This project started not with a brand, but an injustice. Women are 27% less likely to receive CPR than men. We did deep research into why, and found a solution that could save over 30,000 lives per year, in the US alone.

Our approach relied on raising instant awareness and engagement in the issue among two different key audiences.

But we didn’t have resources to make noise, nor did we have deep ties into the medical community that we’d need to get on board.

We needed a PR-based plan: the right people, at the right time, with the right message.

There’s a shocking gender gap in who receives Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) from bystanders.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women, taking a woman’s life approximately every minute in the US alone. Though prompt delivery of CPR can triple a cardiac arrest victims’ chances of survival, WOMEN ARE 27% LESS LIKELY THAN MEN TO RECEIVE BYSTANDER CPR. This makes a big difference: only 1 in 8 women survive cardiac arrest, versus 1 in 5 men.

We set out to close this gender gap. We had zero paid media dollars, so we knew our solution would need to be capable of receiving mass coverage by the media AND immediate adoption by the communities most in place to make change.

We created our solution -- a unique, design-led approach that was equally about sparking conversation as it was about providing practical experience to close the gender gap in CPR: The WoManikin.

We interviewed the authors of the American Heart Association study that first reported the gap and found three underlying reasons:

1. People think cardiac arrest is a men’s issue.

2. People are uncomfortable touching breasts.

3. When people do deliver CPR to a woman, they often do it incorrectly.

These 3 issues can be remedied by hands-on education.

The lightning strike moment came when we realized that, while health organizations teach tens of millions of people CPR every year, the manikins they teach it on are flat-chested, male torsos.

And so we created The Womanikin -- an attachment that could go over any standard, flat-chested CPR manikin to simulate CPR on someone with breasts.

This new product hit a nerve with the public, creating buzz while also offering a practical solution to instructors teaching how to administer CPR to women. We made the design open source, free, and equitable.

We had a problem. We had a lifesaving device to launch and not a single dollar to spend on media. We received an in-kind donation of $10K worth of Facebook media, however the algorithm misinterpreted images of the Womanikin as pornography and barred us from running on the platform. (Yes, for real.)

We needed a way to launch that would get massive earned social and press coverage.

We had two key audiences to win:

1) Pro-women individuals and organizations, to amplify our message and spread news of our new innovation.

2) The medical and CPR community -- a requisite for rapid adoption in a very technical and high stakes field.

Our strategy was to promote the statistic that started our journey and open people’s eyes to the gender bias in CPR manikins, grabbing attention with our high-impact product visuals.

The key message? “Learn on a woman. Save a woman.”

We approached the United State of Women, a national non-profit, who agreed to launch the first posts about The Womanikin on their social channels, showcasing our video assets, driving to womanikin.org.

Knowing that it can be extremely difficult for an organic social campaign to go viral, we timed the campaign launch around a relevant media moment: National CPR Week (June 1-7). We knew The Womanikin would give publishers and networks something interesting to run alongside traditional CPR stories. This PR strategy was highly effective: we received enormous press pickup during National CPR Week.

To engage the medical community, we brought on board Dr. Holly Andersen, notable cardiologist and leader of the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign, to help with outreach to the medical press. Because of this endorsement, we received widespread coverage in medical editorial and social, and have been invited to 8 international medical conferences.

The success of The Womanikin has been nothing short of astounding.

With zero paid media budget, we generated major news stories globally, and earned 23 million social impressions.

Began an ongoing partnership with American Heart Association training centers to manufacture Womanikin devices at scale for use in university training.

We were invited to 8 medical conferences and panels, and established a partnership with Dr. Holly Andersen, cardiologist and medical advisor to the Women’s Heart Alliance.

17% increase in our awareness KPI, examining a basket of search-terms related to female heart-health and CPR between launch on 6/1 and 8/31, compared to previous year.

62 CPR training organizations requested Womanikin attachments or downloaded our toolkit to build their own.

Gold Effie for proving The Womanikin saves women’s lives.

Fully equalizing the CPR gender-gap (our ultimate goal), would save over 30,000 women’s lives per year in the US, alone.

Let’s not stop.