Surf Excel, Approved by Moms

In countries including India, Indonesia and Vietnam, millions of families are making the move from hand to machine washing for the first time. 

I say families, in reality women are at heart of this transition. Many in traditional, rural communities.

Unilever brand, Surf Excel (Persil in the UK. Omo everywhere else) wanted to help them and establish itself as the de facto authority on all things machine wash.

Approved By Moms was a broad-ranging campaign which engaged with the brand’s enthusiastic online community, and gave an authoritative voice to those markets’ real washing machine experts: mums.

Working closely with the client in India, the content we developed has a tone very different to what would work in the UK.

Was this a missed opportunity to challenge traditional gender roles in society? Or does the effectiveness of the campaign (with videos each getting more than a million hits) justify it? Discuss.