BROOKE BOND RED LABEL TEA | 6 PACK BAND | 2016
The Day Music Made Someone's Existence Visible / BROOKE BOND RED LABEL TEA "6 PACK BAND"
In 2016, an Indian tea brand teamed up with a transgender band of six. The reason it won the Grand Prix at Cannes comes down to this: the women weren't filmed as people to feel sorry for.
The problem
In India, hijra are legally recognized as a gender, yet they're often called on to sing and dance at weddings and celebrations—while in everyday life, many are abandoned by their families and end up standing on the street. Brooke Bond Red Label had long positioned itself as "the tea that brings people together."
The insight
These women, who had always sung at celebrations, and a tea built around bringing people together—the connection was already there. What HUL wanted wasn't a pity-inducing awareness ad, but a project that confronted the taboo head-on.
The idea
A producer met with more than 200 people to pick the six members, who recorded a cover of Pharrell Williams' "Happy." Six music videos were made featuring celebrities like Sonu Nigam and Hrithik Roshan. The person behind the project said he "pitched it the same way you'd pitch putting together a boy band." The premise was that the songs had to be genuinely good—that came before anything about being transgender.
What happened
The six videos reached more than 25 million people, and the campaign won the Glass Lion Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions in 2016. The following year, the band took the stage at Cannes, making their international debut.
Afterthought
This wasn't built as a social-cause ad—it grew out of the tea brand's own philosophy. Apparently there was pushback inside the company, with people asking whether it might be mistaken for "tea made for transgender people." It went ahead anyway. This is a story about music turning someone into someone people could finally see.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2016
