Campaign Watch: Dove India’s Let’s change Matrimonials to Mothermonials

Dove India started a well-intentioned digital campaign ‘Dove Mothermonials’, addressing beauty bias in Matrimonial ads. The campaign is attempting to reach out to moms urging them to rewrite their daughter’s matrimonial ads highlighting their unique personality and focusing on education and skill sets instead of just external beauty.

The brand wants mothers to join the Dove Mothermonials movement and rewrite matrimonial ads through a mother’s eyes.

Dove Mothermonials in partnership with The Times of India

In a country where most marriages are still arranged, Dove’s call to change the flawed system of writing matrimonials is commendable. Its high time women are viewed as who they are and not through the lens of physical beauty or how they look alone.

The theme also fits well with Dove’s overarching long running narrative on ‘real beauty’ and as with most Dove campaigns, this one is also well rounded with holistic activation across platforms.

The few I noticed include:
Dove Mothermonials microsite – a joint effort with The Times of India, created to garner user generated content and create a gallery of ‘Mothermonials’. The only thing I’m not a fan of is the need to sign up to submit content.

Celebrity Partnerships across social media - as part of the campaign, Dove has recruited a bunch of celebrities to post across social media – I’ve seen stories and posts on Instagram which are quite different and contextual.

Dove India’s YouTube channel brings together compelling video stories of women from across the country addressing the theme of real beauty.

The dichotomy (or maybe that’s a good thing?) is that the campaign is primarily on social media which is one of the primary contributors to the exaggerated and unreasonable beauty standards we are seeing around us. It is always great to see brands address relevant issues and help change the narrative in whatever small way possible.

It is a great idea and I hope it can be sustained and taken broader in some way with on ground activation.

Dove India Channel on Instagram