The Objective

To many, beauty is what meets the eye. To change this mindset, our client has been at the forefront asking women to be comfortable in their skin. Earlier brand campaigns had highlighted the diversity in beauty, but the brand's ‘beauty inclusivity’ purpose needed further strengthening. The brand needed India-specific insights into beauty anxieties and prejudices women face.

The Strategy Unfolded

Prometheus's work on beauty stereotypes was aimed at understanding what beauty means in today’s India, the evolution of beauty benchmarks, and situations in which women across metros and tier II towns are subjected to such beauty standards.

The research involved not just girls at various life stages but also people from the entire beauty ecosystem and beyond - beauticians, marriage bureaus, cosmetologists, writers in mainstream media, and specialists such as family therapists who helped unravel the emotional scars women carry. Digging deep into their childhood photographs, teenage stories, and tales around marriage and understanding them through the eyes of their near and dear ones highlighted the genesis of the ugly truth around beauty.

The Impact

The key deliverable was the insight and key message on which the brand then built the next leg of its communication strategy. The campaign was born which questioned the beauty-based judgment in arranged marriages. Communication impact was evident through brand meaning and differentiation numbers soaring along with an increase in various brand perception attributes. More importantly, the brand sparked much-needed conversation in society by questioning centuries of culture, traditions, and conditioning and making beauty more inclusive.