Cricketers wear their surname on their jerseys, which comes from only their fathers' name. Not their mothers'. This is a reflection of the gender bias that our society suffers from.

Presenting Wear Her Name. A simple step that sent out a loud message to billions worldwide. The Indian cricket team wore their mothers' name on their jerseys instead of their fathers' during a LIVE international match. Sharing the forgotten identity of their mothers with fans worldwide and sending out a strong message. Because our mother's identity is just as important as our father's.

Star Plus, along with the Indian cricket team took a simple but powerful step towards gender equality with the Wear Her Name Campaign. They changed the names on their jerseys and wore their mothers' name instead. The campaign started with 3 TV and digitals, each featuring top Indian cricketers - M.S.Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane, wearing their mothers' name with pride.

And this was followed by a historic event on 29th October, 2016. When the entire Indian cricket team wore the name of their mothers on their jerseys during a LIVE international match. Thus bringing back the forgotten names of their mothers and sending a strong message to billions of fans worldwide.

Between October 16th and 30th we had over 48,475 authors speaking about the campaign with over 99,840 mentions leading to a 95.2% positive sentiment about Mothers names all over India. On social media, mother’s name hit an all-time high of over 232 million online impressions having a reach of 62 million (43% of HSM) with a total view count of 17.2 million unique views. Facebook gave us another 7 Million+ views with 1.6 Million+ (23% Organic Views) and a total of 1.12 million+ shared the campaign online – in reverence of their mother’s. The admiration for mothers did not stop as YouTube had over 7 Million + with 2.45 Million organic growth and over 2.66 Million + full views. And with an 8% Increase in Top of the Mind, 7% Increase in Spontaneous Recall, 7% Increase in Net Promotors score we enforced a #NayiSoch (new way of thinking) in India.

Cricket is to India what football is to Brazil. And the nation treats its cricketers like Gods. The Wear Her Name campaign used these idols of the country to become channels for a powerful message against gender bias, through a LIVE international cricket match, that is viewed by billions of fans. The unique media channel for this campaign was the cricketer's jersey, which usually have every player's father's name. But this time they wore their mother's name. A simple name change on a t-shirt that reached billions worldwide, inspiring a powerful change.

In India, gender bias is an active topic of discussion and several campaigns have been done till date to address this issue. However, this time our audience was a little different. The challenge was to go beyond Star Plus' primary audience of women and talk to the men of the country. And the strategy was to speak to them through those who they idolise - cricketers.

Cricket is a religion in India and cricketers are Gods for the masses. So who better than the most-loved cricketers themselves to send out this powerful message. And through a platform the nation loves - a LIVE cricket match.

In India, women are subservient to men as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, with no identity of their own. They take up their husbands' name and her children too get their names only from their fathers. And her identity is lost forever. Star Plus, India's largest General Entertainment Channel for women, wanted to start a conversation around that.

Year after year, the channel has been actively presenting content that brings alive their brand philosophy of Nayi Soch (New Way of Thinking). Their stories and powerful female protagonists have questioned gender bias, which is a burning issue in a country like India.

Though Star Plus has an immense reach across the country, being watched in over 243 million homes, their audience was primarily women. Thus, the brief was to reach out to the greater masses and most importantly the other half of the country's population - men.