Fight for cause of women farmers – It’s DS Group Vs Welspun over identical narrative

Another case of similarity in concept and look & feel of ad campaigns has surfaced. This time, it is a campaign by Welspun around women farmers done for Women Day’s this year, which has been pointed out to be very similar to a Women’s Day campaign done by DS Group, called #SaluteTheFarmHer, which was released in 2023.

Both the campaigns highlight how there is dismal representation and acknowledgement of women’s contribution in farming, despite have a sizeable presence.

Made by digital marketing agency Grapes, DS Group’s #SaluteTheFarmHer campaign was launched on the occasion of Women’s Day 2023, wherein it showcased that Google search for women farmers’ images yielded little or no representation for female farmers. The ad film noted that 80% of rural women in India work in agriculture. The ad concluded by calling the nation’s media houses, agricultural bloggers and stock footage photo portals for support in celebrating women’s vital role in building the nation.

In December 2023, DS Group released an even more impactful ad film on the missing women farmers, made by adman Titus Upputuru, which showed the impact of the issue, stating, “An overwhelming number of people have joined us on this journey. Now you can too.”

The Welspun campaign, too, points out that “75% of farming jobs are held by women, but when it comes to their representation in Search, they are barely visible.” The ad film goes on to mention about Welspun coming out with Equal Stock, which has been dubbed as the world’s first free image library of women farmers. A search for ‘Indian farmer’ on other free stock image portals such as Pexels, Pixabay, and Unsplash, will present several images of women farmers from Equal Stock. ^ a t o m is the agency behind the Welspun campaign.

The two campaign films do look similar in execution and concept – how Search for images of female farmers yield dismal results. But while the DS Group campaign asks the media, bloggers and stock photo portals to support and highlight a greater representation of women in agriculture, the Welspun campaign introduces a free stock images repository called Equal Stock, wherein one can download free stock images of women farmers.