Gender equality campaigns we love

What’s it about: From CPB London, the ‘Imagine’ poster campaign prompted people to ‘imagine’ a person with a specific job role, and questioned whether they associated that role with a certain gender.

The campaign, supported by Creative Equals, Goodstuff, Assembly and Open Media, was created for International Women’s Day last year, hoping to address our unconscious bias about what a CEO or a nurse or a parent looks like, in an effort to avoid passing those stereotypes on to the next generation.

The campaign was accompanied by a colouring book for children, with proceeds going to Beyond Equality and Young Women’s Trust.

Why we love it: This campaign gets straight to the point. It challenges our unconscious bias and reminds us that we must work against it to avoid passing those gendered stereotypes on to the next generation. Not only did the campaign encourage us to review the way we think, but it made sure that the campaign moved past lip service with donations to charities effecting real change.

What’s it about: This impactful, outdoor campaign for Women’s Aid aimed to challenge the culture that allows domestic abuse to thrive by using facial recognition technology. The interactive billboard showed a photo of a woman with bruising on her face, but as more people chose to look at the image, her bruises would start to heal.

The ad encouraged people to ‘face’ domestic violence head on, and not turn a ‘blind eye’. The innovative campaign has won multiple awards for its ground-breaking design and audience impact.

Why we love it: The message couldn’t be clearer. WCRS and Ocean Outdoor were able to create a campaign that mimicked our social attitudes about domestic violence; ‘hoping it will go away’ if we ignore it. The ad encouraged people to change their behaviour to see real change – not only in the image, but in our real lives too.

The technology used for the campaign was a ‘global first’ and really broke the mould for out-of-home advertising.

What’s it about: Always had a viral moment with this campaign that asked participants to show them their attempts to ‘run like a girl’ or ‘throw like a girl’. The adults and some older children interpreted the prompt completely differently to young girls – with the adults falling into negative stereotypes and the girls giving it their all.

When they were challenged on this, they were confronted by their own biases about gender, and what it meant for young women and girls to hear negative assumptions about what it means to do something ‘like a girl’.

Why we love it: It’s a well-known fact that girls start to lose confidence and withdraw from sports and other activities during puberty, and there’s no doubt that our social perceptions of women and girls plays a huge part in this.

The campaign faces our prejudices head-on and asks us to think twice before we use ‘like a girl’ as an insult. It clearly communicates the difference between the young girls who have yet to internalise these ideas and the adults that have started to perpetuate them.

What’s it about: In 2015, This Girl Can launched its first campaign video to celebrate a realistic vision of women and exercise in England – with hope to address the gender activity gap across the nation. The high-energy video shows women from all backgrounds, sizes, ethnicities, ages and abilities taking part in exercise with ‘tongue-in-cheek’ references to ‘looking hot’ and ‘I jiggle therefore I am’.

The fun-filled, upbeat video is a reminder to women that exercise looks different to everyone and you don’t have to look a certain way to get involved in exercise. It tackles the barriers to exercise, such as fear of judgement, with humour and humility.

Why we love it: Besides being incredibly ‘feel-good’, the This Girl Can campaign breaks down some of the reasons behind the gender activity gap and encourages women to enjoy exercise in a way that works for them.

The campaign doesn’t shy away from authenticity, with wobbles and sweat on show, and a diverse cast of actors. It’s hard not to feel inspired to move after watching.

What’s it about: Another innovation in out-of-home advertising, advocacy charity, Pregnant Then Screwed, launched their newest campaign with a digital billboard that ‘cried like a baby’. By exploiting our psychological reaction to the sound of a baby crying, the charity’s campaign message was impossible to ignore and emphasises the scale of the childcare crisis facing mothers today.

Why we love it: This campaign uses effective out-of-home that utilises our environment to make you literally ‘stop and pay attention’ to the problem. Not only does the sound of a baby crying stop you in your tracks, it also hammers home the challenges of childcare and how this can impact women’s careers long-term.

What’s it about: LGBTQIA+ advocacy group, Outvertising, took classic ad specs and rewrote them using more inclusive language. By changing the gender description of parents to ‘two mums’ instead of ‘mum and dad’, or using they/them pronouns, the out-of-home campaign aimed to challenge people's perceptions of gendered roles and highlight the need for greater representation in the advertising industry.

Why we love it: We’ve included this one as an honourable mention for gender equality. While this campaign wasn’t specifically about women, it was about addressing gender stereotypes within the creative industry – and, often, the intersectionality of gender and sexuality can make gender equality even more challenging.

This campaign allowed us to visualise different types of people on our screens and simply asked that we continue to talk about representation more broadly.

What’s it about: The theme for IWD 2023 goes beyond championing equality to encourage the world to fully embrace equity. It’s critical we understand the difference between equity and equality. The campaign’s aim is to get everyone talking about why equal opportunities aren’t enough.

Why we love it: It’s not just for women. IWD is inclusive, not exclusive. Equity isn’t just a nice to have, it’s a must-have. People start from different places so true inclusion and belonging requires equitable action.

How can you get involved? Show your solidarity by sharing your #EmbraceEquity image (literally an image of you hugging yourself) using #IWD2023 #EmbraceEquity to encourage others to help forge an inclusive world.