Vicks touches the right chord with its transgender mom ad

It is very common today to see brands taking up social causes and giving social messages regarding things affecting various segments of society. However, very few brands are successful in creating a campaign or an ad film that gets a tear jerking response from people. An ad that managed to that recently was the P&G's Vicks through its new “Touch of Care” campaign.

What makes this ad special is that it goes beyond just bringing out the issue of transgender rights in India, but manages to do it in the most heartfelt way. By taking up a real-life story of Indian transgender activist Gauri Sawant and her adopted daughter Gayatri, the story brilliantly brings to light how an orphan child gets more than just a mother when she is adopted by Gauri.

With mother's care at the heart of the ad, it brings out the message that the care giving mother can also be a transgender. The ad agency, Publics Singapore, and P&G have done a good job by not revealing Gauri's face until the end. This brings about a normalcy of a mother caring for her child. It highlights how normal it is for a transgender person to give the touch of care of a mother.

Sadly, normalcy or to be treated equally is something that transgenders have to fight for even today in a society despite the Supreme Court ruling in 2014 granting transgender citizens recognition as third gender under the law.

We all know how brands use social messaging in order to get on the good graces of consumers, but this ad gives other brands a demo as to how to do. Brands are used to pushing their product or branding somewhere into the ad which more often than not ruins it, even though it may have something good to say.

What truly makes this ad stand out is that it does not revolve around the 'Vicks' product or brand at all and nor does it in any way prominently push the product in the ad. Only in one scene does it subtly feature a blurred Vicks bottle in the corner of the frame.

Brands and marketers definitely can learn a thing or two about content marketing and reaching out to consumers through this ad. Brands need to understand that it is not about them but the consumer that matters and making that connect with them does not always involve pushing a product down a consumers throat.