New Delhi | March 8th, 2025 – ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) is celebrating Women’s Day 2025 with the launch of #DekhBehen, an unconventional campaign designed to shift the narrative around women’s voices. From March 7 to March 13, this grassroots initiative challenges the traditional approach to Women’s Day campaigns by empowering women to speak for themselves rather than being spoken for. With no extravagant ad spends, #DekhBehen is a movement that emphasizes organic engagement, where real stories, humor, and shared experiences take center stage. It’s an invitation for women everywhere to take ownership of their narratives, unfiltered and unapologetic. The campaign leverages social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to drive participation and create buzz through relatable content.
Instead of the usual polished corporate messaging, #DekhBehen puts women front-and-center as the storytellers. Using the colloquial phrase “Dekh Behen” (meaning “Look, sister”), the campaign invites women to share their stories, challenges, and triumphs—whether humorous, poignant, or empowering. The focus is on breaking conventional norms and addressing taboo topics with candid dialogue.
ONDC’s approach to #DekhBehen is rooted in the idea that real stories from real people carry far more weight than scripted slogans. The campaign uses humor as an equalizer, inviting everyone to laugh at the shared absurdities and challenges women face every day. This approach not only makes the campaign more relatable but also ensures that the tone remains positive and uplifting.
With no paid advertisements, the social media strategy focuses on organic virality. At the heart of the campaign is the #DekhBehen hashtag challenge, where participants are encouraged to share their own “Dekh Behen” moments, tag friends, and keep the conversation going. This simple but effective mechanism allows the campaign to spread naturally, fueled by user-generated content (UGC). In addition, ONDC’s employees, participants or partners act as the first wave of influencers, sharing their personal #DekhBehen stories and helping to ignite the movement within their networks.
ONDC’s community of women entrepreneurs, sellers, and startups will also play a key role in amplifying the message. The campaign’s real-time social media engagement ensures its relevance throughout the Women’s Day week. ONDC’s team is actively listening to trending topics and conversations, incorporating #DekhBehen into timely cultural moments and memes.
While #DekhBehen is playful in tone, it’s deeply aligned with ONDC’s broader mission and values. ONDC was founded to create an inclusive ecosystem in digital commerce, breaking monopolies and giving equal opportunities to small players. Inclusivity and democratization are in ONDC’s DNA, and #DekhBehen extends those principles to the social sphere. By democratizing the conversation around women’s experiences – empowering any woman to voice her story – ONDC is walking the talk on inclusion. Every voice carries weight, just as every seller gets a fair chance on the open network.
#DekhBehen is an innovative marketing experiment that challenges the notion that big impact requires big spending. It puts faith in community and content, echoing ONDC’s belief in the power of network effects. Just as the open network thrives by participants organically interacting and transacting, this campaign thrives by participants organically conversing and amplifying. It’s a full-circle moment: the medium is the message, and the method (open, organic, inclusive) is the story itself.