In India, a woman’s worth starts with her skin and hair.

Fair skin, long hair is the only beauty standard. Or you’re undesirable.

Unique beauty markers have ugly consequences for our women.

Deciding a woman’s confidence, a successful career, a worthy spouse, her social status. In fact, our largest matchmaking site — had a shade filter that left out ‘dark’ women. Here stigma is passed off as tradition.

And our mainstream media & beauty brands are part of the problem.

Colgate dared to have the conversation everyone else was avoiding.

By making the invisible, visible.

We used our national reach to make beauty outside-the-standard visible in places where diversity never existed — far from urban centers. Changing beauty norms, not just for the privileged urban-rich, but all Indian women.

#SmileOutLoud was the beauty point-of-view India desperately needed to see. So generations of beautiful could finally breathe free.

In India, beauty outside the norm is not just invisible — it takes courage to express. Visible White O2 wanted a radiant smile to be the symbol of courage.

We believed when you smile loud & free, you’re your most beautiful.

Thus #SmileOutLoud was born.

#SmileOutLoud was about beauty refusing to be invisible.

About women expressing their natural beauty differences loudly, proudly!

To move the nation to act — we first needed to change the way we communicated. As India’s most traditional toothpaste brand, this was a huge step for us.

We consciously chose 3 young influencers known to wear their ‘imperfections’ with a smile.

Dolly Singh - India’s most loved influencer, who still gets trolled for crooked teeth.

Toshada Uma - India’s only petit model + advocate for alopecia awareness.

Prarthana Jagan - a model with vitiligo often bullied for her skin condition.

Then, we amplified their #SmileOutLoud stories.

We didn’t want this to be another toothpaste conversation.

We wanted Visible White O2 to be a brand that takes a stand, and speaks to women beyond the lens of product.

To do this, we identified a few gaps we could fill.

The gap in market: the beauty conversation right now was one-sided. #SmileOutLoud was the beauty point of view the country had yet not seen.

The gap in audience: Diversity only existed for the urban rich. #SmileOutLoud wanted to change beauty norms, not just for a privileged few, but all women.

The gap in media: Mainstream media reinforces harmful beauty tropes. Social media prioritised content that reflect popular opinions. #SmileOutLoud used its national reach to make beauty visible in places where diversity did not exist.

#SmileOutLoud made the invisible, visible.

We amplified a message that needed to be heard, and earned brand love in the process.

10th March,2022: we launched our muses very publicly.

TVCs across leading English-speaking + regional-language channels.

Front-page ads across India’s most widely-circulated newspapers.

Our network worked hard, so non-urban women could finally be included.

Our message was clear: #SmileOutLoud and proud. Our beauty’s here to be visible.

On social media, we did what no brand had done before.

We showed women the point of view nobody else was.

By going against the algorithms that push a distorted ‘ideal’

We hyper-targeted our films to women following hashtags,accounts opposite to our messaging.

Those subscribed to #hairperfection…saw Toshada embrace her alopecia.

Those double-tapping #fairskin posts… saw Prarthana celebrate her vitiligo.

Those following #teethgoals…saw Dolly #SmileOutLoud.

Every heart-emoji to us, now helped women with diverse traits become visible in others’ newsfeeds.

One small targeting change, was a massive leap towards fixing an unfair standard.

#SmileOutLoud made unique beauty visible in newsfeeds that had never seen diversity.

We triggered important beauty conversations across generations.

In joint Indian families with closeted beauty opinions - this was a huge first.

Bollywood actors, journalists, body positivity advocates, trans-rights activists, LGBTQ influencers, standup comedians, celebrated chefs, fitness influencers came together to #SmileOutLoud.

Priceless PR generated at zero cost.

In just one month, our numbers were unprecedented:

Our film got 83.8 million views across all social platforms.

A spectacular 3.8% increase in market share on e-comm.

Daily offtakes saw a 2x increase.

360% increase in brand search impressions.

Positive brand sentiment increased by over 80%

More importantly, we made diverse beauty visible across 50+ non-urban cities.

We also made our muses more visible.

Toshada & Dolly now have other mainstream brand endorsements and opportunities, where none had existed before.

#SmileOutLoud will only get louder from here.