The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2023
Olay revives India's first women in STEM as AI-Shu, a virtual mentor girls can ask
Women are 43% of STEM grads, 14% of STEM workers; Olay built AI-Shu, an AI mentor channeling six forgotten pioneers, with one-on-one mentoring behind it.
Olay (P&G) · vLookup.ai
What it had to solve
In India, women earn 43% of STEM degrees but only 14% of STEM jobs; Olay traced the leak to a lack of mentorship. Role models existed but were unknown, distant, and not someone a student could consult.
How it works
India produces women for science but loses them on the way to the lab: women are 43% of STEM graduates yet only 14% of the STEM workforce. Olay's diagnosis was mentorship — students rarely meet a woman scientist, let alone get one to advise them on a career in the field.
The brand answered with AI-Shu, built with the women's mentoring platform vLookup.ai. A three-minute film summoned the first women in Indian science — physician Anandibai Joshi, gynaecologist Kadambini Ganguly, biochemist Kamala Sohoni, botanist Janaki Ammal, mathematician Mangala Narlikar and astronaut Kalpana Chawla — telling the societal pressures each overcame. Their combined spirit became AI-Shu, a virtual AI mentor girls can actually approach and ask.
The idea worked because access followed inspiration: alongside the film, women could register on vLookup.ai for one-on-one mentoring sessions with industry experts in their chosen fields, converting a beautiful story into a working pipeline.
AI-Shu went on to win Gold for Diversity & Inclusion and two Silvers at MMA Smarties India 2024, one of 87 campaigns honoured at the October 2024 ceremony — proof that purpose work with a functional follow-through outperforms pure storytelling.
Why it lands
- Resurrecting real firsts — Joshi, Chawla and the rest — gives the mentor a credibility no invented character could claim; their actual struggles are the script.
- An askable AI mentor fixes the real barrier (no one to consult), while inspirational-only campaigns stop short of the moment a student needs guidance.
- Marrying the virtual persona to real vLookup.ai sessions turned a film into a service, so the campaign's ending is a registration, not a view.
What it did
Gold for Diversity & Inclusion and Silvers for Purpose and Film at MMA Smarties India 2024; made the mentorship gap visible and turned inspiration into an actual mentoring funnel.
What you can take
If your audience's barrier is 'no one to ask,' don't only show them heroes — build someone they can question; an AI persona scales the mentoring that scarcity makes impossible.
Since then
MMA Smarties India 2024 (announced 11-14 October 2024) gave AI-Shu its Gold in Diversity & Inclusion, plus Silvers in Brand Purpose/Activism and Short/Long-Form Video; the winners were credited to P&G's in-house unit PG One. The vLookup.ai mentoring funnel remained open for registration after the film's launch. Quantitative outcomes — number of mentoring sessions or awareness lift — were not published in the launch or award coverage, so the case stands on the mechanism rather than reported reach.
Sources
- Olay invokes first Indian women in STEM to inspire next gen, with virtual mentor AI-Shu
- 87 of India's best modern marketing campaigns honored at MMA Smarties
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