Cannes Lions
FOX NETWORKS GROUP PORTUGAL, Lisbon / FOX INTERNATIONAL / 2019
Overview
Entries
Credits
Background
In Portugal, most FOX Life's shows have women as protagonists. All of them, strong and inspiring leading ladies. We wanted to create a campaign that underlined the affirmation of Women, not only in fiction but also in real life. To do so, we had to promote real change.
In January 2018, in one of the most famous Portuguese-language dictionaries, the word "man" had a comprehensive and dignified definition (intelligent being, individual, divine creature, etc.) while the word "woman" appeared only as "wife, partner". In other dictionaries, it was almost always associated with pejorative meanings: prostitute, whore, hooker, vamp, femme fatale. For example, while a "Public Man" was defined as a "politician", "Public Woman" only showed as "prostitute". This had to change.
Idea
Partnering with the largest online Portuguese-language dictionary (Priberam), FOX Life challenged the Portuguese population to review the definition of the word woman. For the first time, it was the citizens who changed the definition of a word in the dictionary. "The Word Woman" initiative successfully drove a new national conversation about gender equality.
Strategy
Words matter. If there is such a shocking difference in the dictionary definitions how can we expect to evolve to a truly equal society? This was the insight that led all communication efforts to gather attention from the media and to mobilize the citizens' participation in the creation of a more fair and comprehensive definition of the word Woman.
To initiate the conversation, FOX Life published a press release highlighting the difference in the definitions and its intent to change the scenario with a new project that would unite the academic community and the Portuguese population.
Execution
We invited our audience through On Air, Digital, Social Media and PR campaign to visit the palavramulher.pt website and to contribute and write their own woman definition. For one month, men and women participated discussing and contributing actively, on the website and on social networks. The new definition was the result of this process and the work of a team of linguists from the largest Portuguese-language online dictionary.
On 22 May, a more fair and comprehensive definition was published in the dictionary including meanings that were absent before (such as Business Woman, State Woman and Woman of Letters.)
The most powerful terms of the new definition gained body and soul by being associated to FOX Life's inspiring female characters. For 4 months, each on air promo became part of something bigger - a campaign that underlined the affirmation of Woman.
Outcome
Today, any child or adult (from 270 Million Portuguese native speakers) who looks up the word "woman" in the dictionary will discover a contemporary, complex and inspiring definition.
The project received a lot of attention, gathering a Media Value of 1.2€M that gave Fox Life ant its purpose enormous visibility.
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