A shout to Hema, Jaya, Rekha and Sushma
Almost every commercial I can remember from my childhood only featured women either taking care of their family or carefully selecting groceries for the household. That rare deviation from the norm at best featured a girl under a waterfall that later morphed into a bathtub or a shower.
That’s why when the Dairy Milk girl ran on to the field, it was not just a breath of fresh air, it placed an image in our heads of a woman who could cavort with sheer abandon instead of being in the kitchen. One could say that when ‘Sanjana’ in that Pepsi commercial knocked Aamir’s Khan door, we did get another non-stereotypical image in front of us, but mostly, Lalitha ji would give a run to anyone on being the most memorable lady character in the Indian advertising landscape.
In recent times, sportswear brands have done a great job in placing women as competitive athletes in their communication. While healthier food and beverage categories are making that transition too, in 2017, it’s still so much about a woman in the kitchen worried about that perfect meal to be served for her child or husband.
At HealthifyMe, over the last year, we had access to data about how women, (particularly women with a strong intent to get fit ) consume food and workout in their daily lives. While we don’t have a commercial to go along with it, we put together the video below to do that little bit to educate Indian women about how they can eat better.
It made sense for us because for one, we don’t know any brand that talks about women’s health specifically with data at it’s foundation. And as we approached some of our other partners, our belief that we could spin this into a larger story became stronger. Soon enough we had interest from likes of Economic Times, Huffington Post, Times of India, The Week and many others in carrying snippets of the data. And that’s when “Her Health First” materialized.
Incidentally, what the above video doesn’t capture is the additional data that we had about workout patterns (since we took a call to keep the messaging focussed about diet patterns) which was that while men only consider physical workout activities as ‘workout’, women consider household tasks, cleaning and climbing stairs also as calorie-burning activities. And that’s a significant 40% of the 700,000+ women who logged these on the app.
Ironic as it is but not surprising, because that’s the image of the woman that’s seeped in society and drummed into our heads because of Hema, Jaya, Rekha and Sushma.
Protein is a significantly important part of our diet and that all states across India and across all meals should reflect a lower consumption of protein by women on our app consistently, could point to a undermining gender bias in our society where the more expensive and healthier foods are consumed by men in a family.
When I spoke about this data to two of my journalist friends, one ex-Fortune and one presently an editor at Economic Times, surprised as they were about the consistency in the data, both pointed to a common anecdotal knowledge that mothers in rural India would rather feed their male child than the girl when it came to breastfeeding. That’s something pretty messed up.
Now, I am not sure if we will make a real dent in the universe with this step. But I am eager to see how this changes protein consumption among women a year or two down the line on our app.
If we are able to improve even by a decimal point, maybe as marketers, we can all take our jobs a little more seriously and think twice before placing that lady in the kitchen cooking for everyone else.
Issac John from Team HealthifyMe
