Women's History Month began in 1978 in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Group of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women planned a "Women's History Week" celebration to coincide with International Women's Day.
There is no shortage of online discussion on Women's History Month in March, and its reach has expanded globally—only a few corporations design campaigns that genuinely and empoweringly acknowledge it.
We've chosen three of our best digital marketing initiatives from this year that used video, viral hashtags, and modified product packaging to underline the importance of the cause.
BrewDog
BrewDog, a brewery in the United Kingdom, stated gender inequality by emphasizing the 20% female pay gap in the United Kingdom. Their promotion included renaming their best-selling beer, "Punk IPA," "Pink IPA," during Women's History Month.
The "Pink IPA" brew had the same beer as their best-seller but was labelled with a pink label rather than the traditional blue. This campaign's overall message was that looking different on the exterior doesn't mean you're any other on the inside, underlining the unfairness of the gender wage gap.
This argument is emphasized further when BrewDog satirically writes "Beer for Girls" on each bottle, referencing widespread sexist prejudices and perception concerns about women in the workplace.
BrewDog promoted this campaign by developing a film that summarized the idea of gender equality and sharing it across all of their social media channels, coining the tagline "Beer for Equality."
Finally, the corporation from the United Kingdom used this campaign to give back. BrewDog contributed 20% of the proceeds from "Pink IPA" to the Women's Engineering Society, which strives to change preconceptions and encourage young women to seek a career in engineering.
Procter & Gamble - #WeSeeEqual
P&G aired films on Instagram highlighting typical stereotypes against women in technology and displayed statistics to debunk each prejudice.
P&G also debuted "#WomensVoices," a video series that features the perspectives, journeys, and experiences of 21 influential women in business.
Vodafone - Raising Voices
Vodafone, a British multinational telecommunications firm, created a movie emphasizing widespread gender bias in disciplines such as medicine and technology. The film cleverly employs an all-kid ensemble to raise issues many may overlook, such as "Why have there been so many male presidents but so few female presidents?"
The film was also intended to coincide with their recent pledge to join the United Nations Women's Unstereotype Alliance, characterized as "a global collaboration with the common goal of eliminating gender bias and damaging gender stereotypes in advertising."
All of these initiatives succeeded in being engaging, one-of-a-kind, and well-executed. The clear message of support for women, equality, and, as P&G puts it, "creating a friendly atmosphere for diversity and gender balance" makes these commercials so effective. Marketers can learn much from these brands, particularly in digital, cause-related marketing.
To celebrate Women's History Month, we invited our female team members to share some of their insights and inspiration that helped them flourish in the digital world. Find out what they had to say on our Facebook or Instagram pages, or search the hashtag #BrainDoWHM.
Helia Mohammadi
Social Media Specialist