Bitter Sisters Sue Brothers in Rakhi Campaign Lawyer Said ‘No’ To
“We were complaining about Indian brothers. About how they never send Rakhi gifts,” Gaurav Chandraker, creative director at Indian fashion accessories brand, Salty, tells LBB.
“And that’s when Khushi Baranwal, our intern, said: ‘What if we just send them a legal notice?’”
Raksha Bandhan or Rakhi is a Hindu tradition that takes place in August to celebrate the bond between siblings. The festival is celebrated in many different ways across the world, but often involves a sister tying a bracelet around her brother's wrist, while the brother wishes his sister happiness and health.
The tradition has evolved to include gifting but it seems that many brothers either forget or don’t put in as much effort when gifting their sisters. A quick social media scroll brings up plenty of reels and memes on this topic.
This year, Salty decided to address this with ‘Legal Notice’ – a cheeky campaign leaning into this cultural dynamic. “Sibling love in India is never just sweet. It’s sweet and salty. There’s affection, and then there’s a whole lot of passive aggression,” Gaurav says. “‘Legal Notice’ made invisible frustration visible and funny. It twisted something sacred just enough to make people gasp but not enough to make them turn away. That balance is the sweet spot.”
After realising the intern’s words were the most honest thing the team had heard, while the rest of India said “celebrate the bond”, Salty said “sue him”.
“I’ll admit, I was scared,” says Gaurav. “The team was split. The lawyer actually said ‘no’. But my co-founder Kanishka Garg and intern Khushi said, ‘F**k it, let’s do it’. Turns out they were right. People loved it.”
Popular on social media, the campaign spurred many to add their own jokes and experiences in response. “That’s when we knew we’d struck a nerve. It got attention, but more importantly, it converted.”
A microsite designed for the campaign let sisters send a legal notice to their brothers which included a QR code leading to Salty’s Rakhi giftbox page. In under two days, 1500 legal notices were sent, the website received over 200,000 visits, the brand received over 500,000 impressions on LinkedIn and “we had one panic-sticken nation of brothers,” Gaurav jests.
“But more than numbers,” he says, “the biggest win was emotion. People got it. They weren’t just reacting. They were participating. They made it their own. And this is just the beginning, it will grow more by the time Rakhi actually comes around.”
The Salty brand has never just been about cute accessories. “It’s about letting women be a little bitter. A little dramatic. A little loud about what they want,” says Gaurav. “Every time there’s an idea on the table, we ask one question: is it salty enough?”
Will it start a fight at the boardroom table? Will it make someone uncomfortable in a fun way? Will it get people to stop scrolling and say, “What even is this?” These are the questions the team ruminates on during their creative process.
“We’ve never been conventional. That’s by design,” says Gaurav. “From launching LED earrings on Diwali (as a joke, that went viral), to bag charms that let people wear their emotional baggage, everything we do is built to stir something.
“Salty, by name and nature, is the friend who roasts you, calls you out, but shows up when it matters. We’re playful, we’re bitter, and we don’t do nice-for-the-sake-of-nice. This campaign was a natural extension of that identity. It showed us that absurdity with a point lands hard.”
Most important of all, Gaurav shares that ‘Legal Notice’ taught him “the idea you’re most scared to present is probably the one worth doing. People are bored. Sadvertising is tired. Quirk is overdone. Every scroll is a repetition. Every brand says the same thing in a different shade of beige. Stunts shake that. It's purple in beige.”
That’s why, he says, “we don’t ask ‘is this too much?’, we ask ‘is this too little?’ Safe is for passwords. Not for brands.”
