Cause-ism today is woven into the consumer-facing fabric of brands, and the challenge is to make it authentic. But less than ten years ago, “causes” were low-priority, activism considered decidedly un-luxe, and feminism a complicated, sexless word that high-profile women actively distanced themselves from.
No one, at that point, bothered to ask men about it at all.
At ELLE, where I was Editorial Project Director, we recognised that luxury did not equate with social lethargy. Our audience had a growing hunger for gender equality, which we wanted to foster, but they recoiled from the language of it. How to speak to their need in a way that engaged rather, than repelled?
The ideas I brought to the project, and oversaw included:
Address the Elephant (BSME Award Winning Concept)
Women didn't like the F word, so we embraced that from the first. In an award winning activation, that spanned content, events and retail, we paired world-acclaimed feminists with award winning advertising agencies to present women with alternative interpretations of the word Feminist.
Wieden+Kennedy campaign “I’m a Woman and..." reversed gender stereotypes; Brave’s “Feminism for everyone” interactive flowchart encouraged those not identifying as feminists to reconsider what the word really means; and Mother London’s “Make Them Pay” initiative encouraged women to ask for a payrise by visiting a website to discover what their male counterparts earned.
The campaigns made front page news in the UK, US and Australia, garnered over 235m impressions on social media, and prompted debate in UK government.
Emma Watson in Women-Helmed Brands
Emma’s cover shoot, which published immediately after her historic “If not me, then who? If not now, then when?” UN Women address, garnered global coverage for Rebranding feminism campaign.
"Feminism is not here to dictate to you. It’s not prescriptive, it’s not dogmatic. All we are here to do is give you a choice. If you want to run for President, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too.”
The shoot team were women, the fashion brands were helmed by women, the author of the story was a woman; Emma herself further supported the project by posting ELLE’s subscriber link on social; the site crashed three hours later – not, then, a tech win, but unarguable proof of engagement.
#HeForShe in real time
Inclusive feminism demands the participation of men. So I recruited influential men to amplify the message on their social platforms; Political party leaders (less the sitting PM, David Cameron, who was the only refusenik until after campaign launched, at which point he debated it in government), artists, actors, musicians and designers (including Benedict Cumberbatch, Pharrell Williams, John Rocha) rallied to support, proudly declaring themselves feminists with the historic Fawcett Society slogan “This is what a feminist looks like” emblazoned across their chests.