Female employees in Switzerland earn up to 20% less than men occupying the same position, despite having the same training. We are highlighting this state of affairs in a campaign for the Zurich Frauenzentrale (center for women), in which we declare that women should not be worth less. We used a peculiarity of the German language to our advantage here: adding the suffix “-in” to many nouns creates the feminine form. We took German names of products that only exist in the masculine form, such as Bohrer (drill), and added the suffix “-in” (Bohrerin) to create a feminine version of exactly the same product. The feminine version was then advertised at a significantly cheaper price. In short: we applied the wage gap directly to consumer goods. We launched our products in pop-up stores in the biggest cities in Switzerland. The range of products was also advertised in teleshopping commercials, with support from TV veteran Walter Freiwald. The campaign was accompanied by print and outdoor advertising, radio commercials as well as online publicity. Of course, people could not buy any of the products – but they could support our cause by becoming a member of the Frauenzentrale. The results: an increase of 150% in new registrations (compared to the previous year), several thousand views, comments and shares on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and numerous media reports such as a TV report on RTL with 1.3 million viewers. Our campaign has therefore been successful in raising public awareness on the subject of wage inequality.

The core component of our campaign was a collection featuring “masculine” and “feminine” consumer goods. We brought them to the attention of the general public through the use of pop-up shops. The products were also advertised in striking teleshopping commercials, which made reference to our online shop. The campaign was accompanied by print and outdoor advertising and radio commercials. Of course, people could not buy any of the products, but thanks to the combined effect of the various communication channels, we were able to recruit numerous new members to the fight against wage inequality.

The effective result of the campaign was a 150% increase in membership of the Frauenzentrale (centre for women) within a month (as compared to the previous year). And perhaps even more importantly, we got the Swiss public talking about wage inequality: 15,000 views on YouTube. Hundreds of comments and shares on Facebook and Twitter. A report on German TV channel RTL which attracted 1.3 million viewers, as well as many other reports in print and online media.