Dove tells the hair apparent stories of Indian women

Dove’s #AapkeBaalAapkiMarzi (your hair, your wish) campaign highlights the biases women face solely because of how they wear their hair and urges them to break free from the shackles of a narrow perception of beauty.

 

For most Indian women being told to grow their hair long and black is the earliest memory of ‘beautiful’ imbibed in them. Slowly, the stereotype becomes jarring and evident as most movies, advertisements and societal norms depict long, straight black hair to be the symbol of beautiful women, concretizing the biases that exist.

 

A study by the brand, in collaboration with Hansa Research, found that 71% of Indians think short, coloured and curly hair is less beautiful than long & straight hair. This approach creates a tendency for women to measure their beauty on the scale of social norms, making them feel under-confident and diffident. The typecasting limits choices for women who conform to pre-defined standards of ‘beauty’ to be socially acceptable.

 

Dove’s new campaign by Ogilvy India encourages women to stand tall and wear their hair as they like.

 

Harman Dhillon, VP, hair care, Hindustan Unilever said, “Dove recognizes and realizes the impact typecasting can have on an individual’s being. Through our campaigns we try to create awareness around and break the narrow definition of beauty, creating a space where women feel nurtured and liberated from societal beauty barriers.”

 

The campaign shares the story of real women Farishte, Huda and Pia, how they view their hair vis-a-vis how the society perceives them. Zenobia Pithawalla, senior ECD, Ogilvy India (West), said, “As a brand that celebrates inclusion, we at Dove decided to celebrate the inclusion of all kinds of hair, in a society that has glorified just one kind of hair. Straight, long and black. After all, the freedom to do what one wants with one’s hair is implicit in the fight for emancipation.”

CREDITS

 

Client: Hindustan Unilever 

 

Brand: Dove

 

Agency: Ogilvy India 

 

Chief Client Officer, Ogilvy India: Hephzibah Pathak 

 

Office Leader - Ogilvy India (West): VR Rajesh

 

Creative: Zenobia Pithawalla, Mihir Chanchani, Varun Sharma, Vishal Rajpurkar

 

Account Management: Chitralekha Chetia, Deepika Das, Sanam Chowdhry, Rakshit Bohra

 

Planning: Prem Narayan, Abigail Dias, Akhil Menon

 

Production House: Curious 

 

Director: Vivek Kakkad. 

 

Executive Producer: Shahzad Bhagwagar. 

 

Producer: Vincent Gomes. 

 

Cinematographer: Maciek Sobieraj.

 

Associate Director: Divij Kulkarni. 

 

Production Designer: Manisha Khandelwal