#ToyStrike got the attention of an entire country by bringing together media and families to talk about an issue that had always gone unnoticed: sexism in toys.

This debate generated hours of conversation and content about equality and sexism in toy communication, at a time when most toys are bought and when advertising pressure is at its highest, Christmas.

In Spain, children are educated around the values of equality, however, people do not realize that they can perpetuate sexist stereotypes by giving a specific type of toys to their children. Prioritizing a pink world of care and beauty for girls (68.2% of advertisements targeting girls include these stereotypes) and a world of heroes, action and the colour blue for boys (71% of advertisements aimed at boys include these stereotypes).

That’s why the Ministry of Consumer Affairs wanted to develop a campaign to raise awareness about the impact that toys have on children’s development. A project with a great objective: to open a social debate about gender stereotypes on toys and its advertising.

To force families and toymakers to think about this problem, on December 12th, the toys announced a #ToyStrike, a symbolic break where toys took to the stage to claim the end of sexism and stereotypes through a digital protest claiming that “Playing has no gender”.

The campaign managed to attract media attention and raise public awareness by using a resource never before promoted by a public administration in Spain: a strike.

Media and social networks picked up on this straight away, using the protest kit we created so that all could join the digital strike from wherever in the country.

The problem wasn’t about giving a doll to a girl or a soccer ball to a boy. The real issue is continuously giving the same type of toy to the same gender, reinforcing the stereotypes.

We wanted to make all Spaniards aware that, while giving a toy as a gift can be a joy, if we always give the same type of toy, we are giving a limitation.

With the aim of creating a social debate that would not leave anyone indifferent, we launched the first piece of the campaign so that both the media and the defenders of equality would echo the campaign. We wanted them to act as a loudspeaker to reach all the people who that we could not reach through our own channels.

The execution of the idea was based on recreating the classic communication scheme of a general strike but putting it within the imagination of the toys. With leaflets, press conferences and posters, using a forceful but equally sympathetic and naive tone.

To achieve maximum visibility, we began the campaign with a big PR moment placing our video statement as the centre piece. We then amplified the campaign using social content posted on the Ministry’s channels. Additionally, we made a virtual protest kit with GIFs and stickers inviting the audience to participate and share their photo mobilizing the hashtag #ToyStrike.

The debate became so big that it got over 14 hours of TV & radio coverage, more than 1,300 press mentions, 3.000 million Impressions and €56.9M in Earned Media.

The tool used for data collection is Kantar Media.

430,000 people joined the digital strike and the campaign hashtag #HuelgaDeJuguetes (#ToyStrike) remained a trending topic for 3 consecutive days, increasing the conversation about sexism in toys by +1,210%.

With just an initial investment of 20.000€ in Social Ads, the campaign was so succesful that it reached a total audience of 413 million impacted, 60.3 million interactions and €56.9M in Earned Media.

And The results mentioned include the social networks: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch.

The tools used for the calculation are: Digimind, Brandwatch and the social platforms' own analytics/insights tools mentioned above.

The effectiveness of the #ToyStrike campaign was demonstrated 4 months after its launch. Thanks to a society that was now aware of the gender stereotypes perpetuated by toys, different agencies involved: Ministry of Consumer Affairs, the Spanish Association of Toy Manufacturers (AEFJ) and the Spanish Agency for Advertising Regulation (Autocontrol), signed an agreement to co-regulate communication of toys for next Christmas.