AKQA broadens female empowerment effort for International Women’s Day

In coordination with its San Francisco and New York offices, AKQA Shanghai initially conceived a hypothetical awareness campaign aiming to help the Chinese see baby girls as precious.

To raise society’s perception of the value of females, the AKQA teams first tackled changing how Chinese women perceive themselves with a statement 'You are [one of a kind]', acknowledging every woman as a 'thinker, creator, gift, force, mother, daughter'. In the mock ad, the Chinese character on the female's lips is 'ni', meaning 'you' in English. 

The idea encouraged women to pledge to wear red lipstick as a symbol of female empowerment on International Women’s Day, by tapping on the influencers among affluent and urban professional women in the mainland.

AKQA also built a flash-based website in Mandarin and English and a video highlighting facts about the history of gender inequality in China.

Along with these efforts, the agency launched a larger initiative spanning local social networks, businesses and product partnerships to generate funds for on-the-ground empowerment programs in rural China.

Since then, the 'You Are' movement has been broadened to become a global, social media-based call-to-action effort titled 'Rock The Lips'. A million women worldwide are being sought to join the 'Rock Red March Eighth' Facebook event, change their social profile pictures to the campaign logo, and post photos of themselves wearing red lipstick using Instagram with the hashtag #RockTheLips.

Kristina Slade, the creative director at AKQA leading the global effort, commented that this is a "fun, easy, and inherently female way using a simple, accessible item like a lipstick to celebrate International Women’s Day".

Campaign Credits 

Agency: AKQA
Chief Creative Officer: Rei Inamoto
Creative Director: Kristina Slade
Senior Account Director: Kristin Goto
Senior Art Director: Judee Song
Senior Copywriter: Kristina Altepeter
Designer: Lauren Perlow
Associate Designer: Jeff Lam
Strategist: Gaby Anggono
Associate Analyst: Kaleb Ruel
Associate Strategists: Jia Zheng, Katie Bowles, Katrina Yulo, Kelly Foss, Mariko Harman
Project Managers: Carmen Rincon, Emily Lee
Account Supervisor: Aggie Nixon-Kirschner
Senior Art Director: John Whitlock
Executive Creative Director: Johan Vakidis
Associate Planner: Susie Ni
Strategy Director: Gavin Lum
General Manager: Leo Chu
Associate Creative Director: Thais Lima
Senior Motion Designer: Ben Cruz
Art Director: Chateau Bezerra
Motion Designer: Tori Main
Project Manager: Andrea Bustabade
Director of Creative Development: James De Jesus
Creative Development Manager: Ray Patterson
Creative Developer: Perry Chan
QA Manager: Gearoid O’Flynn
QA Engineers: Max Chursin, Stuart Lewan
Production Manager: Joe Cai