A world without prejudice, stereotypes, or discrimination.
Each 12 months, brands recognize International Women’s Day as a possibility to align with social values, raise awareness against bias, and take motion for gender equality—all while strengthening their brand identity.
By participating on this global, social movement, corporations/brands have fun women’s achievements while positioning themselves as advocates for progress. They, as well, resonate with socially conscious consumers.
As well-known, consumers today (regardless of the industry, age, etc.) expect brands to support women and LGBTQ+ via “meaningful” campaigns, policies, or initiatives. So much in order that 62% of buyers search for gender equality in promoting and media.
So, celebrating that form of social movement is a approach to construct stronger trust and loyalty amongst their audiences. Especially when considering that inclusive promoting can boost short-term sales by nearly 3.5% and long-term sales by over 16%.
On the opposite hand, International Women’s Day presents a robust opportunity to have interaction in conversations about women’s social, economic, cultural, and political accomplishments. Around the world, organizations launch initiatives that promote female empowerment, gender equality, and ladies’s rights and ensure their brand is a component of a movement that matters.
In this blog, we’ll explore successful International Women’s Day marketing campaigns, including creative ads and social media ideas of all time.
What’s Inside
Inspiring International Women’s Day Campaigns by Famous Brands
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- Nike – One Day We Won’t Need This Day
- Mattel – Barbie Honors Female Athletes
- Stabilo Boss – Highlight the Remarkable
- Burger King – Women Belong within the Kitchen
- Volkswagen – My Favourite Things
- Calvin Klein – #MyCalvins
- PayPal – #BalanceForBetter
- Netflix – Make Room
- Reebok – Bruises Can Be Good
Inspiring International Women’s Day Campaigns by Famous Brands
Global brands are getting behind International Women’s Day in recent and progressive ways by supporting community organizations to have interaction customers on social media. From Calvin Klein’s provocative campaign for the Asian market to Netflix’s effort to make room for diversity, there are other ways brands can lend their support to International Women’s Day.
Are you in search of inspiration from the perfect International Women’s Day campaigns? We have collected our favourite examples.
Nike – One Day We Won’t Need This Day
Let’s start with an example that goes beyond a straightforward celebration.
Nike, a widely known brand with inspiring ads worldwide, released an ad back in 2020 that showed how one can present a daring vision for the long run.
Instead of just acknowledging women’s achievements, the ad imagines a world where gender equality is the norm and ladies now not need a special occasion to be recognized.
On International Women’s Day, Nike is celebrating the ladies who’ve moved sport forward—within the hopes that One Day, on daily basis will feel like this one we mark on our calendars.
With the ad, featuring real-life role models like Serena Williams and Megan Rapinoe, Nike sparks a discussion about gender equality.
Mattel – Barbie Honors Female Athletes
Mattel’s Barbie Honors Female Athletes campaign showcases how purpose-driven marketing needs to be done.
In 2024, the toy manufacturing company celebrated each Women’s Day and its sixty fifth anniversary by creating dolls of 9 female athletes, including Venus Williams and Christine Sinclair.
As you already know, Mattel and Barbie have been criticized for years for promoting unrealistic beauty standards and negatively influencing young people.
So, that campaign isn’t a straightforward celebration move; it also helps Mattel to rebrand Barbie as an emblem of empowerment and variety.
Of course, the brand used digital marketing to amplify that unique campaign; Mattel shared athletes’ stories, hashtags like #BarbieRoleModels and #YouCanBeAnything, and invited well-known celebrities (like Drew Barrymore) to take part in digital discussions.
That Women’s Day marketing campaign is an important example of mastering storytelling, influencer reach, and inspirational content.
Stabilo Boss – Highlight the Remarkable
The Stabilo Boss campaign, created by DDB Group, isn’t essentially the most recent Women’s Day creative ad, but it surely is one of the vital memorable.
The campaign uses black-and-white photos where a yellow Stabilo Boss highlighter draws attention to a vital woman within the scene; it’s actually a commitment to sharing untold stories of ladies in history.
Why is it good for the marketing world?
The campaign is a masterclass in transforming commodity products into emotional connection tools. While doing that, the brand uses no unnecessary elements, only a vivid yellow, and it says all of it.
Burger King – Women Belong within the Kitchen
Let’s proceed with a controversial digital campaign, which sparks discussions and causes a backlash.
On March 8, 2021, the food chain, whose marketing team really knows how one can use social media channels as a marketing tool, shared the controversial phrase “Women belong within the kitchen” on X to spark conversation about gender inequality within the restaurant industry.
With the concentrate on catching people’s attention to the dearth of female chefs in leadership roles, the brand promoted its recent scholarship program for female chefs.
Even though that move got some backlash due to first phrase without context, we accept it as Women’s Day social media campaign because it grabbed the eye immediately. It also tapped into real social issues as an alternative of simply celebrating the day.
At that time, it is best to do not forget that digital marketing might be intentionally provocative.
Volkswagen – My Favourite Things
You might suppose this one is a race automotive form of spot, but Volkswagen India’s ad campaign is an IWD one. With the featuring music, smoke, and drifting visual effects, the brand tricks users into believing that it is a race-car ad.
