Title	#LIKEAGIRL
Brand	P&G
Product/Service	ALWAYS
Category	A09. USE OR INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL OR SOCIAL MEDIA
Entrant Company	LEO BURNETT LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Contributing Company	LEO BURNETT LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Contributing Company 2	HOLLER London, UNITED KINGDOM
Contributing Company 3	LEO BURNETT TORONTO, CANADA
Contributing Company 4	LEO BURNETT CHICAGO, USA
Media Agency	STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Chicago, USA
Production Company	CHELSEA PICTURES Chicago, USA

Name	Company	Position
Judy John	Leo Burnett Toronto	Chief Creative Officer
Heidi Philip	Leo Burnett Toronto	Account Director
Becky Swanson	Leo Burnett Chicago	Creative Director
Aj Hassan	Leo Burnett Chicago	Copywriter
Hmi Hmi Gibbs	Leo Burnett Chicago	Art Director
Annette Sally/Shaina Holtz/Sandy Kolkey/Susan Lulich	Leo Burnett Chicago	Account Supervisors
Adine Becker	Leo Burnett Chicago	Agency Producer
Lauren Greenfield	Chelsea Films	Director
Kathryn Hempel	Cutters	Editor
Jake Bruene	Chelsea Films	Participation Director
Milos Obradovic	Leo Burnett/Holler London	Digital Creative Director
Angel Capobianco	Leo Burnett/Holler London	Copywriter
Nick Bygraves	Leo Burnett/Holler London	Art Director
Laura Jones	Leo Burnett/Holler London	Digital Planner
Rachel Darville/Karuna Rawa	Leo Burnett Chicago	Brand Planners
Anna Coscia	Leo Burnett/Holler London	Brand Planner
Gaia Gilardini/Lisa Bamber/Matteo Carcassola	Leo Burnett/Holler London	Account Supervisors
SMG		Additional company

The Campaign

Branded entertainment, if executed correctly, is the new holy grail of the industry; replacing waning formats consumers have tired of. However the knowledge of its power has spread, and has opened the floodgates to all and sundry - the good, the bad and the ugly, leaving consumers as cynical as ever. We didn't want to add to the ongoing noise, nor be a flash in the pan - we wanted to uncover a global cultural insight and use it to drive brand equity and engage consumers for years to come. We wanted to create something that adds to and shapes the culture of the world, not just another piece of advertising in a cluttered market place.

Results

Always, a leader in feminine hygiene products and puberty education worldwide, had a desire to raise brand awareness and popularity, but most of all needed an emotive reason for women to engage with the brand. Feminine care is a low interest category filled with stereotypes and outdated, patronising communications. The brand is wallpaper to our audience, leaving them to reach for the latest promotional offer. Always is positioned around 'confidence' based on the superior performance of their products, but we wanted to understand confidence in a more meaningful way. At puberty, a girl’s confidence drops significantly, with the lowest point occurring during their first period. Empowering girls during this critical life stage, when their confidence is lowest, gave the brand a potentially powerful and important role. We took on a big female confidence killer; the common playground insult, 'Like a girl' and we looked to challenge its use and redefine it with a new inspiring and positive meaning. We created and filmed a social experiment asking adults and young girls what it means to do things ‘like a girl’, in order to spotlight the cultural issue. The film challenged consumers prejudices and for the first time brought the attention of the world to the #LikeAGirl plight. We created a social movement (on and offline), asking girls to share all the amazing things they do #LikeAGirl, reclaiming a phrase that's generally used as an insult and turning it into a positive, inspiring affirmation of female achievement. This not only empowered our current audience (18-25 women) but also mobilised them to inspire and support our future target audience (10-12 girls) who could be experiencing the drop in confidence right now. The result? A positive change in societal culture based on the redefinition of one simple phrase.

To generate maximum reach and sharing with a limited media budget, we needed long-form storytelling outside of TV media and opted for YouTube pre-rolls. We sparked organic reach through a strong influencer strategy securing early YouTube views and shares. The video went viral due to the strong insight and emotive nature of the content, and in the first week, 65% of the views were from social sharing online, PR and news coverage. As the campaign gained traction globally, we centralised the media buy for the whole world, giving us maximum leverage, driving up views and inspiring a global news story.

The results were unprecedented. The video went viral with 4 million views in the first 24 hours. It was the #1 viral video in the world in the second week of launch, reaching 25million views in over 30 countries organically, prompting P&G to launch local language versions in 13 countries (after the original 7). It achieved worldwide coverage in top-tier media (311 stories) as well as news coverage on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, The One Show, Good Morning America and many others. Celebrities also began tweeting the video with Chelsea Clinton, Ivanka Trump and Leona Lewis joining the movement. In addition to the video’s 76 million global views (36% earned), it received 4.5 billion earned impressions, been shared more than 1 million times and inspired 4.5million pieces of user-generated content on social networks, including 59 reenactment videos from fans. Purchase intent increased 92% in the UK. The #LikeAGirl hashtag was mentioned on Twitter at a rate of 1 tweet every 90 seconds during the peak campaign period. The hashtag has lived on to become a symbol of female empowerment worldwide and continues to be used on social media and offline communications to celebrate female achievement.