Who still gets newspapers these days? Me 🙋🏻♀️…oh, no one else? How about the Sunday adverts? Still no? Okay, what about the radio? Only use Spotify? P&G’s video? Maybe? Oh boy. Well, let me fill you in.
Happy International Women’s Day! Raising a glass to all the beautiful, strong, intelligent, and courageous women out there!
P&G
Adverts are a relatively affordable way to reach a certain audience. P&G capitalized on that by buying a pretty nice spread.
Their #WeSeeEqual campaign is an effort to tear down stereotypes and traditional gender roles. P&G collaborated with Badger & Winters once again to help spearhead the campaign. In addition to this advert that, admittingly, a lot of people might not see, they are sponsoring a summit, a radio show, and produced a video.
For International Women’s Day today, P&G sponsored the TIME “Voices of the Future” Women’s Summit that will spotlight leaders in the movements for women’s rights, equality, and justice who are working to build a better future. Speakers include:
- Amanda Gorman, poet, activist and author
- Alicia Keys, singer, film producer and advocate
- Cate Blanchett, actor, producer and humanitarian
- Patrisse Cullors, author and co-founder, Black Lives Matter Global Network
- Jane Goodall, DBE, founder, The Jane Goodall Institute
- Dolores Huerta, president, Dolores Huerta Foundation and co-founder, UFW
- Stacey Sher, producer
- Gitanjali Rao, TIME Kid of the Year
- Chelsea Miller, co-founder, Freedom March NYC
- Alyse Nelson, president and CEO, Vital Voices Global Partnership
- Xiye Bastida, co-founder, Re-Earth Initiative
- Tammy Cho, CEO, Hate Is A Virus and BetterBrave
- Raquel Willis, writer and activist
- Featuring a performance by MILCK
That’s a huge fucking line up you got right there.
They didn’t miss a chance to partner with iHeartRadio Presents See Her Hear Her: Celebrating Women in Music with The Seneca Women Podcast Network. Starting last week, they had a countdown. That culminated into today, a whole day of women taking over the mic on popular iHeartMedia radio shows and podcasts to have conversations about equality, inclusion, inspiration, and more. From 5 – 6 PM local time, stations will also devote the hour to playing the biggest hits and new music from today’s female artists and offer special playlists on the iHeartRadio App. At 8 PM ET or on-demand until March 14th, you can listen to interviews from Cardi B, Gwen Stefani, and Kelsea Ballerini.
But wait, there’s more!
The ideas were a continuation of P&G and UN Women’s third annual #WeSeeEqual Gender Equality summit for the Asian Pacific, Middle East, and African regions held 2 weeks ago. There they promised:
- P&G will educate more than 30 million adolescent girls on puberty and hygiene across the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa, through its Always and Whisper ‘Keeping Girls in School’ program over the next three years.
- P&G is committed to spending a cumulative total of $200 million US dollars by deliberately working with women-owned businesses across the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa region by 2025.
- P&G is introducing ‘Share the Care’, a new parental leave policy in the Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa region. Under its new ‘Share the Care’ program, all new parents will be entitled to a minimum of 8 weeks of fully paid leave, with an additional 6 weeks of recovery leave for birth mothers.
- P&G is committed to achieving a 50-50 gender balance across its management workforce in the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa by the end of the calendar year 2022.
So let’s talk about it
P&G has some pretty notorious ads that tackle gender equality like #LikeAGirl and Always and Secret’s “Raise” spot that pushed for equal pay. This year’s campaign might not be as memorable as #LikeAGirl, but its message is powerful. P&G has made an effort to avoid gendered stereotypes in their advertising while promoting females in STEM. P&G itself varies in its programs depending on the country. However, it has things like paid paternal leave and partnering with different organizations. So, sure it behooves them to be progressive, but it also doesn’t seem inauthentic. It’s tricky pushing out messages during a pandemic. P&G makes the best of it with virtual programs that can reach a wider audience.
Will this specific campaign be remembered? Probably not. Nevertheless, the idea and the thought behind it will.