Cannes Lions

Girls First

POL, Oslo / PLAN INTERNATIONAL NORWAY / 2020

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OVERVIEW

Background

Plan International is the world's largest organization for womens´rights. Working on a grassroot level in communities in over 75 countries, they are the once that put girls in school, encourage tribe leaders to stop female genital mutilation and educate parents on why child marriage must be stopped.

Not many people know that though.

Our brief was to put Plan on the national agenda, and make Norwegians realize how important their work is: Both in the 55 000 villages they work in, and locally. Because the world will never be equal, unless we put girls first.

Idea

In a world designed for men - we put girls first.

To prove that there is still work to be done, we decided to dramatize the facts:

90 seconds of grim examples of what happens when girls are always put second.

How girls are considered "unclean" and drop out of school when they have their period.

How medications are rarely tested on women, because our hormons make it too difficult.

How safety gear is created for male bodies - so when you have boobs, it won't protect you.

All stats were verified and linked to on our campaign website. Because it's not like researchers, doctors or car manufactures don't know what they are doing... But no one is forcing them to take women into consideration.

Strategy

Plan's target audience are women with children, but to create a more equal world, we need men and younger generations on our side.

With a film that no one could stay indifferent to - but with a low budget, we needed a smart strategy to make sure people would see it.

Facebook was the obvious choice to spread it - targeting both our followers – and their opponents: Those who would see the film as pure provocation. Because Plan was ready to answer all the haters in the comments section. On what they do in all 55 000 villages where they are present, how they work to avoid female genital mutilation, and no – they’re not angry because it’s their period.

Execution

The film went live on Facebook two weeks before the International Day of the Girl on October 11th. The post linked directly to the campaign site where all the film's stats are explained - and linked to the source of each statement. (some of these are in Norwegian). These are scientific publications. Years of research backing each claim. So it was easy to educate ignorant trolls in the comment section.

Plan also found money to put it on TV on Oct 11th. The one ad. That one day. That was all the media placement they could afford.

Outcome

Within the 2 week campaign period, the film had worked up 1.2 million unique views, in a population of 5.3 million.

73% found the subject extremely important

21 000 000 million reach across media and social channels.

37% increase in awareness that Plan is the organization that "puts girls first".

The campaign led to a nationwide discussion on how we have to include women when we innovate - no matter the subject. Some organizations even made promises to change how they work, and this will be the next step of the campaign: Plan will encourage innovators and businesses to commit to putting girls first.