Laundry, a highly fragmented category, sees maximum clutter with very low loyalty. Being an essential commodity, relationship with brands is only functional.

Also, think laundry and a clichéd linear narrative comes to mind. Largely focused around the tensions of cleaning dirty clothes, where the detergent becomes a savior, and ‘she’ is unburdened.

While this script conforms to popular category codes and marketing literature, it reduces the woman and her roles to that of being simply homebound. Confined to the four walls of her house, she, somewhere starts to equate her ambitions to her household chores.

Objective - Wheel wanted to build a connect with consumers. We used Unilever’ strategy of building brands with purpose that make a positive difference to the society and the environment.

Wheel’s purpose is “Wear Fresh & Think Fresh”. This meant that the brand would go beyond category codes and change existing thinking about societal norms.

Even though most Indian rural women are housewives, they harbor a desire to contribute towards the success of their family. While their urban, educated counterparts can opt to work and earn, the rural women folk are handicapped with lack of skill and opportunities.

Reaching this audience is difficult through popular traditional media. Penetration of mass media like television in rural India is as low as 30% in some states. The mobile phone however is ubiquitous. Enabled with internet, it transforms into her friend, philosopher, and guide.

The Idea - Wheel Career from home. India’s first ever mobile learning platform aimed at providing basic skills to the rural women

Wheel being a well-recognized brand the pack itself became a powerful reach building medium. With every Wheel 1kg pack, 1Gb mobile data was given free. The Career-from-Home program had self-learning modules that eased learning from home. Completion certificates further elevated their morale.

Our target audience was in media dark geographies and had some intrinsic challenges. They could not freely step outside the house and had limited access to resources for upskilling themselves. Further, marred with a patriarchal mindset, not every skill seemed acceptable to learn either.

It was imperative that the solution aligned with their world.

With low mass media penetration, reaching them at scale was difficult. We used the mobile phone which provides six times higher reach as compared to traditional media in rural India.

In partnership with Reliance Jio – India’s youngest and largest mobile service provider, we created Wheel Ghar-se-Career (Career-from-Home) India’s first ever mobile learning platform that would help the rural woman upskill herself

This platform was crafted keeping in mind:

1.Cultural sensitivities: Understanding type of skills that would be of interest, and acceptable within societal norms

2.Adoption at scale: Having a simple, easy to navigate platform

For a self-driven process, two strategic enablers were required:

1. A MEDIUM: To reach the audience at scale overcoming media barriers

2. A PLATFORM: For hosting content to enable learning without having to step out

We partnered with Reliance Jio, India’s youngest telecom operator (350M+ subscribers) driving the digital tsunami with affordable data and handsets called the Jio Phone, especially in rural geographies.

Wheel “Career from Home”, a video platform with upskilling video tutorials and certifications, was hosted in the MyJio app. The platform had four skill modules- Stitching, beautician, bookkeeping and English learning.

Wheel 1 kg packs had 8-digit redemption codes to unlock 1Gb of free data. This offer was available across core brand markets viz. Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra.

The five-month long Wheel “Career from Home” program was promoted using Banner ads and App notifications on Jio phones. Regular performance monitoring helped optimize Jio inventory.

Our mission of empowering the woman was successful as we saw an overwhelming response

- 1.41 Mn GB redeemed

- 66,3,127 – women upskilled themselves

- Not just learning but Wheel increased it penetration by adding 1.17 mn new household

- Helped in accelerating market share among the mass detergent segment

Wheel pioneered the movement towards this unheard voice of the woman by empowering her to fulfil her dreams and ambitions towards a larger cause of economic independence