The vermillion dot on a bride’s forehead is a symbol of marital pride. In our religious society, only a woman wearing sindoor, is considered auspicious.

During rituals and traditions, this sacred symbol dictates who’s accepted, and who’s rejected. Today, this sindoor has become a symbol of inequality between the married and the unmarried.

We transformed this single dot, a symbol that divides, into 2 dots, a new symbol of sisterhood. The 2 dots were used to ambush Sindoor Khela, a festival reserved for married women. We changed the divisive festival into one that includes every woman.

In September 2017, transgenders, widows, divorcees, sex workers, and married women, came together to celebrate Sindoor Khela, for the first time in 400 years.

In our endeavor of giving birth to a new “Sindoor Khela”, we transformed the single red dot, the patriarchal symbol of bridal pride, into two dots, a new symbol of sisterhood.

This new symbol was introduced by top actor and 2nd most googled Indian woman, Vidya Balan, through Facebook Live. All her fans adopted the 2 dots, using the specially designed Facebook filter.

20 celebrities including Bollywood actors and vocal feminists such as Taapsee Pannu, Rituparna Sengupta and Dr. Manobi, the first Indian transgender doctorate, embraced and endorsed the 2 dots, leading to a groundswell of 2 dot selfies on social media.

Thereafter, leaders of minority communities released a digital film as a national call to action, urging every woman to participate.

Local internet celebrities were roped in to support the growing movement.

Unique messages targeting women from these communities were released on Facebook, inviting them to the celebration.

Our vermillion wave was unstoppable.

In just 4 weeks we clocked in USD 912,335 in earned media

& reached 708 million people

becoming a No.1 trending topic on social media with

3 million comments

& thousands of 2 dot selfies from women & men

In a country of thousands of Gods and Godmen, change is not always welcome but when the day of “Sindoor Khela” arrived, a sight never seen before unfolded on the streets of Calcutta.

Our campaign successfully broke a 400-year old patriarchal tradition where over 50 temple societies opened their doors to all women.

For the first time in history, single, married, widowed, transgender and prostitutes joined in to participate in “Sindoor Khela”.

Ultimately, in the process of finding cultural relevance, Times of India became the No.1 newspaper in Calcutta, beating even the local favourite – The Telegraph for the first time in 10 years.

To change centuries of tradition, we knew ordinary rules wouldn’t apply.

Data gathering to just report inequalities was not the answer. We needed to carefully question the core of the tradition by inspiring a groundswell of women towards inclusivity.

To achieve this, our strategy was four pronged:

1. Instead of passive reportage, Times of India needed to be the news- as an empowerer and harbinger of positive change for all women.

2. For that we inspired celebrities to join us in protesting the divisive tradition voluntarily.

3. Then, to spread our message across all genders & generations, we used a language that was contemporary & emotionally, culturally evocative– slam poetry.

4. Lastly to give our movement a final push we engaged celebrities who were loud advocates of feminism.

This led to unprecedented buzz and a spontaneous upsurge of inclusivity- both online and offline.

Situation + Brief:

Times of India is the largest circulated daily newspaper in India. However, in Bengal the Telegraph ruled the roost. To win this newspaper war, Times of India needed to connect with Bengalis as a people, not just readers & embed its message of ‘No Conditions apply’ within their culture.

We identified a 400-year long-standing tradition to deliver that message -

Every year, 35 million Bengali women come together in celebration to play “Sindoor Khela” (the vermillion game) - an ancient ritual which reaffirms their womanhood.

But this national celebration of Goddess Durga comes with one big condition:

No single women, divorcees, widows, LGBTQ;

It is reserved only for the married. while all the other “forbidden” women look on, feeling rejected.

Our Objective:

Change this 400-year old tradition of rejection into a tradition of acceptance to help Times of India emerge as an undisputed leader nationally & locally.