Miss America was founded in 1921 as a bathing suit beauty pageant, later offering scholarships and leadership opportunities. The swimsuit competition was considered radical in the early days as an assertion of female liberation and empowerment, but as society evolved, interest in the pageant dwindled. Recently, the Miss America Organization recognized it needed to create broader relevance for the iconic brand. The nonprofit organization was at the bottom of all brands in relevance, on par with extinct brands; it needed to evolve to spark interest with the ideals of young women today.

We are at a pivotal moment in American history; we can no longer turn a blind eye on discrepancies. Stories of women experiencing misconduct have flooded the media, forcing society to examine culture as a whole. From a lack of representation in public office and industry to the gender pay gap, now more than ever, these issues are at a boiling point and society is demanding change.

The Miss America Organization has always led the charge on female empowerment as a catalyst for women. Participants have ranged from the first prominent female sportscaster; a surgeon who performed the first pediatric face transplant; Oscar and Golden Globe winners; and women who have had multiple congressional runs and wins, including the first female governor of Michigan and a South Dakota secretary of state. But all of these culture-shifting achievements were overshadowed by an objectification: the swimsuit competition. Miss America was a platform for the country’s brightest and most ambitious women disguised as a beauty pageant. Moving forward, it was imperative the organization’s message was clear: Miss America not only prepares great women for the world but prepares the world for great women.

The Miss America Organization wanted to be known for what and how its participants unequivocally contributed to the betterment of society. We took a look at the historic foundation of the pageant — the swimsuit — and found it didn’t represent what the competition or society needed moving forward. So with a brave decision by the board, it was eliminated. Liberated from its beauty-focused area of competition, for the first time in Miss America’s history, the contestants wouldn’t be judged on physical appearance in any capacity. The competition’s structure completely changed, allowing ample time to highlight the candidate’s achievements, passions and platforms, bringing conversations that used to happen primarily behind closed doors in the interview room to center stage during the live telecast.

Through research, stakeholder interviews and a cultural analysis, we began to question the most iconic pillar of the program: the swimsuit competition. The strategy stemmed from what culture required: Less talk, more action. We needed to demonstrate what being a leader of the female empowerment movement looks like today to be relevant to Miss America’s primary target audience of young women (16- to 25-year-olds). And we needed to focus on the organization’s overlooked core values of women’s empowerment — leadership and scholarship —highlighting them in a way that sparked attention and conversation.

The Miss America 2.0 campaign launched with the #byebyebikini tweet and public television interview on June 5, 2018, announcing the elimination of the historic swimsuit competition, igniting controversy and global interest. Developing a new vocabulary for the organization, Miss America was no longer a pageant but a competition, no longer had contestants but candidates, no longer competed for the 'title' but the ‘job’. The total rebrand of the visual identity, website and messaging revealed the disarming intelligence of the competitors. And it all culminated in the revamped live ABC broadcast on Sept. 9, 2018, where, for the first time, the world saw accomplished women competing for the job of Miss America rather than the title.

Despite no paid media budget, the #byebyebikini announcement created a media maelstrom, trending No. 1 on Twitter with more than 3.75 billion impressions in less than 48 hours. The numbers grew to a total of 7.5 billion impressions, almost 5,000 news stories and nearly 480,000 organic shares of digital stories with a total advertising value of more than $22 million. From the announcement to the live broadcast, positive sentiment increased by 131%, helping position Miss America at the center of culture with a bold, promising path forward.