shots Selects... the Best Girl-Empowering Ads
To mark the UN's International Day of the Girl, we've rounded up six of the most inspirational spots out there.
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Today [11 October 2018] is the International Day of the Girl, an annual day to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face, while promoting girls' empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.
To celebrate the occasion, we've trawled the extensive shots archive and selected those ads which aim to level the gender playing field, crush female taboos and most of all inspire, motivate and uplift young women.
From that groundbreaking Always ad which arguably kick-started the whole 'femvertising' movement to a more lighthearted attempt to remove the stigma around ladies' lavatorial habits, here are six of the best.
6. Always Like a Girl
Leo Burnett Chicago and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield turned a phrase that had become an insult - to do something "like a girl" - into an inspirational message in this groundbreaking campaign, which rightly scooped every creative award going and ushered in a new era of 'femvertising''.
2. Sport England This Girl Can
FCB Inferno's original campaign for Sport England was a body-confidence building breath of fresh air. No hardbodies, no gym bunnies; just real women working up a sweat in the pool, jogging up a hill, or shaking their tail-feathers in a Zumba class. Director Kim Gehrig lovingly captured every jiggle and wobble, while the inspired choice of track (Missy Elliott's Get Ur Freak On) makes this a spot which we'll happily watch again and again.
3. Nike What Are Girls Made Of?
One of three local campaigns from Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam which ran across the Middle East, Russia and Turkey, this David Wilson-directed spot highlights how the struggle against stereotypes starts early in life. During a young girl's singing recital, powerful female athletes appear in the audience, inspiring her to change the sickly lyrics of a traditional Russian song ("little girls are made of flowers, gossip and marmalade"... really?) into an empowering message.
4. BT Sport Take Them All On
Props to AMV BBDO for flipping the male stereotype of an ultra-keen sports fan and casting a gutsy little girl instead in this fun and fast-paced spot directed by Fredrik Bond. Unglued from a football match on telly, our flame-haired protagonist livens up her journey to school by imagining she's taking on the likes of Gareth Bale, Dele Alli and Johanna Konta and beating them at their own game. The determined look on her face as she scores a goal - by booting the ball into a load of terracotta pots - is priceless.
5. Bodyform Blood Normal
Another AMV BBDO effort, this stylish film for Bodyform/Libresse, sensitively directed by Daniel Wolfe, broke new ground - and helped normalise the conversation around menstruation - by showing women in real-life scenarios dealing with their periods in a breezy, undramatic manner, be it in the shower or at a dinner party. The masterstroke? Showing the censor's outraged response to a shot of period blood on a sanitary pad ("unacceptable").
6. Poo Pourri Girls Do Poop
Now for a bit of empowering humour. From an early age, girls are taught that not only does their - to use the vernacular - shit not stink, it's a moot point among menfolk as to whether dolly-birds defecate at all. This potty-mouthed promo for toilet deodoriser Poo Pourri has news for you: girls do poop, and they should be proud of that fact.
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