Women empowerment was a movement that took off years ago and is still struggling to make people understand its importance. Women were once termed destined to take care of certain household chores and nothing beyond that. It took years of fight and education to make people realize that men and women deserve equal opportunity and freedom of living.
In today’s era, brands have also been making changes to their marketing approach so that their product does not stereotype like such orthodox notions.
Recently Scotch Brite’s logo became the topic of talk after Karthik Srinivasan, a communications strategy consultant, recently took to LinkedIn to call out Scotch Brite’s logo which has the image of a woman with a bindi alongside. The logo may come across as the brand implies that their product may only be for the females to use.
Srinivasan started his post by writing, “Pushpanjali Banerji recently shared with me a photo of a pack of Scotch-Brite and after I noticed what she pointed to, I couldn’t unsee it!”
He further added, “The logo has the vector image of a woman with a bindi!”
“While a lint roller does not carry this, other products like scrub pad/sponge, sink brush, broom, bathroom wipe, stainless steel scrub, toilet brush do carry it,” he noted.
Srinivasan almost instantly received a reply from Atul Mathur, Head of Marketing, Consumer Business at 3M India, Scotch-Brite’s parent company.
Atul Mathur wrote, “You have correctly surmised that this is a legacy vector and that it is undoubtedly time to move on from regressive beliefs. Recognizing this, we started down the road to drive behavioral change externally.” He also shared a link to an advertisement from a series by the company called ‘Ghar Sabka, Toh Kaam Bhi Sabhi Ka?’
Srinivasan’s post and Scotch Brite’s quick reply shows us how aware brands are becoming about their marketing approach. The discussion became viral on LinkedIn and other social media platforms and people were quick to give in their input on the whole matter.
