In India, the pursuit of beauty has one goal – marriage.

For Indian women, beauty related anxieties and insecurities begin when they’re children as social pressure results in conditioning that makes them feel like they are not good enough.

This was an opportunity for Dove to make good on its purpose of making beauty a source of joy and not anxiety. And in doing so, cement its position in the hearts and minds of the audience This was a necessary intervention in a highly price-sensitive market, where the brand was at risk of becoming one amongst many.

The Brief: Build stature and strengthen brand love by being meaningful to women in India.

Objectives:

- Reach 57 million Indian households

- Provoke conversation around beauty-based stereotypes.

- Change perceptions about Dove as a ‘brand that broadens the definition of beauty & challenges negative stereotypes.

- Create a positive impact on society.

In India, beauty is sold in a marketplace called marriage.

In a country of 631 million women it is shocking that from the time a girl child is born, she is constantly looked at through the marriage lens.

So when she gets to marriageable age, the beauty pressure mounts,

As most young women go through 'the marriage beauty test'

The groom accompanied by his family comes over to 'check out' the bride. Does she have a marriageable face. A marriageable body? Does she meet the beauty standards which scream out loud across matrimonial ad pages. Slim, fair, tall? If not, she gets rejected. Her self-esteem diminishing with each rejection.

90 percent of single women in India feel they are rejected on the basis of their looks. At Dove we questioned how can something as beautiful as finding your life partner turn so ugly. And so our campaign #StopTheBeautyTest

How could something as beautiful as finding a life-partner become so ugly?

That is the big question the campaign idea was designed to provoke.

But the bigger question was, what could Dove do to make a real difference?

#StopTheBeautyTest is an idea born out of conversations with real women from across the country. The advertising brought to life stories of women who faced judgement and rejection by prospective in-laws for not being tall-fair-slim with straight long hair. It throws light on unseen impact of these judgements on their self-esteem and confidence.

By challenging beauty stereotypes, Dove campaigns for a more inclusive definition of beauty and calls to end a cruel practice that is responsible for beauty anxieties and diminished self-worth for women In India.

The practice of ‘the beauty test’ is prevalent across all strata of society & geographies. However, new ideas take time to seed, so Dove focused the campaign on its core TG of urban women comprising 70

million households across India. Strategically targeting those most amenable to change with the view of triggering the trickle-down effect.

A comprehensive research about the matchmaking process revealed the true nature of the impact of beauty-based judgements on the self-esteem and confidence of Indian women.

The campaign was designed to challenge this practice and make beauty a positive experience for women by:

1. Provoking conversation: By questioning age-old practices masquerading as tradition.

2. Inspiring change: By bringing to life the inspiring stories of real women and celebrating the beauty of every Indian woman.

3. Enabling action: By influencing the matchmaking process and presenting a better alternative to the traditional way of doing things.

Timeline: 25th February to 7th March

The launch campaign reached out to 81% of the TG through TV, print & social in 10 languages, impacting a reach of 32 million women in one day.

It was featured news media like The Economic Times, The Times of India, ET Brand Equity, CNBC TV 18 etc.

Real-life ‘rejected brides’ were put on the cover of leading magazines Femina & Grazia.

Content partnership with digital platform ‘She The People’ got 1.6 million organic views.

‘Humans of Bombay’ ran a snowball campaign leading up to Women’s Day reaching 7 million.

Contextual messaging on the biggest matrimonial platform – Shaadi.com delivered 10 million impressions.

Users of Times Matrimonial were offered assistance to re-write their ads.

India’s No 1 tennis player, Sania Mirza, shared our content with her personal story. This was followed by other influencers across platforms resulting in 2 million organic views on day

In just one month, campaign reached 75% of urban households

• 2 million organic views on day 1.

• Total 40 million views and a watch-time of 1.2 million hours.

• An earned PR value of USD329,000

Impact:

• 15% increase in purchase consideration

• 25% increase in ‘The only brand I’ll consider’

Post-campaign Research Revealed:

• 75% agree ‘Dove leads the way in evolving conversations on beauty and self-esteem’

• 74% agree ‘Dove challenges negative beauty stereotypes and is redefining beauty’

The campaign made news headlines and got additional reach of 16 million as celebrities and influencers joined the conversation.

The biggest matchmaking platforms made unprecedented decisions as they extended their support to making the process free of beauty biases.

- Shaadi.com - The matrimonial site allowed branded contextual messaging on their platform

- Times Matrimonial - The news publication allowed Dove to help their users rewrite their ads.