Lebanon is considered to be a progressive country within the Middle East, but it is much more discriminating to women than any country in Europe or the States. Our parliament only has 2-3 women within its ranks, so there is no one fighting for women’s rights and laws inside government. Lebanese women still cannot hand down the passport or open bank accounts for their children. In business, most leadership positions in companies are held by men. And this is just to name a few examples.

But the problem is that everyone, including women, accepts this. No one had even heard of Women's Equality Day in the country before our campaign.

And so, this campaign was intended to start a much needed conversation to awaken both men and women in Lebanon to the notion of gender equality. This is why we chose to launch it on Women's Equality day, August 27, 2017.

To tilt the balance, we went where no brand had gone before.

We created our own counter brand.

Meet Em Khalil, meaning ‘mother of Khalil’, the voice that tackles gender-associated laws and societal stereotypes.

We found that the Yin and Yang aspect of Bou Khalil and Em Khalil could be reflected perfectly in a newly-designed logo.

Bou Khalil means "father of Khalil" and Em Khalil means "mother of Khalil". Switching from one to the other was done graphically by strategically flipping the B in Bou Khalil and making it an E for Em Khalil, while still retaining the same design balance of the logo and the logo typeface of Khalil itself in English and Arabic, thus showing the parallelism and symmetry between the two.

The counter brand logo was then used in all elements of the campaign.

To immerse the consumer fully into the counter brand experience, we turned Em Khalil into a real persona.

Online, we gave Em Khalil her own Instagram account - @thereal.emkhalil - exactly like a regular person or influencer would do.

On the day of the signage change, we made sure that the experience was surprising and seamless. We broadcasted the signage change live on Facebook and Instagram to reach a maximum number of people.

We communicated the discount to couples on the social media channels of Bou Khalil Supermarket.

The momentum around Em Khalil led to Lebanon's top business publication, Executive Magazine, to invite Em Khalil to headline her own monthly column. Her first article ‘Raising Voices. Raising Women’, sheds light on how women in Lebanon should demand opportunities. The article was written with research and a point of view. Like any writer with a point of view would write.

Em Khalil's Instagram posts started getting attention from influencers. They quickly started sharing, liking and commenting.

In less than 1 month, Em Khalil had more followers than the #1 NGO for women's rights in Lebanon. And Em Khalil is followed equally by men and women.

After the signage stunt on Women's Equality Day, blogger and media picked up on the story, and both Em Khalil and Women’s Equality Day were in the news for the very first time in Lebanon.

As a result, Em Khalil was invited to write her own monthly column in Lebanon’s most famous business magazine: Executive Magazine. Her first article ‘Raising Voices. Raising Women’, sheds light on how women in Lebanon should demand opportunities.

And this is how a local supermarket chain in Lebanon was the 1st brand to champion women by creating its own counter brand. A trend many international brands adopted 9 months later.

We were targeting the whole of Lebanon's population and there first needed to be a conversation on a platform that reaches everyone.

And so, Em Khalil was introduced to the world on her very own Instagram account -@thereal.EmKhalil - with a post for Father's Day, on June 21, 2017. And the conversation began… Post by post, we discussed the dormant inequality that is at the heart of our society. Child marriage, body positivity, women driving, women voting, women in business and even how to pull equal weight as a couple.

Then, on Women’s Equality Day, August 27, 2017, we crossed from the digital world into the real world: We high-jacked the signage of Bou Khalil Supermarket’s flagship store and gave it to Em Khalil for the day.

Couples who came to shop together got a 10% discount on their purchases, to encourage men to pull equal weight in grocery shopping.

Women in Lebanon don’t have equal rights, equal pay or equal laws.

Yet everyone accepts that, even women.

Bou Khalil, being a supermarket, a place where most of Lebanon’s society believes a woman belongs, wanted to change the status quo. And Bou Khalil was the perfect supermarket to do so because its own name carries a layer of gender inequality.

Bou Khalil is a family name, which in Arabic means ‘father of Khalil’.

Yes, there are more than 1000 Lebanese family names built on the ‘Bou’. Like Bou Jaoude, Bou Ghazal, Bou Habib, Bou Nasser to name a few. But in Bou Khalil’s case, in 1935, the family name became the brand and so the entire brand was built on a male figure.

We needed to tilt the balance.