As we’re a new site but want to be an overall resource I felt it might be good to showcase some of what I feel are the best ethical marketing campaigns from the past, this one is from 2015, and was a follow on from a hugely successful campaign in 2014 which I will feature later:
This campaign was a follow up to 2014’s incredibly powerful #LikeAGirl campaign which was one of the biggest digital advertising success stories in the world. It went viral in just a few days, sparking a movement that helped changed behaviour and propelled the Always brand to new heights.
The follow-up campaign for 2015 had a very difficult task. There were huge expectations, and the campaign itself needed to both continue the huge success and message of the original campaign as wekk as take the conversation of female empowerment even further while linking Always to a societal issue that people were passionate about.
Procter & Gamble’s used the same director as the original ads, Chelsea Pictures’ Lauren Greenfield. The ad asks both girls and grown women whether they’ve ever felt prevented from doing something because they are a girl. The answers are just as revealing as those in #LikeaGirl: from the little girl who poignantly says “It’s always the boys who rescue the girls in the stories” to the older women talking about how they changed when they reached puberty. The interviews are interspersed with statistics from an Always survey, such as that 72% of girls think society limits them.
Greenfield asks the girls to write their limitations on cardboard boxes and then kick them away. The spot introduces a new hashtag, #Unstoppable, asking girls to share their stories online. It was created by Leo Burnett Chicago and Toronto, the same agencies that worked on #LikeaGirl.
With the new “Always #LikeAGirl Unstoppable” video also came the next phase of the Always #LikeAGirl campaign: the creation of the Always Global Confidence Teaching Curriculum. The new confidence teaching curriculum, incorporating the latest research on confidence-building, was co-developed by Always and education-thought leaders and experts. The curriculum builds on Always’ 30 year heritage in puberty education and was hoped to reach up to 20 million girls in 65 counties per year. Additionally, TED, the non-profit devoted to spreading ideas, committed to support Always in teaching confidence to young girls. In this first-of-its-kind partnership, Always and TED worked to develop and spread confidence-inspiring content through TED-Ed, a leading educational platform spreading lessons worth sharing.
“In the spirit of TED’s mission, ideas worth spreading, we are partnering with the #LikeAGirl campaign to reach young girls at a critical stage in their lives,” said Stephanie Lo, TED-Ed Programs Director at TED. “We’re excited to work with Always on developing engaging educational content to help girls around the world maintain confidence through puberty and beyond.”
The “Always #LikeAGirl Unstoppable” video and confidence education efforts were unveiled during the global Always #LikeAGirl Confidence Summit in New York City on July 7th, 2015. The Summit featured a keynote address from young teen international actress and female empowerment advocate Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark on HBO’s Game of Thrones. Williams joined Always to spread the word about the #LikeAGirl mission.
“I believe it’s important for young women to feel supported and motivated to pursue their passions,” said Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams. “I applaud the work that Always is doing and am proud to join them in empowering girls to be confident and unstoppable #LikeAGirl.”
“You would expect that girls believe things will get better but, in fact, our latest research shows that one in two girls think that in 10 years there will be the same or even more limitations for young girls,” said Fama Francisco, Vice President, Global Feminine Care at Procter & Gamble. “This surprising statistic is a wake-up call for all of us to encourage girls to smash any limitations that hold them back and empower them to be unstoppable.”
An ad that managed, in many ways, to surpass the original incredibly well received ad and managed to continue on both promoting well being in young women and promoting their product.
Links
http://leoburnett.com/articles/work/p-and-g-always-launches-always-likeagirl-unstoppable-video/
http://www.always.com/en-us/about-us/our-epic-battle-like-a-girl
