2019 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

Our objective for this campaign was to spark a conversation about women who defy society's norms and follow their dreams no matter what; women who storm male-dominated fields while embracing their femininity. But this isn't the kind of conversation that is welcome in Egyptian society. In order to spark this dialogue, we needed a strong call-to-action, one that Egyptian women would relate to, and that would rally them around our cause no matter how much society was against it. 

Background.

Historically, Lux's ads have all taken a very specific form. Dressed-up women, gazing seductively, lathering up in the bathtub. Cut to them sashaying down a hallway, dress billowing behind them, turning men's heads as they pass. But this depiction of women doesn't really work in this age. Our brief was to come up with a campaign that shows Lux championing the diverse women of today. Women are more than pretty faces, they contain a whole host of ambitions and accomplishments too. Embracing your femininity doesn't have to be depicted in our former shallow way, there can be an empowering side to it too. Our objective for this campaign was to change the brand perception, and start a conversation amongst Egyptian women. We would become the brand that would get Egyptian women to stridently own their multifaceted selves; all the sides of their personality that society would have them tone down.

Describe the creative idea.

Egypt's a society that prefers its women on the conservative, often subservient side. But every woman - no matter how closely she toes society's lines - has a story. Even if she isn't given the space to fully actualize her goals, she'll work hard hoping to bring as much of them as she can to light. This is the insight that we needed to bring to life if we were to truly connect with and shine a spotlight on the multi-faceted women of today. We kicked things off with a film showcasing the stories of three women who braved male-dominated fields without downplaying the feminine sides of themselves. Then to further drive conversation, we called for women all across Egypt to share their personal stories of empowerment, rewarding the most inspiring examples with a gift of gold, showing that their stories were priceless and the most interesting thing about them.

Describe the strategy.

In order to make sure that our campaign would have the wanted impact we would have to take a two-pronged approach; reach and video-views to get our point of view across, then engagement to encourage fruitful conversation. With YouTube being the premiere video-viewing platform in Egypt, we would focus on video views of our film, and the wide reach of its masthead. Facebook has massive reach, but suffers from low attention spans due to absent-minded scrolling. So we'd have to break down our message into snippets. We knew we'd face backlash so we needed to make sure that we drove conversation in an empowering direction. If we were going to bring women out of hiding, we would need to give women a push; something to really highlight that their stories were worth their weight in gold. So, that's exactly what we did.

Describe the execution.

We kickstarted our campaign by supporting our film on YouTube in the form of pre-roll ads, bumpers, and of course by taking over the masthead. This allowed us to get the message of our ad out to as many women as possible. We created a series of snackable cutdowns for Facebook, delivering the main message of our ad in an immediately comprehendible form. Our ad created waves, and with it a whole lot of backlash - so much so, that the cast felt compelled to defend the ad themselves. We then launched our story activation on Facebook asking women to share stories of how they defied society's expectations and chased after their dreams. It worked like wildfire! Women came out of the woodwork, sharing a diverse range of inspiring stories.

List the results.

Our campaign struck a chord with our audience overachieving on all targets. We had a high unique reach percentage of 72% vs a benchmark of 50%. Our engagement rate was 12% vs a benchmark of 7%. Our click through rate was 1.22% vs a benchmark of 0.29%. Finally, our view through rate was 12% vs a benchmark of 10%.