Each year for 8 years, Ariel #ShareTheLoad has been championing gender equality in household chores, moving against the category which targets women for household products by default. Each year we unearth familiar yet eye-opening stories of gender inequality in people’s homes. This year we raised the stakes by illustrating the consequences of not sharing the load on relationships and families. We found that 81% women felt that unequal distribution of chores has affected their relationship. Our idea: See The Signs of ‘Silent Separation’. The campaign boosted penetration, consideration and equity, and generated social conversation.

8 years ago, when household products were largely targeted at women, Ariel changed the game by championing gender equality in household chores, starting with laundry. Over the, Ariel’s #ShareTheLoad has provoked countless conversations and mass mindset-shift. Each year, we tell a new story that both hits close to home and opens eyes, going deeper to find diverse contexts to bring alive the issue of gender inequality at home.

But despite some change, domestic responsibilities still default to women in most households, and people are reluctant to “blame men”.

We realised that, to raise the stakes, we had to find a way to bring alive the serious, widespread consequences of not sharing the load—not only on women but on people’s relationships and families.

Challenge:

In our 8 year, Ariel #ShareTheLoad needed an eye-opening provocation that would still build on our existing authority on the topic and create strong social impact.

India sees a lot of “female-empowerment” stories across various media including OTT shows, films and advertisement. Indian laws for the most part either have equal or added provisions for women on paper.

But this is all to fight against a still highly patriarchal society which is slow to change. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, only 37% of Indian women are in the work force as of 2023—more than before, but still far less than men. And there are countless global and Indian studies that have established a connection between low labour participation and women’s disproportionate burden of domestic responsibilities.

Culturally, Indian women are still expected to be responsible for the physical and mental load of running the household, and any career they have is over and above that. Men are appreciated for contributing to domestic responsibilities, but not expected to.

In this context, our work brings to light the daily inequalities that we observe in our own households that disadvantage women—in a way that does not attack or dictate, but shows a mirror and provokes thought, conversation and self-reflection.

IDEA - See The Signs of ‘Silent Separation’ #ShareTheLoad.

We found that 81% women feel that unequal distribution of chores has affected their relationship.

CREATIVE INSIGHT: Women start withdrawing silently from relationship over time because of unequal sharing of household chores.

In our work, we gave a name to the familiar yet unrecognized phenomenon of Silent Separation: the distance that creeps into couples’ relationships over time due to years of gendered inequality in the distribution of household chores and responsibility.

Throughout the campaign, we called upon men to recognize the signs that this distance has materialized, and recognize their own lack of contribution towards household chores as a key cause, eventually provoking behaviour change in them.

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Urban Indian women aged 35-65. 2 psychographic sub-groups -

Progressive Equalizers - question conventions and believe in gender equality in the home.

Reluctant-progressives - believe in gender equality but do not challenge the inequalities in their own homes

DATA GATHERING:

Deep Listening through- stories, statistics, conflicts, conversations, news and confessions. Conversations with couples, marriage-counsellors, divorce-lawyers. Third-party surveys.

APPROACH:

Despite divorce being largely socially unacceptable in India (divorce rate is only 1%), there has been a rise in silver-divorces in India—i.e., separation after 25+ years. 65% women feel an emotional distance from their spouse, and 92% feel that the distance has grown over time.

81% women feel that unequal distribution of chores has affected their relationship.

INSIGHT: Women start withdrawing silently from relationship over time because of unequal sharing of household chores.

CALL-TO-ACTION: Make men realize that unequal sharing of load is negatively impacting their relationship over time.

EXECUTION -

(1) Coined ‘Silent Separation’ to illustrate how signs of inequality at home hurt relationships in the long-run, spread it in culture through a short-film,using social-media, cinema, print, influencers, national-TV and on-ground.

(2) For the first-time, we turned to an untapped source of influencers. We conducted a sharing session with house-helps who spoke about the signs of ‘Silent Separation’ they notice in the lives of couples whose house they work at.

(3) At a mass vow-renewal event, men went down on their knee, and committed to be equal partners.

BUSINESS IMPACT –

•Penetration grew to 20% with 10.4mm new users. At 63.3 MM HHs, Ariel achieved its highest ever households.

•Sales growth of 35% (7 points above YA).

BRAND IMPACT -

•Highest consideration at 81%

•Increased brand-awareness scores to 71%, exceeding benchmark of 65%

•Overall equity moved to 18 points from 10points in YA, especially in premium households.

•Functional attributes rose: stain removal equity increasing 1.8x YA.

•Attribute that moved the most: “the brand stands for progress and a brand of today”

COMMUNICATION IMPACT -

•154 million views—30% more than 115 million views of YA

•1.4 billion impressions, 0.4 billion more than benchmark.

•Reception of film (Ipsos):

• Brand Attention Index reached 137,exceeding the standard range of 85 to 115- People remembered the ad and unmissably connected it back to Ariel

•PERCEPTION CHANGE:

• In 2015, 79% men believed that laundry is only a woman’s job—it is 26% today.