Best ads of the week: Dove breaks cycle of beauty tests, Facebook nurtures people power
Our pick of the best commercials in Week 1 of August
We love a good ad that inspires us. It creates an emotional connection with viewers, encourages recall, builds a positive brand image and—if the brand plays its cards right—can impact positive behaviour change.
In Week 1 of August, we were treated to a few such ads that made it to our list of the most impressive commercials. Here is our pick of some of the best ones for the week.
Dove
Taking its “Stop The Beauty Test” campaign forward, Dove put mothers in the spotlight in its latest iteration. In #TheBeautyTestStopsWithMe, these moms take on India’s regressive practice of parading young women in front of the families of prospective grooms to be picked apart for everything from skin colour to weight. The film showcases accounts of four mothers who faced such beauty tests in their youth, subjected to unflattering nicknames and hurtful comments. They vow to end the cycle of generational beauty tests by choosing to celebrate the daughters of their inner beauty through “mothermonials” instead of matrimonials.
Harman Dhillon, Executive Director, Hindustan Unilever, and Beauty and Well Being General Manager, Unilever South Asia, said, “Dove is on a mission to ensure the next generation grows up with body confidence, self-esteem, and a positive relationship with the way they look. Through these campaigns, Dove has urged and provoked the country to stop the beauty test for two years now. In 2024, we continue to build on our efforts by encouraging mothers to lead the change and daughters to challenge the very format of biodata that is the perpetrator of beauty-based biases. We aim to revolutionize traditional matrimonials into empowering ‘mothermonials’ that inspire society to see daughters beyond stereotypes. Through this campaign and the Dove Self-Esteem Project, Dove is committed to taking tangible actions that help address biases and inspire body confidence amongst young girls and women.”
Zenobia Pithawalla - Senior Executive Creative Director & Mihir Chanchani - Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy added “In our country even today parents put out matrimonial ads or biodatas for their eligible daughters. Tall, slim and fair rear their ugly heads in the first two lines. At Dove, we approached mothers who wanted her daughter’s matrimonial ad to be different from hers. These mothers of India joined hands with us to write matrimonial ads without beauty biases. We brought mothers on the frontline, to protect every daughter of India from the ugly Beauty Test. With this began the change from Matrimonials to Mothermonials.”
Facebook and Fundamental brought out a four-film campaign centred on “people-powered communities.” The focus is on the human need to get inspired and how finding the right communities can fan the flames of creativity with shared experiences. The narratives are centred on four young people who find other like-minded folks to deepen their interests with delightful outcomes.
Vyom Prashant, Director, of Consumer Marketing at Meta, says, “Every day, people across India come to Facebook to create meaningful connections, fuel discovery, and nurture their interests. Their stories continue to inspire us, and this campaign is a celebration of this thriving community that is tapping into the power of people on Facebook to get more into what they are into.”
Speaking about the campaign, Neeraj Kanitkar, Co-Founder and ECD, Fundamental says, “Facebook continues to have an enduring relationship with people even as its place in their lives has been constantly evolving. Starting from a place of connecting with friends and family, young people have started exploring Facebook as a platform to find like-minded people and have conversations around common interests, hobbies and passions.”
Matrimony.com
Wedding venues are perhaps one of the worst spots for single people, especially in a marriage-obsessed country like India. Relatives and acquaintances put their schadenfreude on full display, pestering single youths endlessly about their plans to marry. With this insight, Matrimony.com also tipped its hat to the Olympics season by reimagining how people would escape such situations in its latest campaign.
The two-film series shows the perspectives of two such singles who would rather pole vault or kabbadi their way out. Said Bhavesh Kosambia and Rahul Chandwani, Content Leads at Wondrlab, the creative minds behind the campaign: “We landed a strong insight – during the wedding season, a lot of the prospects who are of marriageable age, attend weddings of their friends and family. They are often questioned about their wedding plans, and these prospects try and dodge such questions. The campaign is a set of two films where we see such protagonists try and avoid pestering guests, albeit dramatized for entertainment as though they were athletes. Bharat Matrimony comes in as the perfect place to find the answers to these questions as they can log on to find their perfect life partners.”
Samsung
Cheil India’s new campaign for Samsung celebrates India’s golden boy Neeraj Chopra and the hopes of over a billion Indians at the Paris Olympics 2024. The visually stunning film titled “India Cheers Neeraj” showcases how the entire nation has been rallying behind the track-and-field athlete.
Vikash, Chemjong, CCO at Cheil India, marvelled at the original cinematic quality of the piece. "In the wake of a recently won Cricket World Cup, we wanted to bring out the emotion of ‘an entire nation holding its breath once more’. But this time it’s for one athlete who has already done the impossible by winning gold at the last Olympics" he said. "The film’s fleeting montage style is the unifying thread that connects every Indian to this beacon of national pride."
“Samsung believes in empowering individuals to push beyond their limits and achieve greatness. We are putting our might behind Neeraj Chopra, who embodies excellence and limitless possibilities—values that are deeply respected at Samsung. With the 'India Cheers for Neeraj' campaign, we aim to harness the collective energy of the nation and ‘Unfold the Best’ in India's quest for gold in the Paris Olympic games. We aim to invite all Indians to join us in cheering for Neeraj,” said Aditya Babbar, Vice President, MX Business, Samsung India.
