81% of women feel more pressure to not fail than men. This is because boys are raised to be brave, whereas girls are raised to be perfect. Society expects women to be kind, play it safe, and smile, whereas men are expected to punch high and take risks. This difference in mentalities continues in the workplace: men will apply for a job if they meet 60% of the criteria whereas women will apply if they meet all 100% of them. The observation is simple: women would rather not try than risk failing.

The brief was to remove this stigma around failure to encourage women to try more, to show them that failing is not just acceptable, it’s essential.

With this campaign, the objective was to set women free of the pressure of perfection and encourage them to embrace their own failures, inspired by those of women they look up to.

The "Worth It Résumé" aims to redefine success by highlighting the role of failure in personal and professional growth. The campaign invites successful women, including L'Oréal Paris ambassadors like Eva Longoria, Kate Winslet, and Helen Mirren, to share their stories of setbacks and challenges precisely where people usually talk about their successes: on LinkedIn. The creative concept challenges societal norms by showing that setbacks can actually set you forward, encouraging women worldwide to overcome their fear of failure. The honesty and authenticity of these women that we look up to deeply resonated with our audience, encouraging them to post their own.

Through this reframing, L'Oréal Paris seeks to empower women to pursue their goals with confidence and resilience.

According to a KPMG study, 81% of women feel more pressure to not fail than men. Reshma Saujani, CEO of Girls Who Code, says this is because “girls are taught to avoid risk and failure. Boys are raised to be brave whereas girls are raised to be perfect.” This gap continues during our career: men apply for a job if they meet 60% of the criteria whereas women will apply if they meet all 100% of them (Hewlett Packard internal report).

The target audience includes working women of all ages and backgrounds, with a focus on those actively seeking career advice and opportunities. To redefine how they see failure, we needed to prove that setbacks can actually set you forward. So we showed that successful women we look up to have already failed. And what better platform to do so than the one where everyone brags about their successes? LinkedIn.

The campaign was launched on April 9th 2024, when Eva Longoria, Helen Mirren, Aja Naomi King, Jane Fonda, Kate Winslet and Andie MacDowell posted their resumes on LinkedIn. But instead of filling them with their achievements, they filled them with their struggles, failures and setbacks. A launch video explaining the initiative and inviting women to share their own failures using #WorthItResume and the CTA “which setback set you forward?” was also posted on Instagram and LinkedIn. In the following days, business leaders including Michelle Wong, CMO of Sprinkles (and 2024 Forbes Entrepreneurial 50 list), Reshma Saujani, CEO of Girls Who Code, and influencers such as Valeria Lipovetsky (2,2M followers), Roxie Nafousi (308K), Deshauna Barber (251K) and Sonya Barlow (11,5K) joined the movement by sharing stories of their own failures on LinkedIn and Instagram. Everyday women then joined in, inspired by this global movement to redefine what failures stand for.

In three weeks, the campaign media outputs steadily increased to reach high numbers:

- 1.12B impressions across 89 placements

- 103,3M impressions on social media

- 36 million reach on LinkedIn

- 824,2K likes, comments and shares

In terms of target outcomes, a study ran by MarketSight® (Crosstab study, sample of 1000+ women, aged 18-55) allowed to reveal the effectiveness of the campaign in terms of behaviour change. After viewing the campaign:

76% of women were inspired to take more risks

86% of women were convinced that failures lead to opportunities

In parallel, the recruitment process at L’Oréal was changed to show their commitment to this initiative: they now ask all candidates to talk about a failure they learned the most from. So far this question has already been asked during 80 000 job interviews.

This approach extends to their internal management. Every employee is encouraged to take risks, recognizing that it’s an essential component of L’Oréal’s entrepreneurial culture where failure is an integral part of the learning process and is actively supported to facilitate personal growth. This topic has been discussed during 12 000 job interviews for internal mobility.

Thanks to the Worth It Resume, the brand's perception improved from 77% to 90%, a testament to how deeply the campaign resonated with women, uplifted by its commitment to their self-worth.

In 2024, L’Oréal has risen to ninth place in the Equileap Gender Equality Ranking, which evaluated 3,795 publicly listed companies in 27 markets globally*.