#BeautyInSafety - Kaya | Clapboard Ad Archive

Kaya’s #BeautyInSafety campaign, launched in 2022 with creative direction from Schbang, stands as a pointed intervention in India’s beauty market, using the lens of workplace opportunity and authentic representation to confront the deep-rooted marginalization of the country’s transgender community. The campaign acknowledges a systemic failure to recognize the capability and value of over a million trans people, shifting dialogue away from tokenized flamboyance to the human aspirations and agency often denied by entrenched stereotypes. At the heart of this campaign is a brand-led assertion that inclusion is not simply a brand promise but a measurable action, as Kaya sets out its commitments to create employment pathways, deliver upskilling programs, and build gender-inclusive and sensitized environments across both customer-facing services and internal workplaces. Released on Transgender Day of Visibility, the campaign leverages both the symbolic timing and the weight of lived transgender experience, blending real voices and imagery as an invitation to co-create safer, more affirming spaces for all. What Clapboard’s taxonomy would classify as FORMAT#10—Associated User Imagery—is at play here, as the campaign foregrounds profile-driven visuals and testimonials that allow the target audience to see themselves or those they aspire to be, rather than defaulting to product demonstration or conventional brand-hero tropes. This approach differentiates Kaya within the broader competitive landscape—where category heavyweights like Lakmé emphasize self-expression through aesthetic innovation, or brands such as Plum and Forest Essentials build their equity around ethical sourcing or heritage wellness—by offering a markedly more activist stance on social participation and professional inclusion. Engagement figures reinforce the campaign’s impact, with significant reach and public interaction demonstrating an appetite for brand narratives that transcend standard diversity cues and move toward real systemic advocacy. The narrative challenges audiences directly to become collaborators in this ongoing transformation, making clear that responsibility for trans inclusion does not end with brands but must be carried forward by society at large. The campaign earns 71/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. In a beauty sector increasingly defined by performative claims of inclusivity, #BeautyInSafety signals that communicative clarity, real-world policies, and community-centred creative are emerging as the new table stakes for brands seeking both credibility and cultural relevance.