India is a patriarchal society. Here, deep-rooted cultural norms have made housework the sole responsibility of women. Over 7 years, Ariel’s #ShareTheLoad has created a gradual shift as it sparked conversations at a national level on the issue of gender inequality at home.

But…

In 2021, a World Economic Forum report revealed a shocking truth – at the current pace of change, gender parity is 135 years away. Which means no woman alive will experience gender parity.

This startling reality shaped Ariel’s 2022 brief:

1. How do we radically accelerate the pace of change on the issue?

2. Moreover, how do we affect a more immediate mindset shift in men to free women from the responsible for housework?

Our objective was to trigger hard conversations inside homes directly with men. This wasn’t going to be easy since years of conditioning had taught women to never challenge their husbands.

For the first time in the history of P&G, Ariel changed its name on its pack to the 100 most common names of men in India followed by a simple call to action – ‘Share The Load’.

With this one change, we turned our packaging into a silent protest within homes and a catalyst that emboldened women to speak to their husbands about sharing the responsibility of housework equally. Thus, taking our message of gender equality to the heart of the problem – the home – to affect a more immediate mindset shift in men to free women from being solely responsible for housework.

Our target audience were urban Indian men; men who could and had shared housework equally in the past when they were staying with other men or roommates, but who chose not to with their wives because they didn’t see them as equals.

From ethnographic studies and lived experiences we knew years of conditioning had thought Indian women to never challenge their husbands. But to affect a more immediate mindset shift in men, we needed to trigger hard conversations inside homes directly with men.

Which is why Ariel replaced its name on the pack with the 100 most common Indian male names followed by a simple call to action – ‘Share The Load’. This turned our packaging into a silent protest within homes and a catalyst that emboldened women against years of conditioning to speak to their husbands about sharing the responsibility of housework equally.

To radically accelerate the pace of change on the issue of gender inequality at home, we kickstarted our ‘See Equal ‘#ShareTheLoad’ movement on 11th February 2022 by taking a defiant stand with our film. For the first time in Indian advertising a wife asks her husband why men can share the load with other men but not with their wives. Is it because they never saw them as equals?

Next, to affect a more immediate mindset shift in men, we launched the Ariel packs with 100 most common Indian male names. These packs became a silent protest within homes and a catalyst that emboldened women against years of conditioning to speak to their husbands about sharing the responsibility of housework equally. Thereby, taking our message to the heart of the problem.

Grabbed attention and engaged consumers, influencers, media:

• With over 2300 clips, across 1900 leading local and international news outlets in 40 countries, this became the widest PR coverage to-date

• Generated over USD 35 Million in “earned media coverage” across leading local and international news outlets – that’s 3X of Ariel’s annual budget.

• 4 billion earned impressions

• The movement film received over 115 million views, and counting, across platforms.

Brand Impact

• Brand awareness jumped 142%

• Emotional Equities were up 43%

• Brand preference were up 27%

• Sales grew 29%

Most importantly, the movement drove an immediate mindset shift in men:

In 2015, 79% men believed laundry is a woman’s job. This dropped to 41% by 2020.

Today, it stands at 26%.