiments changed from negative to positive.

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

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 achieved $4.1 million earned media value.

We reached 110+ million people.

We uplifted 137,000+ hidden rooms, bought online and in-store.

And contributed to a change in the law on living conditions of domestic helpers.