Almost 50% of the current online gaming community in Australia are female-identifying. In 2022, Maybelline commissioned a survey of gamers social behaviour in Australia and discovered 83% of female-identifying gamers have experienced offensive behaviour online, resulting in most turning off their microphone to hide their identity. Research has demonstrated that this type of continual harassment can lead to anxiety and depression. Furthermore, the male perpetrators involved are participating in a learned systemic behaviour that manifests itself offline in their future relationships, leading to domestic violence. By minimising and/or preventing this abuse, bullying and aggression in these gaming communities future damage.

Maybelline New York believes that everyone should feel free to express themselves, to play and to create. However, the online gaming world is one place where some can’t. Due to the constant abuse faced by female identifying gamers online many hide their identities and play in silence, or not at all. In fact, most do not feel comfortable in this environment to express their true selves, play in an equitable manner or share their experiences through social media platforms - which flies in the face of every aspect of the aforementioned brand purpose.

The evidence that people suffer from skyrocketing amounts of harassment online also links to the brand’s existing platform Brave Together, a global mental health program to destigmatise anxiety and depression, and direct individuals to support services.

We felt it was time to change the game for good, and create safer spaces for everyone to play.

A national survey was commissioned into the level of discrimination across all genders in the Australian gaming space, which revealed 83% of female identifying and 50% of LGBTQIA+ identifying gamers have directly experienced and/or observed offensive behaviour or language while online gaming, with most female identifying and LGBTQIA+ identifying players admitting to turning off their microphone when playing to hide their gender and avoid harassment.

This exposed a failure at an industry level to support women in gaming and facilitate safe online communities free of discrimination. A toxic and misogynist environment that was preventing female-identifying players from properly engaging and having the opportunity to elevate into professional gamer roles.

On a global level, the existence of inequality in the digital world was recognised and documented by the United Nations as it echoed through their 2023 international theme - DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality for IWD, March 8 2023.

We set out to show male gamers what it was like to play through a woman’s eyes. Two prominent Aussie male gamers had their real identities disguised with voice modification software and fake female profiles in an online first-person shooter game. They experienced first-hand the level of constant abuse and bullying experienced by the opposite sex.

Shared out by our four gamer influencers, the film quickly resonated with the online gaming community and beyond. Appreciating they’d been heard, female-identifying players shared their stories, many who had been hiding in silence for over ten years, and most importantly millions of male gamers called for others to stand up and say something.

Then during IWD week 32 top female gamers joined the cause at a live national tournament, where they played on a custom Fortnite map and told their combined audience of 17M to keep their eyes up and call out abuse.

Launching Feb 23, 2023, the film was shared on the social channels of our influencers with a combined audience of 13.5M. As well as featuring on the owned media channels of Maybelline New York and charity organisation ReachOut, national and international media outlets and was screened live at the Eyes Up Cup national gaming tournament, streamed to 17M+ Twitch followers of the 32 professional female gamers participating. Most notably the campaign was organically picked up by UN Women in the lead up to IWD and shared across all their social channels, who commented that the film was “... difficult to watch, but shows we still have a long way to go”.

The campaign achieved a total 449.9M global impressions and an earned media reach of 276.5M+. Of this, 29 articles featured in international gaming news outlets, achieving a cumulative earned media reach of 65.2M+ gamers.

Through social listening we saw a dramatic gender shift in campaign engagement:

Before: Female 72%, Male 28%

Weeks 1 - 2: Female 61%, Male 39%

Weeks 3 - 4: Female 47%, Male 53%

We’ll repeat the research in 6 months to assess evidence of reduced harassment and long-term behaviour change. Leading indicators suggest, in conjunction with increased conversation, participation with Reach Out and healthy positive social sentiment, that shifts in behaviour will be observed.

In terms of brand perception, the campaign positively impacted on the Maybelline brand achieving their highest ever mascara market share 51.93%, outpacing the market by 5x in unit sales, with +19.7 percentage points of market penetration vs last year.

Maybelline New York believes that everyone should feel free to express themselves, to play and to create. However, the online gaming world is one place where some can’t. Due to the constant abuse faced by female identifying gamers online many hide their identities and play in silence, or not at all. In fact, most do not feel comfortable in this environment to express their true selves, play in an equitable manner or share their experiences through social media platforms - which flies in the face of every aspect of the aforementioned brand purpose.

The evidence that people suffer from skyrocketing amounts of harassment online also links to the brand’s existing platform Brave Together, a global mental health program to destigmatise anxiety and depression, and direct individuals to support services.

We felt it was time to change the game for good, and create safer spaces for everyone to play.