Media > Culture & Context
STUDIO C, Givat shmuel / STUDIO C / 2019
Overview
Credits
Why is this work relevant for Media?
Israel is a liberal country, but there are a few cities (including its capital, Jerusalem) with a big community of Ultra-Orthodox Jews. They strongly oppose displaying any image of a woman on outdoor media. Every sign featuring a woman is immediately vandalized and erased from the public’s eye,.
This behaviour is a problem for advertisers and outdoor media companies, but primarily for Israeli women. Many women feel discriminated against and humiliated due to their exclusion. Therefore, we wanted to find a creative solution that would enable us to stand by women and their right to be represented on public media.
Background
Studio C is a national chain of women-only fitness clubs, with a unique method for shaping the female body. Studio C's advertising is usually based on images of real women who are members of the Studio C chain, wearing sportswear and displaying a feminine athletic body. These images of "real Studio C women" create an incentive for others to join Studio C. This line of advertising is very effective with the secular Israeli women audience but is unsuitable for Ultra-Orthodox women and cannot be used in cities like Jerusalem.
Since the brand is all about women and fitness, we felt we had an obligation to our audience to deliver to them a strong message of empowerment, a message of both physical and spiritual strength. We decided to take a stand against women’s exclusion in Israel and give them their right to be represented everywhere, even on outdoors advertising in Jerusalem.
Describe the creative idea/insights
We looked for a way to overcome the limitation of being unable to display women in outdoor advertising. We sought a sophisticated solution that, on the one hand would not cause Ultra-Orthodox men to take down the signs, and on the other hand - would include women in it.
We wanted an ad that would challenge the exclusion of women from outdoor advertising.
We achieved this by creating an innovative outdoor "poster" that shows a woman only when a woman looks at it. We manufactured a unique sign printed on the surface of a mirror, in the shape of a female silhouette, with a strong message of empowerment printed on top.
Describe the strategy
Our target audience includes women from all sectors of Israeli society, secular and Ultra-Orthodox alike - strong women who believe in equal rights. As a women's brand that seeks to strengthen women physically, we regarded the existing limitation as an opportunity to strengthen women on the mental level as well. We wanted to show women that, even in a traditional society, discriminatory and violent behavior can be overcome through innovation and creativity. And so we created innovative outdoor advertising that allows women not only to see an image of a women on outdoor advertising, but to see their own image on it. And so we created an elegant solution - a sign that, only features a women when a woman looks at it... and thus creating a sense of strength and pride in our target audience, without arousing antagonism among either secular nor Ultra-Orthodox women.
Describe the execution
We created an innovative outdoor medium – a poster that only features a woman when a woman looks at it.
We created a unique "poster" printed right on the surface of a mirror, in the shape of a female silhouette, with a strong message of empowerment printed on top. This message holds an important double meaning -
“See yourself fit” (in shape) can also mean in Hebrew - “See yourself equal.”
We then placed these signs on the main streets of Jerusalem and in its strictest areas.
We even found a media supplier that not only agreed to let us use their eye-level street signs, but also understood our important cause and gave us the signs free of charge.
Furthermore, we used the perfect timing to deliver this important message - the weeks leading up to International Women’s Day.
List the results
Our signs touched women everywhere: women from all over the country came to check out our signs and took photos of them. Signs were discussed, applauded and shared by women and men alike. Articles were published saluting our campaign and radio shows praised them on air. This small investment in a few signs got us $4.2m exposures and $1.28m earned media.
The media talk surrounding our campaign reached all the way to Israel’s parliament house and put the subject of women’s exclusion back on the agenda.
And so with our important message to them, we’ve made women feel that there's a place for them where they could feel good about themselves, both physically and spiritually.
At the end of the day, our signs stood tall and proud, without harm, and without letting this important issue be “put down”. Studio C gained awareness and affinity among both secular and Ultra-Orthodox women.
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