“Check out the functional benefits of this pad” posted @NoTeenEver.

Always is a leading brand in the feminine hygiene category that had historically marketed itself on functional benefits and blue liquid. By focusing on girls’ “heads,” the brand was at risk of losing their “hearts” – opening the door for others to pick up the slack.

U by Kotex and HelloFlo took a step forward and began to build deeper, more emotional relationships with girls, using relevant social voices to reframe the category conversation. But when it came to Always, girls didn’t know, or care, what it stood for. To them, it was a trusted, familiar brand, but one they saw as their mom’s. As a result, the brand started losing their attention and had decreasing unaided awareness at the start of 2014. It had to act fast, or it would cede its number one position.

It was time to become a brand that was relevant and meaningful to girls today, and it was ironic that this was the struggle, as Always had a highly relevant and meaningful purpose for girls – to champion their confidence. But now, it had to commit to bringing that purpose to life, move beyond just functional conversation, leverage the social sphere and create a real-life impact that would truly empower girls.

Ultimately, three objectives were set: to drive an emotional connection to Always, especially amongst teens, and move the needle in overall equity scores; drive popularity of the brand through top-of-mind awareness; and drive brand penetration by measuring purchase intent of pre- and post-exposure to the campaign.

Rooted in the brand purpose, the campaign tapped into a time when girls have a deeper need for greater confidence, but cannot summon that feeling from within. Girls’ confidence plummets during puberty, becoming two times less than that of boys. What was more disheartening is that if it returned, it wasn’t until much later in life.

What was happening? During puberty, girls can shift from having been proud of being a girl to questioning if being a girl was a good thing or a bad thing. The unfamiliar physical and emotional changes that come with puberty can leave girls feeling awkward and vulnerable. And in all sorts of seemingly innocent ways, society does things to reinforce the undermining of a girl’s confidence – like the common schoolyard expression, “You throw like a girl.”

Why did gender, the very essence of one’s being, become a valid put-down?

A brand that was all about championing girls would have a powerful and important role in their lives if it could empower girls during this critical stage of life. So the idea was to change the meaning of the common insult “like a girl” into an inspiring new interpretation that empowered girls.

Long-format online video would be the centrepiece of the effort, and a four-minute social experiment was used to take the viewer on a journey of self-realization.

To reverse the negative meaning of the phrase, the hashtag #LikeAGirl was created as a call-to-action in the video; this became the rallying cry. It was native to the idea of the campaign, inviting participation by encouraging girls to let the world know what they were proudly doing “like a girl.” The hashtag allowed amplification and aggregation of the conversation throughout social platforms, and the team was on call throughout the launch of the campaign to respond in real time.

On the day of launch, a study was published showing how a girl’s confidence drops to its lowest point at puberty. Blogger outreach was then conducted to create buzz and a number of tier-two celebrities were encouraged to begin tweeting about the video to create a net impression of viral velocity in the first two days.

And the campaign achieved its three objectives. Emotional connection amongst reputation in the U.S. increased by 3.3 points (from 38% to 41%). Always Pads equity increased from 38.1 to 41.4, while most competitors saw slight declines. Secondly, “#LikeAGirl” became the most-watched video in P&G’s history, with 48 million views in North America (76 million views globally), ahead of Old Spice’s “Smell Like A Man” at 49 million views. It was the number two most viral video globally. And thirdly, claimed purchase intent increased post-campaign from 42% to 46%. With teens, it grew from 40% to 60%. Brand share grew 1.4 points, to 59.6%. And during this period, the video was viewed 3.5 million times in Canada.