Kaya Raises The Bar: Emphasises an Inclusive Policy
Indian dermatologist network enabled brand, from the stable of Marico, Kaya, recently unveiled a new identity, symbolic of a strategic realignment with its ever-growing young consumer base. With the new purpose-fuelled mantra – “Beautiful is You” – the brand has now taken the first step towards extending support to the transgender community with the launch of a new initiative.
Said Rajiv Nair, CEO, Kaya and Nivedita Nanda, CHRO, Kaya, “With the new purpose fuelled inclusive beauty rebrand – Beautiful is You, Kaya proudly hosts a diverse client base, including transgender clients. With this campaign, we are taking a step further in realising our promise to reposition ourselves as an inclusive beauty brand, by opening up work opportunities for the transgender community. From hiring transgender women in collaboration with PeriFerry, to creating a safe and welcoming workspace through sensitisation workshops and trainings for internal employees, we are announcing a commitment to keep hiring more transgender individuals across our clinics Pan India.”
In an era when inclusive beauty is increasingly becoming a mantra for brands across the spectrum, Kaya is pushing the narrative forward to urge society to see beauty beyond gender and cultural norms. For the transgender community, whose very identity and existence has been invisibilised, beauty has been an improbable dream. For this International Transgender Day of Visibility, the brand has launched a new initiative that reiterates how beauty is intrinsic and visibility is more than representation.
As per, Gazal Dhaliwal, trans woman and Bollywood screenwriter, and also the voice behind Kaya’s #BeautyInSafety campaign film, “It’s good to see that Kaya has taken the initiative of hiring transgender people and opening up an opportunity for us to use our voice to tell our story. It was wonderful to work with the Schbang for Good team, who brought in a lens of learning, sensitivity and sincerity to the narrative. Kaya, as an established brand with a presence amongst a predominantly cisgender audience, has taken its first step towards taking a firm and active stand to foster a culture of true inclusion. We hope other brands and individuals will draw inspiration from this and take up similar initiatives.”
Explained Rhea Amin, AVP-Integrated Solutions, Schbang, “We wanted to truly pass the mic to this community, set an example for how campaigns should create the space for marginalized identities to drive their narrative with their voice, and create real impact. From working with Gazal, who is not a trained VO artist, but so kindly agreed to lend their voice to the film, to spending time with the people featured in the film and understanding their lives closely, before shooting and showcasing moments that are really a part of their day to day lives. The team consistently consulted people from the trans community and incorporated each of their suggestions and lived insights into the aspects of this campaign, making this an incomparable learning and growth experience for all of us as well, and one that will always remain close to our hearts.”
With this effort Kaya seems to have set a strong precedent for public service announcements and cause marketing campaigns by impacting measurable change that goes beyond performative representation. Even before the campaign was conceptualised by Schbang for Good, Kaya, in collaboration with PeriFerry, began training transgender women to upskill them with salon skills and hire them at key Kaya clinics in the country. Alongside this, the brand is also equipping 20,000 transgender people facing medical exclusion, with sanitizers.
Samyukta Ganesh Iyer, VP and Head of Marketing, Kaya said, “#BeautyInSafety is a first-of-its-kind campaign that is informed by the real lives of the trans community and doesn’t hold back from capturing their true emotions, even the difficult ones, the ones that are harder to talk about. Because at Kaya, we stay true to our values of #BeautifulIsYou. Aside from our collaboration with PeriFerry, it was the natural next step for us to extend our efforts and make the 20,000 sanitisers we distribute to NGOs working with transgender people across the country, a touchpoint for them to access the best-in-class virtual training from our experts from the safety of their homes, so that they can upskill themselves, leading to better job opportunities. But for us at Kaya, this campaign is only a stepping stone towards the many initiatives we aim to create for the trans community going forward.”
India’s 2011 Census was the first census ever to incorporate the number of ‘trans’ population of the country. The report estimated that 4.8 million Indians identified as transgender which was perhaps much less than actually existing.
Systemic social exclusion has repeatedly rendered the transgender community with a lack of opportunities, forcing a majority of them to take up unorganised work and livelihoods that threaten their safety.
