Launch Date:

June-July 2014

Objectives and Challenges:

Always is a leading brand in the feminine hygiene category, but was losing its grip with the next generation of girls. The brand had historically marketed itself on functional benefits and blue liquid. It needed an emotional platform that would better connect with the future franchise that would keep it number one.

The objectives were:

1. Drive an emotional connection and improve overall equity scores.
2. Drive popularity of the brand through top-of-mind awareness.
3. Drive brand purchase intent measured pre- and post campaign.

Insight:

Leo Burnett & Holler’s first step was to re-invigorate the Brand Purpose to enable us to rise above the functional story the brand had historically depended on. They needed to inspire new meaning into Always exists to champion a girl’s confidence. Next, they sought a compelling insight to bring this to life in a disruptive way that would create a conversation. A key insight shaped this campaign: while young girls feel that they can do anything, something happens at puberty. Around the time of their first period, a girl’s confidence drops dramatically to its lowest point, and is 2x lower than a boy’s confidence at the same age. Empowering girls during this critical stage of puberty would give the brand a powerful and important new role.

Concept:

In all sorts of seemingly innocent ways, society does things to undermine a girl’s confidence. Like the common schoolyard expression, “you throw like a girl”. The agency sought to turn this expression on its head in a way that would drive conversation and drive new attention to the brand.

The idea: Change the meaning of the common playground insult “like a girl” into an inspiring new interpretation that empowered girls.

Execution:

Long-format online video would be the centrepiece of their effort – Leo Burnett used a 4 minute “social experiment” to take the viewer on a journey of selfrealization. They created the hashtag #LikeAGirl to facilitate social sharing. On the day of launch, they published the study showing how a girl’s confidence drops to its lowest point at puberty. Then, they conducted Blogger outreach to create buzz and encouraged a number of tier-2 celebrities to begin tweeting about the video to create a net impression of viral velocity in the first two days.

Results:

#LikeAGirl became the #1 viral video in the world within the second week of launch, ultimately generating 76 million views worldwide and more than 1,100 headlines in major media.

They achieved their three objectives:

1. Drive an emotional connection and improve overall equity scores. The key brand attribute “Makes me feel confident” increased +6 points, from 37% to 43%.
2. Drive popularity of the brand through top-of-mind awareness. Top-of-mind awareness increased +6 points from 77% to 83%. In total, the campaign generated 3.4 billion global impressions and earned video views that were double the industry benchmark.
3. Drive brand purchase intent measured pre- and post-campaign. Claimed purchase intent increased post-campaign from 42% to 46%. With teens, it grew from 40% to 60%. Brand share grew +1.4pts, to 59.6%.