Although the UN is a famous global name, as a local organisation, UN Women Australia wasn’t well known, nor was its agenda: to achieve gender equality by 2030.

Our job was to raise the profile of UNWA and help accelerate its agenda toward equality through awareness and donations.

Objective 1: Increase YOY the total value of donations over the IWD campaign period.

Objective 2: Increase YOY the number of donors over the IWD campaign period.

Objective 3: Generate cultural impact for the brand and message

Objective 4: Deliver $2 Million+ in Earned Media Value with $0 Media dollars.

For a progressive developed nation, Australia is fraught with inequality. Australia is ranked 44th on the Global Gender Gap Index, we are a quarter century off closing the pay gap, women still do three times more unpaid care and domestic work and one in four women experience violence by an intimate partner.

Australians are known for their laid back, easy-going attitude. But it means we’re often apathetic to issues that arise. We even have a phrase for it – if something goes wrong, we just say “she’ll be right”. It means any old problem will sort itself out with time.

Unfortunately for gender equality, that point is 100 years away. So, on International Women’s Day we launched a direct campaign criticising our cultural apathy, rallying people behind the question; #WhenWillSheBeRight?

Online, a film starring up-and-coming Australian actress Miah Madden used damning statistics to talk to where ‘she’ is still unequal in Australian society. Meanwhile, well-known Aussie artists took to social media to interpret the message in their own way. It caught on, with more and more independent members of the public joining in too. We then used these artworks to form our OOH campaign, raising the question across Australia’s capital cities.

The target audience for this campaign was key. We were not concerned with the ‘woke’, aware and politically engaged women's movement. We already had them on side. To inspire change and achieve genuine progress we needed to appeal to the everyday Australian.

Rather than a demographic, we were talking to a mindset; those who believe gender equality has been achieved, or think it is just around the corner with nothing left to do. It is this complacent mindset we were going after.

Our comms approach was thus broad, with TV and film the centrepiece.

Launching on International Women’s Day, a powerful film designed to share appeared on socials. Starring up and coming star Miah Madden, the film used damning statistics to talk to where ‘she’ is still unequal in Australian society.

Meanwhile, well known Aussie artists took to social media to interpret our question in their own way, each also referencing various aspects of gender inequality in Australia. It caught on, with more and more independent members of the public joining in to create their own.

We then used these artworks to form an OOH campaign, raising the question across Australia’s capital cities.

Our film was watched by 1 in 40 Aussies within 48 hours by organic social sharing alone. Now, over 1 in 26 have.

Our artists interpretations allowed people to share multiple times without wear out. From 30 posts, our following grew by 30% in 48 hours, with 1550% more interactions per-post, 49% more website traffic than the 2020 campaign period, and 310% more clicks to donate. Donations increased by 83%, compared to IWD 2020.

With $0 media spend, the campaign generated approximately $4million in earned media – a reach of over 24 million (in a country of 26 million) from traditional media only not including social, where most of the campaign lived.

#WhenWillSheBeRight appeared in discussions around equality on the day and beyond, on socials, the news, private company emails, school assemblies and university lectures. It became call-to-arms, appearing on placards and chanted through the streets at Women’s March4Justice rallies.