In 2007 the All-China Women’s Federation, a part of the Chinese government, launched the term Sheng Nu. It translates to “leftover woman” and has been used by state media to stigmatize unmarried women over the age of 27. Since then, Chinese women are describing an even bigger pressure to marry young, take a step back from their careers and focus on their family life. Those who wait with marriage are denounced.

Pressure comes from family too. In China’s biggest cities, marriage markets are common. Here, parents go to post, compare and match personal ads, listing superficial information like height, weight and salary of their sons and daughters. Many women are unaware that they have been listed.

Feminism is oftentimes opposed in China and in 2015 five Chinese feminists, known as the Chinese Five, were arrested for “picking quarrels and creating a disturbance”. Unfortunately this treatment is common as people who challenge the government are frequently censored. Therefore, companies should take a larger role in creating a more progressive society. As it relates to this campaign, many women have a hard time opening up about the Sheng Nu phenomenon.

We created an installation at the marriage market in Shanghai’s People’s Park, where we replaced dating ads with statements from single women, proclaiming that they’re happy being independent and won’t marry just to please someone else. We then shot a documentary style film with four of the women and their parents.

The film was created to be a tool that people could use to raise awareness. After all, it’s easier sharing a film than to start a debate on your own, especially with this taboo subject matter

The film was premiered on Chinese video hosting sites Youku and Tencent as well as YouTube. Supporting the launch was Chinese and international influencers who shared the film and helped spread the word on blogs, Twitter and Chinese microblogging site Weibo.

We launched Behind the Scenes interviews with the women, providing an even greater insight into the nuances of China’s views on Marriage.

So far, the film has garnered over 25 million views around the globe, showing the universal appeal of the message.

We’ve seen over 2000 editorial pieces and been featured in everything from Forbes, BBC and CNN to Buzzfeed, Mashable, Huffington Post and Elle generating a total reach of over 2 billion. The story has spread to 54 countries on all continents and proved to be a huge success in China, where it became the first ever to make the top ten trend list on the 650 million users strong Weibo. It has also been featured on news channels, with over 6,5 million social actions as a result.

Media results April + May 2016 CHINA

- In China, we have achieved 1 eSOV (Share of voice) in all online platforms (wechat, weibo, news, blog etc.), and with biggest incremental on SOV vs previous period and also vs. competitors.

- All the measure of Reach / engagement / organic views has been above the target achieving top trending post on weibo, being top key organic words search on baidu, and capturing many organic earned exposure in global news publications (i.e. CNN, BBC, Huffposts etc) and digital and social media.

Marriage market content RESULTS in April (China + Global)

- 7,1 million social actions

- 32 million organic views

Brand equity China (based on pre and post testing 1 month after the campaign launch)

Statistically significant improvements across in association with key brand attributes:

- This brand is relevant to me increased with 45%

- Enables me to change my destiny increased with 23%

- This brand is part of my life increased with 35%

- Brand that understands me increased with 30%

- Brand that is on my side increased with 21%

We wanted to elevate SK-II’s #changedestiny campaign to not only include “skin destiny” but “life destiny”. We conducted interviews in China with the target audience and discovered that many viewed the pressure to marry as one of the biggest problems in their lives.

We also realized that single shaming is a global issue. By putting a spotlight on a Chinese issue that people around the world could relate too, we created the potential for a global campaign. But we wanted to avoid a demonization of Chinese culture, instead raising an important topic and using it to kick-start discussions on every continent.

We decided to feature real women in the film, to counter the overexposure of celebrities in Chinese advertising and make the film feel honest. To further support this we took a documentary approach to the film and shot Behind the Scenes interviews with the women.

SK-II is an international prestige skincare brand looking to grab a larger share of the Chinese market. But in China advertising for cosmetics is often rational and celebrity focused. “Use this cream and get flawless skin, just like this movie star.” In order to stand out, SK-II was looking to break through category language and do something that would have emotional quality.

They had already established #changedestiny – a campaign designed to inspire women to shape their skin destiny. Our idea was to elevate the campaign to include “life destiny”. To achieve this we traveled to China to conduct interviews with women in the target group, as well as their mothers. The Sheng Nu label, meaning “leftover woman”, and the pressure to marry, sometimes at the expense of their careers and independence, emerged as a big issue in their lives.

The objective was to change the perception of Sheng Nus and challenge the way we view single women all over the world. Since the Sheng Nu issue is taboo and many feel too ashamed to talk about it, we wanted to create a discussion that could help decrease the pressure on women to marry for the wrong reasons and remove the