Debunking superstitions on social media an effective marketing trend?

Feb 22, 2017

Cause marketing has been tried and tested. Brands now, try to invalidate superstitions with hard-hitting content emerges as the latest marketing strategy.

As harsh as we could get, India is an ideal example of dismissive progression where advances are blooming materialistically but superstitions and inequality are excessively pulling humanity behind with force. But fighting against these superstitions on social media, organizations have picked their battle and made social media their battleground – #MyDaughterWill became one of those

Fight against unreasonable superstitions

“It’s so strange that women give birth to children, while they are denied to participate in rituals of death,” this statement struck my chord and left me in a perpetual state of aghast. This powerful statement underlined all the darkness bestowed upon our society.

As per Hindu culture, only a son is allowed to light a parent’s funeral pyre and with multiple reasons attached with it, a girl is forbidden to even be present at the cremation ground. Perplexed by this societal norm, #MyDaughterWill lightened social media with the motive to provoke their audience and break this superstition.

This idea was expressed through a visual narration by Saloni. She shared her mom’s story when she lost her grandfather around a year back. While sharing this story she narrated how her mother was the closest to her grandfather and never faced any discrimination while growing up in comparison to her brothers. But, she recalls one such precise moment when she was denied an entrance in the crematorium, forget lighting the pyre and how this incidence cracked the confidence of an independent woman.

Through this initiative #MyDaughterWill aims at raising their voice for equal rights for both sons and daughters.

Brands breaking superstitions on social media

This isn’t the first time that social media was made the vehicle of communication to address a social hazard. Brands these days believe in holding a social message along their name tag and become the front runners in supporting a cause to empower their thought community.

The sanitary product brand Whisper, too actively participated in voicing their opinion around the million (if not less) absolutely bizarre and unreasonable superstitions attached with menstrual cycles. Not touching pickle in those five days being one of them was identified by the brand.

The Bomb Squad #TouchThePickle was one such film that hit social media where content had undertones of sarcasm and visuals portraying the extreme secrecy women follow while buying or carrying sanitary napkins. Through this film, the brand portrayed how cops misunderstood the protagonist as a criminal as she was carrying her packet in concealment.

The video received 1,343,082 views on Facebook and 194,348 views on YouTube.

This was meant to shame and somewhere carried a self-explanatory message for the society to normalize menstruation. A series of films were produced under this hashtag that spoke of breaking superstitions and asked women to #TouchThePickle and break the norms.

Another superstition that India fondly follows is of hanging of nimboo-mirchi (lemon-chilly) to their vehicle to keep evil spirits at bay. This was broken by CEAT Tyres who claimed that you don’t need superstitions to ensure safety, their tyres will do the job.

As brands speak of causes attached with feminism, quality, family relationships, marriage, dowry and variety of aspects around social norms, superstitions is one of those that actually jerks our routine without any valid reason.

Imbibed in our society for generations together, it’s time we stand up for it. Brands have already begun, when will you?