The 52-second spot shows a racecar driver drifting the automotive, performing adrenaline and outrageous donuts on the asphalt track. Stepping out, revealing while removing their helmet, the driving force seems to be a young lady, 21-year-old Shivani Pruthvi, and he or she’s an NCC cadet, a medical student, and knowledgeable race driver.To empower diversity and alter, Volkswagen’s spot is a successful one in automotive marketing.
Calvin Klein – #MyCalvins
Beauty, gender and size diversity… A movement to embrace diversity in all its forms is all the fad within the Western fashion world, but it surely has yet to seek out fertile ground in Asian culture. That trend could also be changing, nevertheless. For this 12 months’s International Women’s Day on March eighth, American luxury fashion brand, Calvin Klein, is on a mission to empower Asian women to challenge gender norms.
The challenge was to plan a campaign which might encourage consumers to re-think Calvin Klein Underwear, shining a lightweight on the varied collections available. Channel focus: Digital and in-store activations. Calvin Klein engaged 10 women from all walks of life, from across Asia all who made an empowering statement.
In recognition of Women’s Day 2019, Calvin Klein is rolling out an promoting campaign tailored for the Asian market, specializing in empowerment and difficult traditional gender norms. This campaign examines conceptions of womanhood inside Asian cultures and is centered around women making daring personal statements about their gender identity and the obstacles they face inside their communities.
For the campaign, each of those individuals performs a monologue on the themes of confidence and courage and the importance of authenticity and self-discovery within the face of pressure and obstacles from wider society.
PayPal – #BalanceForBetter
PayPal’s theme of International Women’s Day 2019 was Balance for Better – aiming to forge a more gender balanced world and lift awareness against bias.
PayPal support this theme of their video which features female business leaders having a discussion on the ways we are able to bring gender balance to the workplace. Entrepreneurs including Benefit’s Lisa Edwards describe their experiences of being a lady in business and offer advice for ladies trying to grow their very own business.
Throughout March, PayPal pledge to donate to charities helping women world wide when customers use PayPal to pay for purchases in select retailers run by female CEOs.
Content Manager at PayPal said:
It’s really encouraging to see female business leaders talking about their experiences and their advice is certainly something I’ll take into my skilled life. I also like the best way PayPal are shining a lightweight on some female-led brands and the sentiment is absolutely ingrained in PayPal’s culture with things like their Unity Program.
Netflix – Make Room
The Netflix ad, which stars actress Uzo Aduba, promotes how the streaming platform makes room for stories about women and other underserved communities that don’t all the time make it to Hollywood.
In the Red&Co spot, Aduba addresses the camera, asking questions on diversity and and limits, tells about the world is stuffed with those rooms–and their limits. It’s a pointy commentary on Hollywood historically might be difficult to navigate, and reach, for diverse creators.
Have you ever been in a room and didn’t see anyone else such as you? Have you ever thought you actually belonged but were told subtly, or not so subtly, that you just didn’t?
The world is stuffed with those rooms–and their limits. Let’s make room–for voices yet to be heard, for stories yet to be toll. We’re making room for you to seek out them, and for them to seek out you.
More room. More stories. More voices.
But within the universe of Netflix, the spot posits that t’s a very different story. It follows Aduba wandering into scenes from comedian Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix special, Alfonso Cuaron’s Oscar-winning film Roma and onto the wrestling ring of Glow. She even encounters herself, in her Emmy-winning role as Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren in Orange Is the New Black.
Reebok – Bruises Can Be Good
Isobar, the digital agency from Dentsu that handles the digital solutions for Reebok India, released a thought-provoking campaign – #BruisesCanBeGood on International Women’s Day. Launched with a social experiment, it makes a compelling statement on societal insights.
According to the National Family Health Survey, every third woman in India has faced domestic violence of assorted forms since age 15. Therefore, #BruisesCanBeGood brings to light the cruel reality and the prevalent mind-set of the society by involving real audience. Emphasizing the importance, the spot goals to determine the necessity for self-defence education from a young age. Featuring an actual combat artist, the social experiment further underlines the brand’s overarching communication for ladies, #FitToFight.
Silvia Tallon, Senior Marketing Director, Reebok India, said,
Our idea behind “Bruises might be good” was to showcase the skewed lens with which our society views bruises and ladies. The ingrained perceptions of bruises being violence inflicted, shadows the inner strength of the lady and allows us to undermine them. Since combat training is in our brand gene, Reebok honours these bruises as a mark of physical strength and mental toughness that may face any challenge. On International Women’s Day, we salute women who beat the chances and are “fit to fight” physically, mentally and socially.
Lysanne Louter, Co-Founder & Creative Director at Fluency shared her insightful thoughts about diversity in our Q&A session, mentioning the importance of a women-owned and operated digital marketing agency:
Women must blaze their very own trail and reinvent the agency model by placing women’s unique needs at the center of their organizations. Positioning ourselves as a women-centred agency definitely demands more of us as leaders but it surely also sets us aside from our competition.
Thanks to all women who make this world a greater place with their perspectives and the necessary decisions they make.
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