BIBA's #ChangeIsBeautiful convinces but lacks innovation

The leading ethnic apparel brand BIBA released a campaign on social media which cuts through the old school traditions of Indian arranged marriages and touched the issue of gender equality in the most relate-able way.

BIBA as a brand holds the essence of modern women, and it has meticulously mirrored that image throughout its journey.

Intention of the campaign

Not drifting away from its personality, the brand intended to flick the ubiquitous concern of gender inequality in the country in the most predictable scenario.

The only idea behind the campaign was to surface an ideal situation which puts the practice feminism under bright light.

Sharing his views on this digital campaign, Siddharth Bindra, MD, BIBA said, “This digital campaign is a personification of our deep-rooted brand foundations which makes BIBA the face of today’s modern woman. Change is the only constant thing and it is indeed beautiful when it aims at the betterment of an individual or even society at large. This campaign is all about embracing and celebrating that change.”

Implementation

The film sets under a typical arranged marriage set-up where the girl is apprehensive about choosing a life-partner by just serving him a plate of samosas. The film commences with a rather cold conversation between a father-daughter.

As it progresses, the conversation between the two families is polite and traditional with only the parents involved in the match making procedure.

Surprisingly, the girl's father comes to her rescue when he asks the boy's family if the would-be groom can show how well he can cook. In a surprising response, the boy demands for 10 days before inviting the girl's family to his house so that he can learn to cook.

The campaign ends with all smiles as BIBA signifies, Change is Beautiful.

Suva Ghosh, Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Brandmovers said, “This film is a commentary on arranged marriages in India, where it’s almost always on the woman to prove her merit. This is Biba’s stand on changing ideologies for a more progressive society”.

Next phase

A contest named #ChangeTheConvention was the next phase of the campaign, where participants were lured with exciting gifts. This was the second hashtag used to promote the campaign after #ChangeIsBeautiful.

Facebook and Twitter users were prompted to answer questions about the video and post their answers in the comment using the hashtag #ChangeTheConvention.

Its #resolution time ......make good resolution and change something in your life and change is always goodthing.#ChangeIsBeautiful

— Hari charan yadav.D (@yadavharichara1) December 30, 2015

Your ad for @BibaIndia was beautiful @ReginaCassandra ? #ChangeisBeautiful — Gauri Naidu (@Gauri_Naidu) December 30, 2015

Critique

The campaign subtly weakens the patriarchy in the society through this film and along with that encourages a sense of equality in gender and marriage.

It revolves around the simplicity of long-practiced Indian traditions of arranged marriages, but as the film crawls further it projects an ideal family situation (uncommon in our society,) but is evidently suppressed under male dominance of the society, more like fiction.

Visually the campaign is very soothing, smooth and slow, with soft music playing in the background. This campaign follows a story line, more like a film containing a proper beginning and end. Though the idea behind the campaign is appreciated, it draws familiarity of the Anouk campaigns #BoldIsBeautiful.

Both these videos have a surprising and uncommon climax, with a similar visualization and music. Not only does the concept look repetitive, but even the hashtag #ChangeIsBeautiful lacks innovation, taking users back to #BoldIsBeautiful and #BraveIsBeautiful.

Finally

BIBA withholds the essence of modern women and somewhere through this campaign manages to showcase that successfully. The campaign was majorly promoted on social media with #ChangeIsBeautiful, which also gained them over 8.7m views on Facebook with over 1 lac shares.

#ChangeIsBeautiful manages to put across its message to the broad audience on social media which accepted the campaign with open arms and showered love for the concept. Its appreciation is visible through its heavy presence and activity on social media. Nonetheless, a slight more innovation would have taken it to an altogether new level.