Wardah: Hear in Hijab
Wardah tasked Dentsu Creative Indonesia with addressing the social isolation experienced by elderly Indonesian women with hearing loss. The client sought a solution that respected the cultural necessity of the hijab while improving audio clarity. The objective was to demonstrate the brand's commitment to inclusive beauty by removing the physical barriers that prevented these women from engaging fully in their daily lives.
Creative Idea
The brand turned a hearing aid into a stylish brooch worn outside the hijab.
Wardah reimagined hearing aids for Muslim women by moving the receiver outside the hijab into a stylish brooch. This innovation solved the muffled sound caused by fabric, ensuring elderly women could hear clearly while maintaining their faith and identity.
Engineering Beauty Beyond the Cosmetic Counter
A Technical Pivot for Inclusion
The development process required a departure from traditional beauty marketing, shifting focus toward hardware engineering. Partnering with Digital Nativ, the team spent months prototyping a device that balanced medical-grade audio performance with the aesthetic requirements of a fashion accessory. The final 12-gram receiver was engineered to be compatible with various hijab fabrics, ensuring it could be pinned securely without causing snagging or pulling. By moving the microphone outside the fabric, the device bypassed the acoustic dampening that previously hindered standard hearing aids, achieving 100dB of enhanced clarity.
Impact Beyond the Beauty Aisle
The campaign achieved significant reach, connecting with over 4.07 million people and generating an estimated US$112,000 in earned media value. While the project functioned as a pilot program rather than a mass-market retail launch, it delivered a 10x higher engagement rate than typical beauty brand activations. This success underscored a shift in how the brand approaches its social responsibility, moving from traditional beauty messaging to solving tangible, everyday challenges for its core demographic.
Redefining the Brand Mission
The initiative was driven by the insight that 1 in 3 Indonesian women aged 50 and older suffer from partial hearing loss, a condition often exacerbated by the way traditional hearing aids interact with the hijab. Khikin Indahsari, Group Head of New Brand Innovation at ParagonCorp, noted that the project was a direct expression of the brand's belief that beauty should not be separate from how women move through the world. By prioritizing the needs of elderly women, the campaign successfully bridged the gap between religious identity and modern technological accessibility.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Wardah leveraged its deep cultural authority and commitment to beauty to innovate beyond cosmetics into inclusive, life-improving assistive technology.
Category
Beauty brands typically focus on superficial aesthetics, ignoring the functional, daily physical challenges faced by their aging consumer base.
Customer
Elderly hijab-wearing women wanted to remain socially connected and safe without compromising their religious identity or comfort.
Culture
The growing demand for inclusive design and the celebration of aging women in Indonesia provided the perfect context for this innovation.
Company
Wardah leveraged its deep cultural authority and commitment to beauty to innovate beyond cosmetics into inclusive, life-improving assistive technology.
Category
Beauty brands typically focus on superficial aesthetics, ignoring the functional, daily physical challenges faced by their aging consumer base.
Strategy:
Solve physical barriers through inclusive design to turn brand values into tangible, life-changing utility.
Customer
Elderly hijab-wearing women wanted to remain socially connected and safe without compromising their religious identity or comfort.
Culture
The growing demand for inclusive design and the celebration of aging women in Indonesia provided the perfect context for this innovation.
Strategy:
Solve physical barriers through inclusive design to turn brand values into tangible, life-changing utility.
Results
The campaign achieved significant success across multiple metrics: Media Reach of 4.07M, Earned PR Value of USD 112K, and 10X Higher Engagement. Additionally, providing proper warning sound access is linked to up to 50% lower fall risk for users.
4.07M
Media Reach
USD 112K
Earned PR Value
10X
Higher Engagement
Strategy Technique
Build an Utility, Not an Ad
The brand moved beyond traditional advertising by engineering a physical tool that directly addresses a specific, underserved pain point. This creates genuine value that strengthens brand loyalty through tangible problem-solving.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Turn Message into Product
The campaign transformed a functional medical necessity into a wearable accessory. By integrating the hearing aid into a brooch, it solved a physical barrier while enhancing the user's aesthetic and cultural expression.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
Wardah's campaign excels through groundbreaking Industrial Design and thoughtful Product Engineering, re-architecting medical devices into stylish cultural accessories.
The integration of a functional wireless hearing aid receiver into an elegant cochlea-inspired brooch seamlessly bridges medical necessity and religious fashion.
Re-engineering hearing architecture to split the outer microphone signal wirelessly to an inner earpiece solves sound attenuation caused by fabric layers.
“The fusion of industrial product design and wireless technology turns a functional disability solution into a proud fashion statement for elderly Muslim women.”
