By Prabhakar Mundkur
Most clients want to do something on International Women’s Day (IWD), because it is a good thing to do and of course in the hope that they might get women to be loyal to their brands. But no one really seems to care what the objectives of the International Women’s Day might be for a given year or the theme that they have chosen for the year. For example, for 2018, the theme was #PushforProgress.  But I am not sure everyone had the theme in mind while creating their advertising.
Reebok for example took the theme of violence against women to make their point.
The commercial has a group of people from different walks of life who are asked to guess what the cause of the bruises on the protagonist’s body is. As high as 85% of the people think that her bruises are the result of physical violence. The commercial ends by asking the viewer to sign a petition to make self-defence mandatory for women in schools and colleges. The commercial portrays how we are conditioned to make assumptions about women. We see a bruised woman and we think she must have been a victim of domestic violence. But actually, she is a martial artist.  I was personally a little confused about what the commercial does for gender parity in general. The Global Gender Gap report looks at four key dimensions to rank 144 countries on their progress on gender parity : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.”
So while the Reebok commercial doesn’t directly address any of those dimensions perhaps it tries to break stereo types and biases that are held against women in Indian society, and that too helps in some way considering that India ranks fairly low on gender parity.
The Prega News commercial from Mankind Pharma took a slightly remote and less common occurrence postpartum depression which affects women in the first few months after a child to make their point.
The commercial has an all-male team taking a very understanding view of the female protagonist and trying their best to make life easier for her by extending their full support. But the commercial of course depicts women as weaker than men in the process. So I wasn’t so sure what it does for gender parity. But it does make people aware that women have their delicate moments when men can help by being empathetic. It also portrayed postpartum depression as something normal.
The Usha commercial I thought was unexpectedly refreshing. It took a typical boy meets girl situation to demonstrate that the burden of day to day work can be easily shared equally between men and women if they are understanding and see their roles as equal.
The commercial has the lady confessing that she is not ready for marriage because she can’t do many of the usual things women are expected to do like coffee and noodles, as well as her other idiosyncrasies like not being comfortable with an air-conditioner. Fortunately, her partner to be offers to share the burden equally. The commercial broke down the typical female prototype expected in an arranged marriage.
The Nike commercial released overseas also struck a special chord. Featuring Serena Williams, the ad has a poignant voice over from the tennis champ.
“I’ve never been the right kind of woman. Oversized and overconfident. Too mean if I don’t smile. Too black for my tennis whites. Too motivated for motherhood. But I am proving, time and time again, there’s no wrong way to be a woman.â€
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=No+wrong+way+to+be+a+woman+Nike+Serena+Williams
Said Milan Vora, well-known author and writer about the commercial: “ It tackled quite a few key issues in those few words. Body shaming, ‘oversized, over confident’ , the ascribing to what society thinks how you should be. The demeanour, what you should wear ( colours that are even race appropriate… ) It ad takes it on with sass, takes the bull by the horns ‘Too motivated for motherhood.’ That’s the bit that resonates most. People thinking of motherhood in an either/ or context!â€
To sum up, not all the Indian commercials were perhaps on strategy to push for gender equality. But each of them made their contribution by breaking down a particular bias or stereotype that exists in Indian society. If we are to believe the The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report told us that gender parity is about 200 years away, every little effort from every brand in the country will help us overcome the current state of gender inequality.