Are brands getting stereotypical?

Attempting to erase the scars of stereotypes, brands are using this topic as a vehicle of communication, coating their content with messages of breaking stereotypes and making it their voice of belief.  Today, analyzing Titan’s #MomByChoice, we also dig out how brands are now standing strong to bring out a change in the society.

Decoding #MomByChoice

Raga, Titan’s watch brand for women has timely launched films that boasts of women empowerment. Sticking to their cause of choice, the brand recently came up with #MomByChoice where the focal of the content preached how being a mom is a choice and not a sacrifice.

An ode to her mom, a pregnant daughter speaks about how she might not be the mom who would make perfectly shaped rotis for her kid or be the stereotypical, ideal mother. Redefining the role of motherhood in the society, this campaign is yet again breaking stereotypes, putting out messages against societal norms.

Talking about the campaign Randal Gomes, Creative Lead, MindShift Interactive shared, “#MomByChoice is another great example of echoing Titans personality of giving us a bold yet emotional take, and breaking a stereotype that has been on since ages.”

The campaign managed to garner 621k views, 11k and over 3k shares and shaped their content for the viewers with a clear perspective in mind.

Are brands getting stereotypical? 

Going gaga over breaking stereotypes, brands have made that theme a vehicle for their content dissemination, where affixing a cause with the brand has become a digital trend.

Brands have taken up the conscientiousness to be the steering wheel directing the society towards an ideal world. But with so many brands taking the same route, is this itself becoming stereotypical?

“It's a strategy that worked and people are adopting it endlessly for their brands instead of gaining insights into whether it works for them or not. I believe, we must understand the target audience and their perceived likeability towards a campaign on these lines prior to following the herd being the strategic decision,” Gomes added. 

Recently, PC Jewelers did a campaign which tried to normalize the idea of a couple working women and house husbands where they pinched on the idea of ‘women of the house’ to even out the concept of ‘man of the house.’ Then there was Anouk, the apparel brand in digital sphere that spoke about a queer couple living together, yet again breaking stereotypes.

Anish Varghese, Group Creative Director, Isobar India shared his thoughts on 'Breaking Stereotypes'  being the new idea for content dissemination for brands these days, "It’s not a new idea. There are brands who’ve experimented with this approach before – for example, ICICI Prudential’s ‘Bande Ache Hai’. But at that time, Sharing and Liking was not in our finger tips. Today, brands prefer to create sharable content that can set context for the brand. Creating content in the ‘Breaking stereotypes’ space is one way, which is enabling our story tellers to add more micro moments that end users can relate to."

The Airtel Boss Ad received 6k plus Twitter mentions; on YouTube the longer version received 967k views while 2.88M on the shorter version and basically only 3% of the social media audience disapproved of it. Then there was Ariel’s #ShareTheLoad series attached to brand that created a great buzz on the digital platforms.

International campaign, #LikeAGirl by Always powerfully attempted to make a shift from the global phrase ‘Like a girl’ which, a downright degrading statement that belittles the capabilities of this gender.

We picked a few from a plethora to give a broad gist of this entire relationship of brands leveraging on the concept of breaking stereotypes. Though these campaigns were among the top rated of their year of release and did manage to attract attention with their visionary, bold and dreamy approach.

Discussing about what brands should actually break stereotypes Varghese claimed that all brands should do break stereotypes. This type of content can really help them build a relationship with their customers.

Scope for brands on this path

This type of content though managed to resonate with the social media minds, there were brands that tackled such issues subtly and without being preachy;

Maybelline took a male model as their brand ambassador clearly walking the talk rather than talking the talk.

Paperboat too is sailing away from all stereotypes and building its brand on the idea of nostalgia.

Following this as an example, apart from creating content that talks about breaking stereotypes, brands should actually begin the practice it themselves, for example a diaper brand could just show the father changing diapers and make it look normal.

With scope at large, brands tend to incline their content that is more crowd pleasing, but turns out to be repetitive with the absence of fresh content.  So, are brands getting stereotypical themselves?