Media > Channels

THE BRIDAL UNIFORM

BBDO PAKISTAN, Lahore / UN WOMEN / 2018

Awards:

Bronze Cannes Lions
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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

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The Pakistani bride is known to wear an elaborate wedding outfit: bright, colorful, heavily embroidered dresses combined with flashy jewelery. Every year, the bridal-wear fashion industry in Pakistan hosts large events in which new styles are revealed for that year. These shows are typically attended by local celebrities.

This year, our idea was to hijack the country's largest bridal-wear fashion show by collaborating with the nation's best known fashion designer and by introducing a new kind of bridal gown that represents the sad state of affairs in Pakistan, and highlights the fact that an early marriage results in loss of education and empowerment.

The new "Bridal Uniform" was formed by merging a typical school girl's uniform and a traditional Pakistani bride's wedding gown.

Execution

In collaboration with the nation's best known bridal-wear artist Ali Xeeshan, we meticulously designed a new kind of a bridal outfit — one that symbolizes the trade-off that takes place when a girl is married young and is deprived of her right to an education — and revealed it on the bridal fashion industry's biggest night.

As the showstopper of the night, amidst bejewelled adult brides in elaborate gowns, and with the nation's top fashion bloggers recording, out walked on the ramp a little girl wearing a Pakistani schoolgirl's uniform embellished with beautiful traditional bridal motifs.

The Bridal Uniform had been created by merging traditional wedding outfit embroidery patterns with a common government school girl's uniform.

The stunt was then followed up by a print piece in a local fashion magazine, and instructional posters printed for on-ground NGOs to showcase in villages.

Outcome

The disruptive stunt went viral and generated almost 500 million social and news-media impressions, more than any campaign for this cause has ever done in the country.

The topic of child marriages started trending, and both the international and local press reported on it. A sitting senator of parliament took note and a bill proposing to raise the legal marriage age to 18 has now been sent to the Islamic Council of Pakistan, who has agreed to review it. The senator has directly acknowledged the effect of this campaign in the efforts to pass the bill.

#BridalUniform, besides being adopted by on-ground local NGOs to educate villagers on the importance of keeping girls in schools, has also made an appearance on catwalks in Berlin and LosAngeles, and talks are underway to feature the stunt at New York Fashion Week to highlight the same issue in seven different countries.

Relevancy

Creating a truly experiential stunt, we hijacked the country's largest bridal fashion show in order to make a statement against child marriages. This was done using a special bridal gown that we had designed (at a cost of under $100) to be disruptive, impactful and having the power to transform perceptions.

Strategy

By disrupting a platform like the Bridal Couture Week, where brides are meant to be celebrated, we were able to exemplify the irony of condoning such practices by asking the important question: should all brides be celebrated?

We also managed to piggyback on the media wave that followed the event, completely hijacking the conversation around it.

The stunt was then followed by on-ground educational sessions that addressed the issue where it truly made a difference.

The campaign targeted people on two levels. Through the stunt, we first targeted the influencers and media personnel who could spread the conversation that built pressure to involve policymakers. And second, through on-ground sessions, directly addressing the masses where these practices were widely prevalent.

The dress cost under $100 to make, which was the total cost of the campaign. The highly publicized media event was hijacked at no cost.

Synopsis

Pakistan has one of the worst records of child marriages in the world. Almost a quarter of all Pakistani women in the last ten years have been married before the age of 18. The practice of child, early and forced marriage is widespread and occurs in all regions of Pakistan. Bills to raise the legal marriage age to 18 have been rejected previously by the government on religious grounds, or by being influenced by decision makers in the country's Islamic Council.

Our brief was to come up with a unique, disruptive idea that would not only raise awareness of the issue at a zero media budget, but also educate the public about the long-term harmful effects of getting a girl married young instead of educating her.

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