Last year the government announced that by April 2018 companies of 250 or more will have to publicly announce their gender pay gap. This is a hot topic in the news and government, bringing the issue of equality in the workforce to light.

But, for centuries women have been ridiculed for standing up for their rights. A survey carried out by Sky News, 67% of British people think feminism has gone too far. So there is a major image problem with the notion of feminism. It’s a word that’s loaded with a legacy of militancy, politics and over a quarter of people associate the term with "bitchiness".

And whilst most people say that they are supportive of the equality movement, many reject the idea of personally identifying with it.

Our idea encouraged people to participate and talk about the gender pay gap.

We started an email chain in the Out Of Office auto-response email template to go out on Equal Pay Day. A medium that actually reinforced our message. If women aren’t being paid, they shouldn’t have to work. They should be Out Of Office.

Our idea was to set in motion a simple email chain-reaction, using an Out Of Office auto response email template. The ask was for people to switch on their Out Of Office for the day, saying that they would not be working for the rest of the year, as a symbol of solidarity to recognise Equal Pay Day and show their support.

No-one had ever used a mundane bit of office software as a media channel before. We took this everyday platform and turned it on its head. With a powerful message that was impossible to ignore when it bounced into an inbox. We created a movement, a way for people to protest from their desks. A brilliantly simple and relevant way for the office workers to take part, without even leaving the office.

This was an unusual campaign, in that it ran for just one day on 10th November 2017. But the impact was huge. We started an email chain in an Out Of Office auto response email. A standard office tool, used in a completely innovative way, with a message that is anything but ordinary. No-one had ever used a mundane bit of office software as a media channel before. We took this everyday platform and turned it on its head. With a powerful message that was impossible to ignore when it bounced into an inbox. We created a movement, a way for people to protest from their desks. A brilliantly simple way for office workers to take part, without even leaving the office. It started with an email chain of 48 people, but after the major nationals picked it up, the campaign had a total reach of over 1.2bn.

With every office worker receiving on average 121 emails a day, every individual who took part spoke directly to over 100 people. It spiralled on social media, with people taking to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn with impressions of over 2 million and trending on Twitter by the end of the day. We saw coverage on the BBC, The Sun, The Guardian, the Evening Standard, Metro and Glamour magazine, reaching a combined readership of over 1.2bn. Being shared thousands of times on social channels. We saw involvement from people at EY, Mars, Airbnb, Moneysupermarket, BT, and Aviva amongst hundreds of other high profile organisations.

People now felt comfortable publicly supporting gender equality, driving awareness and affinity towards The Women’s Equality Party who saw a 275% spike in website traffic. It gave people a way to explain the cause to non believers and raise the issue within their own workplaces.

While most people will support equality, many simply aren’t aware of the extent of the gender pay gap. And this isn’t the sort of thing that can be easily explained in traditional media channels, and certainly not a poster. We needed a platform that would not only engage our target audience who were working women, but also gave us the space to explain an incredibly complex issue to the world.

So we took the ordinary Out Of Office auto response email and used it to engage them directly through a medium that reinforced our message: if women aren't getting paid, they shouldn’t have to work. They should be Out Of Office.

We asked them to switch on their Out Of Office on 10th November as a sign of solidarity, saying that they would not be working for the rest of the year.

Co-founded by author and journalist Catherine Mayer and broadcaster and author Sandi Toksvig, the Women’s Equality Party is a two year old political party in Britain. It’s aim is to achieve equality, uniting people of all genders, ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, beliefs and experiences in the shared determination to see women enjoy the same rights and opportunities as men and to empower all women and girls.

Their aim is to build a populist movement for gender equality and that requires helping both men and women understand why the cause is still relevant and urgent.

Equal Pay Day is a symbolic day that recognises the gender pay gap in the UK. This is because, on average, women get paid 18.4% less than men. So, in 2017, Friday 10th November was effectively the last day that the average woman got paid, compared to men.

So we had a brief that asked to not only drive awareness of the 18.4% gender pay gap for Equal Pay Day on 10th November, but to encourage participation with an often passive office workforce, and engage a disinterested and disbelieving public - for a politically sensitive, and hugely misunderstood topic.