Stuck up in an arduous lifestyle of lacking human rights or even minimal social acceptance, Vicks aims to redefine the meaning of family in a contemporary society with #TouchOfCare, a campaign that embraces maternity with a slight variation but the same affection.
A tale of a transgender - Vicks Touch Of Care
Dramatically re-creating a non-fictional tale into a campaign, Vicks portrayed the idea of #TouchOfCare through a digital film, oozing of emotions with some refined aesthetics of audio-visuals.
In conversation with a P & G spokesperson about the objective of the film they responded, “We wanted consumers to recognize that everyone has a right to care and that wherever there is care there is family.”
Created by Publicis Singapore, the story narrated by an orphan Gayatri takes us through her life-journey as the film beautifully captures how Gauri, a transgender woman nurtures Gayatri against her odds by caring for Gayatri as her own child and gracefully carrying the entity of motherhood, despite being the third gender.
Pertaining to traditional norms, this Vicks Touch Of Care tweaks the idea of family going beyond biological connections. Even the magnificently weaved story-line even captures how the little girl holds a farsighted dream of becoming a lawyer instead of a doctor for her mother, to help her obtain the basic civil rights. Maintaining a sense of suspense till the middle of the film, it managed to depict motherhood in the most relatable manner through its content, yet consisting of a surprise element in their film.
Brand ideology
Standing by the idea of family care for the longest, the brand through this campaign portrays a face of progression through their stance of ‘care’ being the ultimate idea of a family, beyond everything. Being the iconic brand, Vicks maintaining an emotional bond throughout their advertising journey, has etched their presence in the hearts of their consumer by intensifying the sentiment of touch and care.
And this philosophy is not to assimilate with the digital age, the idea in fact has been fostering since the realm of television advertisement, when the brand produced content titled Touch Therapy and the touch of maternity and now only evolving their ideology with time, the brand has preserved their crux but developed with content.
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“The brand’s messaging has always been around the touch of care that leads to decongestion and feeling of warmth; the storyline has the same effect on the viewer’s discriminatory mindset. What makes the campaign even more relevant is the current state of LGBT movement in India, making us look at the institution of family in a new way; and in the process making the brand look contemporary,” said Padayachi.
As the social media digits claim to depict the success of the film’s reach, Anant Rangaswami, editor at CNBC-TV18 shared his opinion through a brief Facebook post, wherein people through their comments portrayed variation in their stands, giving us a deeper insight of the content.
As the campaign seems to be making rounds of social media, the opinions of its connect with the brand was torn on two sides.
Lakshmipathy Bhat, Marketing Communication Professional, VP- Marketing Communications, Robosoft shared his thoughts through LinkedIn pulse article on the lack of brand connect in this campaign saying, “I am a bit skeptical of long format brand films which have little or no connect to the brand. I couldn’t spot one in this film. I feel the story of the protagonist is what will be remembered and not as a brand film.”
Social media Care
In a cluster where brands through their wide content in the social-verse are somehow directing their support for women empowerment, Vicks got a fresh breeze by becoming a voice for the muted by bringing out the most humane side of this third gender and showing them in a powerful light instead of pity through their content, which definitely became the prevailing part of the film.
Talking about the brand venturing in cause marketing as a trend Padayachi added, “It’s about the way a brand approaches cause marketing; relevancy being the key. The cause and the message need to be relevant to multiple stakeholders related to the cause, and of course to the consumers. While most brands seem to be following the ‘trend’, some of them are creating memorable advertising, like Lifebuoy’s Gondappa, a 4-year-old campaign that most of us can still recall along with the message.”.
Once in a while, brands manage to drive content in a manner that speaks heart to heart to their audience, creating a deeper connection that just a consumer-brand relationship and considering the Indian audience, raw emotions always tend to work.
Since, its release on March 29 Vicks Touch Of Care has scored some whooping digits on social media with 3,024,142 views on YouTube, 1.2 million views on Facebook with 14k reactions and 23k shares along with responses flooded on Twitter too.
But talking about these gigantic views, Ashok Lalla shared his opinion through a tweet wherein he seemed to be unimpressed with the campaign #TouchOfCare.
The countless views notwithstanding, this Vicks video does nothing to tear me up or make me cheer for the brand. https://t.co/5PY9buhkw7
As far as the number game is present, this campaign is one of the strongest campaigns of 2017 that walks the path of progression through their bold content thus this makes Vicks as well a part of this bandwagon where brands are riding to bring out a social revolution of equality and rights. But the impact and the brand re-call through this campaign remains debatable as quoted by some of the leading experts from the industry.
What are your thoughts about Vicks Touch Of Care ? Share your opinions in comments or write to us at team@socialsamosa.com
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