Shoppers Stop’s ‘It’s Our Time’ aces femvertising...

The Shoppers Stop It's Our Time campaign leads with thought leadership in the women’s category and addresses their future progress.

It’s raining women empowerment campaigns in the Ad-verse and there’s no stopping to it. Gone are the days when the industry looked for a mother’s day and women’s day to churn out their occasional marketing around women. Today the new age marketers are pro-actively taking part in women-centric advertisements and touching verticles that need attention. Adding to the list is the Shoppers Stop It's Our Time campaign

Shoppers Stop’s latest campaign titled  ‘It’s Our Time” echoes the stand of the new age empowered women. When women are encouraged, mentored and given the needs – their productivity is higher and is committed. The campaign reflects on women who are getting dressed for the day and are narrating a popular anecdote they always encounter, ‘women take time’. It takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to this anecdote that society holds for women.

While femvertising as a concept is applied by a number of brands, very few understand the implications of it. Femvertising means applying your brand for better of the gender through actions, carrying with the women oriented narrative as a part of the brand voice, and implementing what you stand for, for your own employees. With It's Our Time, Shopper's Stop manages to tick all the check boxes.

Insight
behind ‘It’s Our Time’

While addressing the audience of women, Shoppers Stop wanted to capture the real opportunity that women’s progress can mean to India. It looked into the following statistics to shape the thinking -

• In 1962, the turnout of women was only 47 per cent (of the total female electorate), yet by 2014, it had shot up to 66 per cent—up by nearly 19 percentage points. On the other hand, men’s turnout grew by only 5 per cent over the same period. From being well behind men for 55 years—in 1962, women’s turnout is almost reaching parity with men.
• India ranks 120 among 131 countries in female labour force participation rates. The female employment rate in India has tumbled from 35% in 2005 to 26% in 2018.  At 17% of GDP, the economic contribution of Indian women is less than half the global average. India could boost its growth by 1.5 percentage points to 9 percent per year if around 50% of women could join the work force.

“Women are an influential community and contribute to more than half of our sales which are either directly made or influenced by them. 28% of our overall workforce including frontline sales is represented by women.  At mid-to-senior level, 37% of the workforce is represented by women employees. We wanted to create a campaign through which the brand can lead with thought leadership in the women’s category”, shared Uma Talreja, Customer care Associate, Chief Marketing & Customer Officer, Shoppers Stop.

Campaign
Objective

Women leave jobs due to family/life stage, that brand found that when women are encouraged, mentored and supported – their productivity is higher and is committed to a longer period within the organization. Talreja added, “We want women to be unstoppable as India will work best when everyone is allowed a platform to contribute to the country’s progress”.

The video has raked in 3.4 million views on YouTube.

The Brief

Shoppers Stop was hosting a beauty/makeup festival. And the challenge for Shoppers Stop and Contract, the agency that conceptualist the campaign, was to stand out in a jungle of offers, deals, and promotions.

They attempted to differentiate having a slightly higher order conversation about women, their point of view on what was happening around them, having a conversation that resonated with the times we are living in.

BTS
and Campaign Execution

As with everything, Contract started off with an insight that came from the merchandise and hit upon a motherlode. “As we chatted and threw around ideas, one seemed to emerge. Women are frequently accused of spending a disproportionate amount of time to get ready. Sometimes, good-naturedly and sometimes not so. And that’s when we saw the idea. It’s not the women who take time. It’s the world who took the time to give women their rightful place in our society. Sounded heavy. But we decided to tell this compelling story with some Shoppers Stop sass. We were very clear that we wanted to tell an idea of attitude rather than activism,” highlighted Vineet Mahajan, Head of Art – India, Contract.

Also Read: Case Study: How Shoppers Stop garnered 20K+ product visualizations without paid promotion

Going beyond one campaign...

Extending the thought, as part of the campaign, Shoppers Stop ran a special digital film this Mother’s Day inviting its customers to donate their mom’s sarees such that they live on in new ways and help the underprivileged.

A mother’s saree especially her paloo is reminiscent of our childhood days and her warm love. This beautiful memory holds a lot of love and nostalgia for all Indians. Today, a lot of women have sarees they no longer wear, the brand asked them to contribute this to NGO Goonj for its work with village communities - unwearable cotton sarees used for making reusable cloth sanitary pads for women and recycle it into quilts, mats, and multi-purpose reusable cloth bags. Shoppers Stop will also be making a monetary contribution to support Goonj’s work on the collected sarees for recycling. Making of these products will provide a livelihood to hundreds of women.

Additionally, with the launch of this
campaign, Shoppers Stop has committed to donate ₹1 against every beauty
category bill towards the cause of acid attack survivors to support and
encourage them to live their life with dignity.

Talreja also asserted that internally Shoppers stop has extended the thought with various initiatives such as assisting working mothers with Daycare facility and allowances, policies for ‘Bring your child to work’ and ‘Flexible work hours’ as well as extending Paternity Leave for 5 working days.

‘Its Our Time’-  The Differentiator?

“It’s Our Time” takes a tongue-in-cheek approach at the age-old anecdote women hear, ‘women take time to get ready’. Women are an important segment that Shoppers Stop wants to grow its relevance through both product and marketing actions.

"In fashion – you often stereotype real women whereas, in our campaign, the brand is showcasing women of all shapes and sizes as the norm, rather than as an exception. Mostly, ads lean on others supporting women – like husband, father, children while here we show that women take their progress into their own hand”, added Talreja.

Mahajan too shared that enlightened conversations about women in advertising usually turn activist and agenda-driven. The team wanted the conversation to be rooted in its merchandise and yet not shy away from the point it wanted to make.