Female entrepreneurs receive less than 2% of all venture capital funding, but statistics don’t tell the full story.

To challenge the impact of these eye-opening inequalities, Stacy’s® Pita Chips launched the Stacy’s Rise Project™ in 2019 as the brand’s purpose platform. The Stacy’s Rise Project™ was created to provide resources and mentorship to women entrepreneurs. However, despite years of advocating for female founders, awareness of the Rise Project and founders’ stories remained low. Stacy’s recognized that to grow awareness of the Rise Project, it must have a different approach to grab the attention of consumers.

What transpired next was a 7-month journey from the Emmy Awards to Sundance Film Festival. The campaign generated 3BN+ impressions, helping make the Stacy’s Rise Project a household name.

With a modest paid media budget ($4.5MM) and grand ambitions, Stacy’s took inspiration from Indie film launches and partnered with female-forward companies to shape its campaign strategy. While the ‘Rise’ film was compelling, it required a distinctive distribution strategy that was foreign to a pita chip brand. The recipe was unconventional but simple:

1. Leverage a cultural moment to build anticipation and excitement within the entertainment industry

2. Sustain momentum with film enthusiasts and female allies by teasing that there’s more to come

3. Launch the film at an industry-leading festival to grow buzz amongst influential female voices

4. Scale the film to the masses through established content distributors

Stacy’s debuted the ‘Rise’ trailer during the Emmy’s, television’s premier award show. The trailer grew anticipation for ‘Rise’ within the entertainment industry.

To sustain momentum, Stacy’s partnered with Spotify’s #1 trending podcast ‘Archetypes’. Hosted by Meghan Markle, it highlighted 12 iconic women on their journeys to combat stereotypes. The partnership allowed Stacy’s to seamlessly integrate ‘Rise’ messaging into meaningful conversations with female allies leading into the film launch.

At the Sundance Film Festival, Stacy’s partnered with publishers Variety and Vox to host panel discussions where diverse female talent discussed the challenges of female entrepreneurship. The film premiered at Sundance, helped drive critical acclaim, and gave Stacy’s space to support 25+ Rise Project winners’ businesses.

After Sundance, Stacy’s amplified ‘Rise’ messaging across scalable video platforms. Amazon Prime Video was leveraged for distribution, a first-to-market partnership that made ‘Rise’ available to millions of households, bringing attention to the Rise Project.

The Stacy’s Rise campaign delivered over 2.75B earned and 416MM paid impressions delivering on its goal of bringing attention to the Stacy’s Rise Project. The Archetypes sponsorship alone drove double-digit increases among key brand attribute statements, including a twelve-point lift in agreement that Stacy’s is committed to helping women grow their businesses in addition to an eleven-point lift in agreement that Stacy’s empowers female founders through its Rise Project.

At Sundance, the Stacy’s Rise Project drove the conversation and brought gender inequality to the forefront of the weekend. The two in-person panels hit max capacity and drove over 5.6MM impressions in supporting digital media.

The Rise film was a hit, with the trailer viewed by over 197K attendees. The full film was viewed by over 10K+ people on Amazon Prime and garnered 1.1MM+ views on YouTube in the weeks following its premiere.