Always #LikeAGirl is your marketing moment of 2014

Following our recent poll asking you to vote for your favourite marketing moment of 2014 – this uplifting and illuminating campaign from Always has been crowned victorious by you, the wise and knowledgeable .rising audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

Winning with 28% of the vote Always’ campaign was closely followed by the #GiveGregTheHoliday email fail (21%) and Luis Suarez’s World Cup biting incident (15%).

Redefining a phrase, this ad’s first-person narrative “beautifully depicted the way in which girls self-censor as they reach puberty; when the term ‘like a girl’ quickly, yet unthinkingly, becomes an insult”, said Marketing Magazine.

The campaign aims to dismantle the three words – like a girl – that have become popularly associated with put-downs.

Amassing over 50 million views on YouTube alone, Always’ viral success taps into the social conscious of us all, and effectively harpoons Always brand message of female empowerment.

Always, the feminine hygiene brand owned by Procter & Gamble enlisted the help of the Award-winning filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, who directed the 2012 documentary, Queen of Versailles, to end what Always calls a “the self-esteem crisis” among young girls.

Branded empowerment campaigns aren’t new – Dove and Pantene have pushed similar messages – so what did Always do that created such an impact?

Writing in the Telegraph, documentary-maker Lauren Greenfield said that she’s received an overwhelming response from people telling her how much the video affected them.

“Until we tried this experiment, I didn’t realise how devastating the words “like a girl” were. I had never fully understood the negative power of transforming a word – an objective noun – into an insult, which basically communicates that something is wrong with an entire gender,” she said.

“When we asked more than 250 people what it meant to do things “like a girl”, the results were surprisingly consistent. Women, men and boys were quite happy to lark about – running or fighting “like a girl”, in a silly or deprecating way”.

Women, boys and men alike were bought to tears when they realisd they were “demeaning” gender roles, said Greenfield.

“The video asks people to reclaim those words, and to reconsider their meaning to be strong, powerful, and downright amazing. Clearly we have hit a nerve,” she adds.

Dismantling stereotypes in the name of brand awareness, and doing it well, is the Holy Grail of advertising. It’s powerful, associates your brand with progress and good-feeling. It seems that what made this campaign different from other similar attempts was the way in which it captured honest and natural responses and caught people on film battling with their own, often self-made prejudices.

The #LikeAGirl video is natural, thought provoking, human and evokes feeling. Perhaps that’s why it’s your campaign of the year.