The creative idea was to turn the number of women helped by H&M Foundation to start a business into something more graspable—something most people could understand. We decided to play the role of a challenger by challenging Fortune Magazine and their famous yearly business-ranking-list, the "Fortune 500". Their list features only 4% women—our list, The Foundation 500, had 100% women in the top, all women of colour, and from developing countries.

By doing interviews and taking portraits with a professional photographer, we turned these women into business leaders just like any male counterpart. Like Tim Cook of Apple. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Or like Jack Ma of Alibaba.

The creative idea had a natural appeal to media and PR. And it had a win-win opportunity built in. Either media covered the campaign, or media NOT covering it would be the story that we pushed.

All interviews and photos taken were then turned into professional business profiles and portraits, found on www.foundation500.com, to convey the same feeling of "business" as would a male-oriented power-ranking-list, such as the Fortune 500 in the US. In total the campaign featured 50 power-portraits, 450 interviews, and over 21 pages and 7400 words written about female business leaders.

Launch, June 8:

(1)Embargo pitch to business media and news agencies.

(2)Exclusive for Reuters and Metro.

RE-ACTIVATION:

(1)August, in newsletter to 30M H&M customers.

(2)December, photo-exhibition in Stockholm.

(3)March 8, 2018, International Women's Day campaign on H&M Global Social Media Channels

ASSETS: Press release, 500 interviews on foundation500.com, 50 portraits, B-roll video footage and Behind-The-Scenes-material for Facebook/Instagram video and posts, printed magazine with our interviews+photos (available post-launch).

PLACEMENT: Website, Facebook, Instagram, Earned Media

SCALE: A small team, produced locally but launched for global reach.

>>Most lists of “top business leaders” have one thing in common—lots of white male faces. Now, the H&M Foundation, is offering some counter-programming: a list of 500 female entrepreneurs, all women of color and all from the developing world.<< —Kristen Bellstrom, Fortune Magazine…

PRIMARY GOALS:

1)Fortune Magazine covered the Foundation500 list after 5 days.

2)The campaign was covered by 370+ international media, including Reuters, New York Times, Weibo, Yahoo Finance and The Daily Mail.

3)Reach: Over 65 countries, 169 million people the first week, +40M reach added post-launch. Total: 209M+

4)Social shares 67,500

5)Site traffic: 110 000 unique visitors, 2,75x target (275% of KPI)

6)Average Time-Spent on Site: 8 minutes

SECONDARY GOALS:

–Message penetration: 6/5 Key Messages picked up by over 90% of coverage.

–88% of articles in earned media use one or more images of female business leaders.

–In September 2017, Fortune had the first woman on the cover since 2014.

(Source: M-brain & Coveragebook.com)

After the campaign, CARE Netherlands decided to change their strategy to align with H&M Foundation. Their campaign is now called "Unlikely Entrepreneur" and can be found on: https://skillpower.net/

“It is fascinating to see how women gain power once they believe in themselves.”— Reintje van Haeringen, Director, CARE Nederland