Always #LikeAGirl
In 2014, Always launched their #LikeAGirl campaign. The video they created for this campaign was to raise awareness for their movement to help champion girls’ confidence. This ad quickly rose in popularity and made a strong impact among viewers all over the country.
This video takes place on a commercial set and begins with a director telling male and female actors that they are going to be given a set of actions to do, and that they should perform the first thing that comes to their minds. The first action is “show me what it looks like to run like a girl.” These adult actors showcase their interpretation of what it looks like to “run like a girl”, and for most of them, their running looks very weak and frail. One of the actors even says, “Oh no my hair!”. The second action the director gives them is “show me what it looks like to fight like a girl”. The actors once again showcase very weak, soft and frail fighting. The last action is “throw like a girl”, and every single actor pretended to throw so poorly and in such a weak manner. The actors find humor in performing these actions, but the video quickly takes a turn and that’s where Always really excels at getting their point across.
The second half of the video showcases the director asking the exact same questions to a group of young girls and the whole feel of the video immediately changes. These young girls start running their hardest, they are showing off their best throw and they are fighting like they are the strongest people in the world. The director asks one of the young girls, “What does it mean to you when I say run like a girl?” and she responds, “It means run as fast as you can!” That’s when Always poses the question: When did doing “something like a girl” become an insult?
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I feel this question is the main conflict in the video and really makes viewers stop and think about how they perceive what it means to do something “like a girl”. Always does an excellent job at framing their video in a way that appeals to people’s emotions and really gets them to stop and think about the question. They start off with questions that seem to be so silly, but these questions come around to be so important and the way these young girls answer these questions is the main focal point of the whole video.
At the end of the video the director asks one of the adult actors, “If I asked you to run like a girl now, would you do it differently?” and she responds, “I would run like myself.”
Always notes that, “A girl’s confidence plummets during puberty” and they want to change that. The video ends with the words “Let’s make #LikeAGirl mean amazing things”.
I think Always did an excellent job at building up their story to get their point across. They were so creative to make a video that posed questions to seemingly everyday people and then ask the same questions to young girls. This just showcased how as we get older, our perception of what it means to do something “like a girl”, turns in to an insult. When it shouldn’t be.
The video definitely had a strong message and an important lesson to learn for everyone. After watching this video years ago, I am still to this day a strong supporter of Always and I think it is so important for a brand that has a primarily female dominant target audience to create campaigns, ads, and videos that support all females and their mission as a company.
