SITUATION

By the age of 14, girls are dropping out of sport at twice the rate of boys. (Source UN Women)

BRIEF

Pantene has long stood for the rights of women via it's Strong is Beautiful platform - their brief to us was to find a way to encourage the next generation of strong women in Malaysia.

Sports is about a lot more than just healthy body - it teaches vital life skills such as confidence, self belief, positive body image, teamwork and leadership.

OBJECTIVES

Create awareness around the issue of girls dropping out of sport and inspire more girls to take part and stay in sports

Bullying and insults fuelled by out-dated values are one of the primary reasons that girls drop out of sport. In Malaysia, once such insult is Wanita Besi - which directly translates as 'Iron Lady', which in this context is used as a negative, unfeminine, unflattering term of abuse to young girls.

To redefine the phrase and own WanitaBesi through the lens of real female achievement. Creating a new meaning of the word to signify Iron Lady as strength, confidence, pride and will by rebranding National Icons. Use real-life stories from National athletes and publicly rebrand themselves as #WanitaBesi to carry that message and use their celebrity to drive debate on media channels.

Create controversy by broadcasting a negative word within a positive context. Using high profile sporting celebrities, themselves famous victims of bullying, to endorse and campaign the new definition of the word.

Use all aspects of the owned media - retail, social, digital to carry the message and target mothers of daughters.

Key message: STAY STRONG. STAY BEAUTIFUL STAY IN SPORT #WANITABESI

Create a campaign asset, a ribbon, to allow anyone to show tangible and visible support.

Use Farah Ann as the key ambassador of the message - Herself a victim of a nationwide cyber witch hunt in 2016, she can speak from first hand of the damage of name-calling and bullying.

We created 2 films, telling the dramatic real-life stories of Malaysian Athletes, launched on World Women's Day. This was synchronised with the athletes dramatically rebranding themselves as wanitabesi on their social channels.

100,000 golden ribbons - with the phrase Stay Strong, Stay Beautiful, Stay in Sport #WANITABESI were bundled on Pack with Pantene bottles and distributed in-store nationwide with Giant and across schools.

A PR launch to announce partnership with fitness first granted any girl wearing the ribbon to free access to any Fitness First throughout the month of March.

Farah Ann was featured in multiple interviews across national media, endorsing the campaign and driving conversation. Including 9 separate interviews across the National news networks

Over 6 million views of films on youtube

100,000 ribbons distributed, #wantitabesi with over 6,000 photos on Instagram within a week

250,000,000 impressions across social media

On March 12th the Malaysian Minister of Youth and Sport endorsed the campaign for 30 mins on Astro Awani - the national current affairs news channel.