Despite numerous efforts to empower women in various sectors of society, women are still not identified as professionals and children still grow up believing women have limited capabilities. In fact, studies have shown that children develop these gender stereotypes as early as 5 to 7 years old.

This bias is reinforced by the lack of female role models that children see as they grow up whether on screen or in real life. For example, in animated films where children find their first role models, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media have found that only 29% of characters are women. And when there are women in these films, they’re usually a sidekick or a damsel in distress.

The launch film was released online and relied on its viral quality. In the first two months, it reached over 20 million people and became news in over 80 countries. It was followed up by animated characters promoted through trailers and posters. The campaign appeared in major publications and 100 digital outdoor sites around the UK on International Women’s Day. We developed worksheets for schools and an avatar maker that encouraged everyone to support the campaign by representing themselves in different inspiring professions. Parents, teachers, artists, and other influential people became advocates of #RedrawTheBalance and directed traffic to the Inspiring Girls website.

The campaign became news in over 80 countries, and was shared by institutions and influential people like Emma Watson, Geena Davis, and Sir Ken Robinson to name a few. The animated characters appeared in publications like The Guardian, The Evening Standard, Timeout and Metro, earning a total of £7m worth of media and reaching 8.2 million people. The posters appeared in 100 digital sites on International Women’s Day across the UK, delivering 727,757 impressions. The traffic to site also increased by 42%, with an average of 56% increase in followers on all social media accounts.

The campaign has also inspired further research by the NHS in the UK, and has been recreated by the United Nations, as well as schools and homes all over the world.

Since we had no media budget to force ourselves into the swarm of conversation abut gender equality, #RedrawTheBalance had to be distinct and inherently viral. We decided to zone in on the root cause of the problem to separate us from others that focused on sexism in the workplace. For the launch, we used the statistic found in our client’s literature: gender stereotypes are defined between 5 and 7 years of age. Further research led us to one of the main causes of gender bias, which was a lack of female role models in children’s films. From the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, we found that in animated films only 29% of characters are women. This became the focal point of the sustaining campaign.

The campaign had inherent talkability by tapping into the current Zeitgeist and at the same time brought something new to the debate.

Inspiring Girls is an organisation dedicated to raising the aspirations of young girls around the world by connecting them to female role models.

We wanted to raise awareness for the organisation by highlighting the root cause of gender inequality and importance of equal representation.