It is a scene that could be set anywhere. A young woman walks into her home from work. She makes sure her son's homework is done and begins cooking dinner for the family while fielding work calls. She juggles multiple things as her father watches on, her son does his homework, and her husband watches sports.
But in a new advertisement by the Indian lanudry detergent brand Ariel, there is a new aspect. The the woman's father narrates a letter he writes to his daughter about his realization that he never told her it was not her her job alone to be in charge of the home. He spent his life like her husband, allowing the wife to take care of the house work, obvlivious to all that it entails.
"Sorry on behalf of every dad who set the wrong example," he says in the letter.
This is one of the most powerful videos I have ever seen – showing how stereotypes hurt all of us and are passed from generation to generation. When little girls and boys play house they model their parents' behavior; this doesn’t just impact their childhood games, it shapes their long-term dreams.In this #SharetheLoad campaign, Ariel India, P&G, and BBDO Worldwide show how fathers and husbands can take small steps (like doing laundry) to create more equal homes. They won a #GlassLion at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for earlier work on this campaign. The real win is the way they are changing stereotypes and showing that a more equal world would be a better world for all of us. Dads, #ShareTheLoad and #LeanInTogether for equality. Thank you Andrew Robertson, Marc Pritchard, Sonali Dhawan,Vidya Murthy, Sharat Verma, Shailesh Jejurikar, Josy Paul, and Mohammed Ismail.
Posted by Sheryl Sandberg on Wednesday, February 24, 2016
But that is not the end of the story. The father promises to do better in his own life. That he will help her and help the woman's mother with the household chores. The video concludes with the man returning home and insisting to do his laundry and the wife helping him load up the washing machine.
It is not until the end that it is apparant this is an advertisement for landry detergent. Despite that it is an add the message is much more.
The campaign won a Glass Lion at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, but only recently started to catch wider attention. When Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg shared it on February 24, tens of thousands of people liked and shared the video. She praised it and the team behind it for launching a campaign that shows " how stereotypes hurt all of us and are passed from generation to generation."
The video concludes with a question, "Why is laundry only a mother's job?" It then answers the question with a call for everyone to #ShareTheLoad.
At its core, the advertisement is still driven to sell a product. But companies that want to use their power and reach to achieve gender equality deserve high praise.