The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2025
Safi breaks Muslim women's code words to sell deodorant
A modest-skincare brand cannot show skin, so Safi used the code words hijabistas already had for underarm problems in its ads and packs.
Wipro Unza (Safi)
What it had to solve
Deodorant advertising traditionally shows lots of skin, and for Safi — a bodycare brand for modest Muslim women — that was out of the question. The challenge was direct: how do you sell a deodorant when you cannot say what it is for? Research showed the target audience was already talking about unpleasant underarm issues, but only through private code words.
How it works
Safi sells bodycare to modest Muslim women, which created an awkward problem for its deodorant: the category is normally sold with images of bare skin and explicit talk about underarms, and neither was available to the brand. The question the agency MBCS was handed was direct — how do you sell a deodorant when you cannot say what it is for?
The answer came from listening to the audience. Malaysian women were already discussing underarm problems, but in a private shorthand: dark underarms were 'Ketitam', wet underarms 'Ketibas' and smelly underarms 'Ketibus', compressed from the Malay words for the condition. Safi took that secret language and made it the campaign, carrying the code words through advertisements, packaging and influencer content for Safi Hijabista Bodycare Deodorant.
Using words the audience already spoke let the brand communicate precisely without breaching modesty, and it turned a category Muslims usually whisper about into a conversation women were willing to join. The work, entered as 'Cracking the Secret Language: Ketibas, Ketibus, Ketitam', earned a Silver in influencer marketing and Bronzes in small-budget products and social media products at the Malaysian Effie Awards 2025, with recognition at the Kancil Awards 2025 as well.
Why it lands
- Code words already existed, so the campaign needed no new vocabulary — it simply made the audience's own language visible in the brand's voice.
- Addressing dark, wet and smelly underarms through their playful nicknames kept the message discreet enough for hijab-wearing consumers to share.
- Putting the words on packaging turned every bottle into a conversation piece that invited women to decode the language together.
- Influencers who belonged to the same community carried the words naturally, so the campaign read as recognition rather than exposure.
What it did
The campaign, entered as 'Cracking the Secret Language: Ketibas, Ketibus, Ketitam', took a Silver in influencer marketing plus Bronzes in small-budget products and social media products at the Malaysian Effie Awards 2025, and the Kancil Awards 2025 recognised the work in its brand experience and activation categories.
What you can take
When a taboo keeps a category unspoken, the audience has already invented a vocabulary for it — the brand's move is to borrow those words and make them visible, not to invent polite new ones.
Since then
The Safi campaign became one of the flagship pieces behind MBCS being named Agency of the Year at the Malaysian Effie Awards 2025, where it collected a Silver in influencer marketing and Bronzes in small-budget products and social media products, alongside recognition at the Kancil Awards 2025. For a category constrained by modesty, it left a reusable pattern: mine the community's existing coded vocabulary, then give it back through ads, packaging and voices the audience already trusts.
Sources
- Breaking The Armpit Code — Kancil Awards 2025 winners entry
- 2025 Malaysia Effie Awards winners and finalists
- MBCS named Agency of the Year at Malaysia Effie Awards 2025
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