Vodafone developed a global maternity policy to give women across 30 subsidiaries a minimum of 16 weeks fully paid maternity leave and a 30-hour week at full pay for six months after their return to work. Other than the United Nations, very few global organisations have adopted maternity policies of this kind.

Vodafone wanted to trigger a global conversation on traditional and social channels to position the company as a pioneer in addressing the challenges faced by working mothers and, as a result, increase engagement and advocacy among women worldwide.

To achieve this, Vodafone commissioned KPMG to analyse the aggregate global cost to business of providing 16 weeks of paid maternity leave compared with the global cost of backfilling and training replacement employees for women who do not return to work after a baby. The estimated net $19bn annual cost reduction provided a strong news hook and formed the focus of a short animation video and infographic for online news outlets and social channels. The material was released ahead of International Women’s Day.

Within one week, substantial volumes of coverage were generated across 33 countries (including 17 Vodafone markets), reaching an estimated 268 million people. Over the same period, there were 1.8 million views of the animation online.

In a follow-up survey by Opinion Matters, 90% of people surveyed across four countries said they felt more positively about Vodafone as a result of the maternity policy coverage.

The entire campaign was delivered on a budget of €50,000.

The Vodafone team coined the term “maternomics” (also used as hashtag) to promote the company’s new policy and KPMG research findings. All material was localised via a global toolkit sent to each Vodafone market. This included translations of the infographic and animation video which was created with embedded text rather than a voiceover for maximum visual impact.

The Vodafone HR director responsible for the policy – herself a working mother – was trained for broadcast interviews as was the company’s most senior executive in the USA (a country without statutory maternity leave and therefore a key target market for media/social coverage). Tier 1 outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNN and CNBC, were briefed under embargo with broadcast interviews aired on the morning of 6 March when the collateral was released to all outlets globally.

Turning a corporate theme into a creative, digital campaign is a new approach for Vodafone, with limited budgets currently assigned to this new form of editorial engagement.

The campaign was delivered for under €50,000. This covered all costs, including KPMG research, animation, storyboarding, production, editing and translations for both the animation and infographic. The infographic was created in-house and the animation was written and directed in-house.