The official broadcaster and digital partner of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), Viacom18 has unveiled a new ‘Search Hijack’ advertisement campaign featuring the Indian cricketer, Smriti Mandhana.
The fundamental tenet of the ad is that parents in India tend to choose film stars for their female baby names while they choose cricket players as names for their male children.
With the help of our women cricketers, Viacom18 hopes to challenge the status quo and inspire parents to consider more options while naming their newborn daughters. The advertising campaign suggests historic names for newborn girls to new parents.
When expectant parents conduct a Google search, the 22feet Tribal Worldwide invention Search Hijack suggests girl names to them. Smriti Mandhana, one of India’s most well-known women cricketers, appears in the advertisement, which leverages Google’s remarketing feature to show parents some of the trendiest names for future stars.
Smriti Mandhana, said, “It is not just a wonderful feeling to be the face of this campaign by Viacom18 but also to throw weight behind the thought that drove it. These are small steps towards big changes in the way we function as a society and I do hope that somewhere everything we do while wearing the India badge on-field will inspire the next generation of aspiring cricketers to come.”
Viacom18 Creative Head of Marketing, Shagun Seda, said, “Our vision is to develop the WPL into the world’s biggest women’s sporting league. Search Hijack is one of the many efforts we are making along those lines, to grow awareness about our women cricketers and their exploits on the field which will make them household names. Our aspiration is to popularize these names to an extent where ‘Smriti’ or ‘Mithali’ are just as much sought after names as ‘Sachin’ or ‘Rohit’ eventually.”
Vishnu Srivatsav, National Creative Director, 22Feet Tribal World Wide, said, “The launch of the WPL wasn’t just a sporting event; it was the start of an era and a historic moment in sports made possible only by the endeavours of a long list of heroes. We wanted to celebrate these women in a way that ensures their legacy lives on. We realized that we needed to intervene at a moment that ensures their name is carried on—the moment when parents-to-be were searching for their baby’s name. And so, the name search hijack was born.”