Despite a 30-year commitment to empowering girls through puberty education, including a UN initiative, P&G's Always’ brand purpose wasn't cutting through to a new consumer generation: the brand was still talking about pads. While Always historically focused on confidence based on superior product performance, the new path to relevancy was to build a fresh understanding of confidence while remaining authentic to the brand. The opportunity was to reinterpret confidence so that it would become part of a girl's existing conversation.

Our insight was that at puberty, a girl’s confidence drops significantly: more than half of women claimed they experienced this decline. Empowering girls during puberty when their confidence is lowest would give the brand the relevant and purposeful role it needed.

Always charged its agency partners with creating a global campaign to drive an emotional brand connection. Based on a powerful insight informed by research, the team centered on a bold PR idea—a provocative social experiment. The resulting video recording transformed "Like A Girl" from an insult to a meaningful statement about confidence. The #LikeAGirl integrated campaign launched in 20 different markets, achieved broad awareness in reaching half the world's population.

Earned media and influencer strategies helped #LikeAGirl become the #1 viral video in the world. The campaign lifted Always brand equity, scored 96% positive sentiment, and increased purchase intent by 92%. It led to a monumental shift in the conversation that turned "Like A Girl" into an inspiring statement and part of the cultural lexicon around the world.

Objectives: Drive emotional brand connection and brand salience/purchase intent.

Executional Goals: Achieve an impactful launch for the video with specific reach/sharing goals of 2 million video views and 250 million media impressions.

Research: Research Now was engaged to understand confidence at puberty and help define an insight to shape the campaign:

• 56% of girls claimed drop in confidence at puberty.

• Lowest confidence moments -- at start of puberty/first period -- leave a lasting effect.

• 89% of females (16-24) think words are harmful to girls. Insults like "like a girl" cast lifelong doubt on how powerful a girl can be.

Our social experiment not only far surpassed the business expectations but sparked a monumental shift in the conversation:

Output/Awareness:

*85MM video views on YouTube

*4.58B media impressions/150 countries, reaching half the world's population

*758.9MM social mentions for #LikeAGirl

*Top-tier online media coverage--BBC, Huffington Post, Mashable, BuzzFeed

*Spot: #1/AdWeek, #2/AdAge

*Trended on Facebook during launch

Knowledge/Consideration:

*81% of women 16-24 support Always in reclaiming “like a girl” as an inspiring statement

*96% overall positive sentiment (emotional brand connection)

*92% increase in purchase intent (salience)

*P&G/Always were lauded across all media; the campaign was popularly supported/endorsed by celebrities around the world

Action/Business Impact:

*Twitter followers increased 195.3%

*1.5MM+ video shares; 35,000 comments, 13% user-generated content

*With research showing broad campaign appeal, Always asked girls/boys/women/men to join the movement at the Super Bowl. #LikeAGirl dominated SB news cycle with 5.2B new impressions and 3.4MM additional organic video views, trending nationally on Twitter/Facebook.

Our strategic approach centered on tangible data and an influencer/media strategy.

RESEARCH: Leveraged insights/data from research study to bolster campaign credibility, news value, content and messaging.

HASHTAG: Introduced a social hashtag #LikeAGirl as a rallying cry so girls could let the world know the inspiring things they were doing “Like A Girl."

VIDEO LAUNCH: Seeded video with influencers/bloggers/media before it was placed on YouTube to help spark viral word-of-mouth and fuel launch media coverage. An exclusive in AdAge announced the video.

MEDIA OUTREACH: Leveraged a surge of female empowerment movements in outreach. Combined with influencer seeding, the approach ensured robust coverage across traditional/social categories.

CELEBRITIES - Engaged Vanessa Hudgens/Bella Thorne/Jordin Sparks/Jasmine V to post tweets on the campaign. These sparked additional tweets from Sarah Silverman/Tyler Oakley/Maria Shriver/Cher/Kristen Bell/Chelsea Clinton/Melinda Gates.

REAL-TIME NEWS DESK: Monitored/engaged with #LikeAGirl conversations to amplify social sharing.

In 2013, Always, the P&G feminine care brand was global category leader, but its biggest competitor was gaining traction by connecting with millennial girls in a more emotional way. Despite a 30-year commitment to empowering girls through puberty education, including a UN initiative, Always’ brand purpose wasn't apparent to the new generation of consumers: the brand was still talking about pads.

To secure its future, Always needed to better connect with the next generation of consumers. Historically, Always focused on confidence based on superior product performance; the opportunity was to build a more meaningful understanding of confidence.

Target Audience: To create a change in the social understanding of girls at puberty, Always enlisted millennial women (connected, could relate, want to make a difference).

Always sought to inspire a movement to change "Like A Girl" from an insult to mean downright amazing things.

This idea was brought to life through a social experiment to show the impact the phrase had on society – especially on girls pre- and post-puberty. The result was a video that captured how people of all ages interpret the phrase produced by award-winning documentarian/director Lauren Greenfield.

The interviews showed that somewhere between puberty and adulthood, women internalized the phrase to mean weakness and vanity, but also how some encouragement can help change girls’ perceptions of what it means to proudly do things like a girl.