INFINITI is committed to creating an inclusive world for their customers. And this starts with the very roads we drive on. While there are many prejudices that hurdle this path, our research revealed something staggering - only a quarter of the streets in the world are named after women. So for the launch of their flagship model QX60, a car designed by women designers and engineers, INFINITI decided to design a truly inclusive driving experience. Not by changing the street names, but rewriting the entire map - with the single-minded objective to spotlight the women who helped shape our history and laid the path to an equal future.

Only a quarter of the streets in the world are named after women; undermining their

contribution to society. Introducing INFINITI Pave It Forward, a truly inclusive driving experience designed by data, through a digital takeover on Waze, the world's largest crowd-sourced mobile navigation app by Google.

We started by collecting thousands of geo-makers and stories - of historic women, where they lived, worked or were memorialized for making a difference -- and also of women-owned businesses creating progress in their community today.

Thousands of location pins celebrating women, geotagged on the very streets that continue to be named after men.

Spread across all major cities in the US and Canada, these pins were designed to route users in real-time to support women-owned businesses, visit historic sites, or just learn about women change-makers in their neighborhood. All this, in the custom Waze icon of the QX60, a car designed by women.

To tackle the gendered nature of roads in the real world, we decided to rewrite the mobile world of navigation - something that defines the modern driving routine. This allowed us to create an inclusive driving experience for 140+ million mobile subscribers on Waze - a movement that created an impact far beyond just changing the name of a street.

Our data strategy was to map historic sites that capture contributions of women in a diverse set of disciplines across ethnicities - Activists, Law Makers, Athletes, Scientists, Authors, Artists, Entertainers, Engineers, Conservationists, Architects and more. To generate traffic towards women-owned businesses, we aimed to disrupt the stereotype that women own salons, bakeries and flower shops. We cast a diverse net on businesses, especially those traditionally male dominated. We pinned businesses across disciplines like law, finance, real estate, aviation, architecture, engineering, hospitality, design and marketing, medicine, fashion, fitness, music and entertainment.

INFINITl's vision as a challenger brand is to create a truly inclusive world for their progressive customers who challenge conventions. This was also considered with the launch of the new INFINITI QX60 - a car designed to empower women to stay inspired through the chaos around, with features that helped her juggle the many roles she plays. This product is a testament to women leadership across walks of life, that paves the way for others to make their mark in the real world.

Our target implementation was across the US, and Canada with an active Waze user base of over 34 million people. The digital takeover was live from March 1 -31 across New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Tampa, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, Toronto and Vancouver.

There were five ways to engage with the campaign:

1. When users searched for businesses, women-owned businesses would feature on top of their search results

2. While driving, both women historic sites and businesses will pop-up on the map as a branded pin

3. Each historic site came with a story about the woman change-maker

4. Users could drive to these markers, or bookmark these places for later

5. Users could change the Waze make QX60 custom car their default choice

The design choices were made in collaboration with Waze's modern application UX, enhanced to invite people to easy-to-read stories of the women in history, and women in business. The user journey was mindful of moments when people would have time to read, reflect and often bookmark for later.

Throughout the Women's History Month the campaign garnered a landmark response. By sharing real stories of women, and routing people to support women-owned businesses, the activation went a long way in de-tokenizing the 'women empowerment' narrative by a brand.

And sure the world took notice of that -

1,477,800,000+ earned media impressions across Web, TV, OTT and Podcast

156,925,429 overall impressions on Waze

17,288,907 unique reach on Waze

63,142 detours to women focused historic sites and businesses

31,636 location bookmarks saved

Beyond the response in numbers, it was heartening to see thousands of families, taking their children to visit the markers on the street, in an effort to correct the course for the future. Influencers in the region, unprompted, shared emotional stories on social media lauding the brand for its brave stand.