Star & Disney India

#BreakTheLoop

Nobody needs to say it to you any more for you to hear it. By adulthood most women carry a running commentary picked up somewhere between the classroom and the first job, about who is prettier, who got chosen, who should have kept her opinion to herself. Star & Disney India built #BreakTheLoop around that voice. It launched on Women's Day 2021 with a film following one woman from childhood to old age, named the self-doubt that gender expectations put on repeat, and set out to spend a month interrupting it.

The influencer side had to do something a brand film can't, which is make it personal. Working on the concept and messaging with the team, we built it around confession rather than slogans. Nine women creators each told their own loop, the specific one they had lived with, and then asked their followers to share theirs. That last turn mattered most, because a stereotype loses a lot of its grip the moment you hear someone you admire admit she believed it too.

I wrote the copy to read like a diary, not a manifesto. On @satshyaa's post the loop was competition between women, traced from school to work, starting with "In school, it's 'She got the lead role, you didn't'." It ended somewhere better, with cheering for other women instead of measuring against them. The post drew 13,000 likes, and the campaign went on to win Gold for Best Storytelling in an Influencer Campaign and Bronze for Most Impactful Influencer Marketing Campaign at the e4m IMPACT Digital Influencer Awards 2021. A loop like that breaks one person at a time, and it's easier when someone goes first.