A 'different' Women's Day

Across the world in various countries 8th of March people show their respect, appreciation and gratitude towards women in honor of their achievements. In India, this year Women's Day was celebrated on the back of the 'Nirbhaya'- Delhi Gang Rape Case tragedy. The brutality with which the crime was committed was disturbed the country and generated an entire nation's angst. A lot of sensitivity up surged on how we are treating women in our society. Protests were staged in all forms by one and all and the New Year celebrations were muted to a large extent. The UPA government created Nirbhaya Fund, in the memory of the Delhi gang-rape victim and also passed a bill of reducing the age of such offenders in terms of meting out the highest order of punishment, as in this case, the minor turned out to be the one who had caused maximum brutality. The entire mood of the country went low and in the wake of all this Women's Day was celebrated. But this time it didn't go out as just another day.

Gillette decided to take the first step by coming up with a campaign, "Soldier for Women" which aims at awakening the inner courage, respect and integrity etc. of men to stand up for women and guard them as their soldiers. The TV commercial shows men and women from all walks of life coming together and men standing with the women as their soldiers with the supers saying- "Soldiers wanted. Not to guard the borders. But to support the most important battle of the nation. To stand up for women" with the final line saying "Because when you respect women, you respect your nation."

Tata Tea's latest campaign by Lowe Lintas aims to awaken the nation and urges people to respect women and to shrug off the biases that we hold against them as a society. On Women's Day, Shah Rukh Khan launched the campaign 'Choti Shuruaat' where he claimed that in his films credit list from now onwards he would have his female co-star's name appear before him - a small change that would inspire others to do the same and trigger a transformation of our unjust behavior towards them.

A digital initiative titled 'I am Laadli' campaign was launched on Women's Day by Leo Burnett and Indigo Consulting on Facebook and Twitter celebrating womanhood and making 'Laadli' synonymous with women empowerment. The campaign was released with a video and 'I Am Laadli' app. The app encourages women to add Laadli to their profile names. On Twitter women were encouraged to tweet using the hashtag #iamlaadli. A first of its kind, a flash mob was started on Twitter too resulting in a flood of tweets.

On Women's Day this year people came forward and celebrated it in the spirit which it deserves to be celebrated with - pledging support for the women and the values they stand for, taking steps to give them their due; and thereby injecting a much needed breath of positivity in the entire nation's atmosphere.

The author is National Creative Director, Leo Burnett