Best Sustainability or Purpose-Driven Campaign

Winner’s Spotlight: Ogilvy Pakistan’s Message in a Mithai Box

The Global Influencer Marketing Awards 2025 saw one campaign stand out amongst the rest. In both trophy wins and social impact, Ogilvy Pakistan’s Message in a Mithai Box campaign created real change in the lives of local women.

Led by Aiza G. Alam, Director PR, Influence & Social, the initiative transformed a centuries-old wedding tradition into a vehicle for women’s empowerment.

The Message in a Mithai Box campaign was developed in partnership with Rahat Bakers & Sweets and the Centre for Human Rights. It has since garnered wide acclaim for the real change it sparked across Pakistan.

Most notably, the initiative directly assisted approximately 50 women in navigating high-risk marital situations and contributed to a landmark Supreme Court decision regarding women’s rights in marriage contracts. Beyond these formal victories, the campaign successfully dismantled long-standing taboos, sparking a national conversation that turned a confusing legal document into a tool for empowerment. 

Even without a traditional marketing budget, the power of a strong insight allowed the campaign to save lives and provide a safe, secret lifeline for legal aid in a society where such actions can carry immense personal risk.

After chatting with Alam, it’s clear how much careful planning and thought went into the campaign.

The problem: legal literacy

SA: Why is it that even educated women in Pakistan don’t know their rights in a marriage contract?

A: “It’s within our networks of educated women, might even be journalists, who might be actors, and they don’t have basic rights. They don’t even know what they signed up for. And that’s what got us thinking, why is it that we don’t know? Why don’t we know our rights?”

SA: Is the difficulty rooted in the language of the contract itself?

AGA: “It’s not because women don’t know how to read; women know how to read. Even the educated ones did not know what it said, because it’s a little confusing to understand. It’s not easy to understand… I said, it’s so difficult to understand what it even says, what am I even signing up for?”

The strategy: culture and Mithai

SA: Why did you partner with a bakery for a legal rights campaign?

AGA: “Rahat Bakers, what they sell is called Mithai. Whenever anything happy happens in our culture, we usually send Mithai; it’s like a staple for every wedding. And women are the ones who would kind of tabulate… it’s the women who are usually looking into it. The men would maybe sometimes facilitate by going to the shop and just purchasing it… but usually it’s the women. And then they distribute it into boxes, and it’s like an entire ritual.”

SA: How did you approach the religious and cultural sensitivity of the topic?

AGA: “It’s not because of Islam. Islam is a religion that is very feminist; it allows you to be. It’s because of male gatekeeping within this Pakistani community… which has led to this. If a woman talks about their marriage rights, people look down upon her.”

The impact: breaking the taboo

SA: What was the result of offering free legal aid through this campaign?

AGA: “Helping women by giving them free legal aid, that on its own was so huge. Because you can give a call to anyone on the side, you might not go with your father or mother, because they look down upon you for it. You might not even talk to your husband about it, or your fiancé, but you would call them up secretly, and that’s what’s happened.”

SA: Did you expect to reach the Supreme Court or help so many women directly?

AGA: “We did not have that as an end goal. We never thought it would come to that. We set out with, like, ‘Okay, maybe we can get one woman to take this up,’ because it’s a taboo. You need to understand that it is a big taboo to call up a lawyer to help you out in a bad marriage.”

Reflections: solidarity and safety

SA: How did the community and influencers react to a campaign with no budget?

AGA: “I didn’t have any money for it. I didn’t have budgets to give them… even then, they went ahead and supported in whichever way they wanted. Women always, in Pakistan, the women are amazing. They will support each other as much as possible. They’re kind. If the insight is strong enough, it will be sticky enough for people to pick up.”