Dove reshapes India’s conventional matchmaking process with Mothermonials
Dove wanted to connect with Indian women and be an ally against societal beauty pressures, in line with its global quest for “real beauty”.
Beauty pressures are particularly strong when it comes to India’s matchmaking process, with 90% of single women feeling judged on their appearance and 68% saying beauty-based rejections damage their self-esteem.
Dove wanted to challenge this behaviour.
More than 90% of marriages in India are arranged and mothers play a crucial role in shaping their daughters' matrimonial prospects by creating profiles.
Digital portals now allow families to create and manage ads while the digital networks of friends, family and agents help spread them far and wide. Sadly, however, such profiles are dominated by the objectification of women.
Dove created Mothermonials – an empowering solution enabling mothers to dismantle the "beauty test" and instead focus on connecting their daughters with partners based on shared values and personalities.
This reimagined approach shifted the focus from height, weight, and colour to a daughter’s personality and inner beauty, seen through a mother’s loving perspective.
We inspired mothers to take our fresh approach using emotional conversations with real mothers to highlight beauty biases in arranged marriages and via full front-page takeovers, contrasting regressive ads with Mothermonials.
We secured strong backing from powerful voices, including Sima Taparia, Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking Host, who embraced Mothermonials after hearing brides’ perspectives on outdated practices.
We also gave women practical tools to fight beauty pressure, including an interactive filter that helped them to respond to height, weight, colour questions with witty answers highlighting personality traits.
Technology pushed our message further with predictive text on Bobble AI suggesting Mothermonials during profile creation on matrimonial apps, lock-screen takeovers and push notifications that took active matrimonial app users to our stories.
Finally, we created an AI-powered portal for bias-free matchmaking, integrating with Times Soulmate's matrimonial platform to target active profile creators.
Dove didn’t just challenge beauty standards—it rewrote them. By empowering mothers to tell their daughters’ stories, the campaign sparked a cultural shift in how beauty is defined, discussed, and celebrated in modern India.
