The new global brand strategy of Plan International is all about girl’s rights in developing countries. The goal is to give 100 million girls in developing countries more control over their lives and bodies until year 2020. Every year seven million under-aged girls in developing countries become mothers. Our main object was to bring attention to the important issue of child pregnancy, and also Plan’s role in combatting this problem. Our secondary objective was to gain donations and sponsors to Plan.

Because every year 7 million under-aged girls become mothers, we decided to stress this horrible fact for western women with a theme they are already familiar with and launched a product collection the world shouldn’t need: Maternity wear for a 12-year-old. As a model of our campaign, we chose Fridah, a 12-year-old real Zambian pregnant girl and designed together with fashion designer six maternity outfits for kids. We borrowed the tonality from fashion advertising to our ads and in addition to our outdoor ads took over the windows of the main fashion street in Helsinki for two weeks with a fake shop that had text: Donate so that this shop doesn’t have to open its doors.

We wanted the model to be a real pregnant girl and found Fridah, a 12-year-old Zambian girl, to be our fashion model in our campaign.

Because the messaging was all about girls and women, we decided to use female professionals. Designer Paola Suhonen designed a collection of six maternity outfits for kids, and also directed our film. Award-winning documentary photographer Meeri Koutaniemi shot the fashion pictures.

We borrowed the tonality from fashion advertising. We made six fashion pictures and a fashion film. We also took over the windows of the main fashion street in Helsinki, Finland for two weeks. We borrowed the media plan (outdoor, digital screens and pre-roll) from H&M, but with a 95 % smaller budget. Also, we deepened the message on our webpage where visitors could watch interviews with Fridah’s mom, her teacher, and Plan workers, and learn more about the topic.