Despite significant advances in the last decade, women and girls continue to experience gender-based inequality. Gender inequality undermines economic growth, human development and poverty reduction efforts. And the World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Gender Gap Report states that gender parity is still 200 years away.
In Australia, just 20% of women say they are confident with their body image. In Japan, this figure is 8%. But 71% of women believe brands should be promoting positive messages to women and girls.
Mercedes-Benz Ladies Day at the Formula 1® Rolex Australian Grand Prix has traditionally been a day for women to enjoy food, fashion and motor racing in an exclusive setting. Breaking barriers at what has traditionally been a male event, Ladies Day has become the place to be for women.
Reinforcing its stance on equality, Mercedes-Benz Australia wanted to shed new light on the day in an inclusive, exciting way for all female fans of the brand.
Utilising the power of their own brand and the reach of our ambassadors, Mercedes-Benz began an empowering, important conversation.
We designed and executed a campaign that reached beyond the traditional perception of Mercedes-Benz Ladies Day. We invited women from all backgrounds to participate by creating a digital platform that allowed users to nominate extraordinary and inspiring women in their lives, telling us what made them special. Once submitted, entrants could share their nominations and stories in an online gallery and across social media channels. The winning entrant won an all-inclusive ticket for two to attend Mercedes-Benz Ladies Day.
Our budget and timeline were tight, with only three weeks to produce the entire campaign, including travelling to filming locations across Australia. But we didn't let that stop us.
With the support of influential ambassadors; Australian Journalist Sylvia Jeffreys, owner/chef of Maha and Biggie Smalls Shane Delia, and Claire Tregoning and Pip Edwards of P.E Nation, the campaign launched on International Women's Day. Our brand ambassadors spoke of the female champions in their lives in videos seeded across social channels and on our campaign microsite.
Our campaign videos were watched over 380,000 times, for a total of 430 hours by women of all age groups.
We reached 658,000 unique users and delivered 1.3 million impressions.
During the course of our campaign, we drove almost 10,000 visits to the campaign microsite.
This was an initiative that empowered women rather than perpetuating stereotypes. We drove engagement and reinforced a positive connection between women and the Mercedes-Benz brand.
Mercedes-Benz successfully brought attention to and celebrated female empowerment. And our 2018 Ladies Day campaign was the most successful Mercedes-Benz Australia campaign for women, ever.
