Home Centre Strikes a New Conversation in the Middle East

15% of homes in the Middle East are homes that are of mixed families, owing to remarriages. But, women marrying again is seen as a taboo – not many topic about it owing to social and cultural prejudices. And no brand has ever delved into it. 

The film is the first piece of a bigger campaign that will not only celebrate stepfathers but importantly, talk about the bigger topic of remarriage in the Arab world. It tells the story of a child who goes through the stages of fear, disgust, angst, and confusion against an evil creature who is going to rob him of his mother’s love, the warmth of his home, and everything that he holds dear. But through the course of the film, we see that the child’s views about the monster change over a period of months, and he finally accepts the creature - his stepdad.

The film ends with a message – stepdads are the dads who step up.

The track behind the film is an original soundtrack, written and composed for this film. Titled “the lighthouse and the boat”, the song is told through the metaphor of a lighthouse and a boat, encompassing the relationship between two people - a stepfather and a son - two worlds apart, trying to fill a missing gap in their life. A song of pain, anxiety, angst, the need for belonging, for connection and love, that we all feel in any deep life-long relationships that we share with someone else. In life, both stepfathers and sons are the lighthouses to each other as well as the boats to each other, finding their way to each other, amidst the stormy tides and the endless darkness of the sea.

The broader initiative has involved a content series by a prominent psychologist – Dr. Saliha Afridi - around the journey of remarriage, news features about the topic, as well as social content to create awareness and drive support for the topic. 

Home Centre is a leading furniture retailer in the Middle East with a brand purpose of “enabling every home to tell its own unique story”. It focuses on stories in homes across the Middle East that aren’t told. It has spoken about single moms and adoption in the past, and this time, it is tackling the taboo around remarriage and stepfathers. With many homes in the region being homes where women have remarried and stepfathers exist, yet no brand and no media having spoken about this topic, was a gap that needed to be addressed. And Home Centre stepped up.