Always "#LikeAGirl" Campaign Case Study
Always turned a phrase used as an insult into one of the most awarded and culturally resonant campaigns of the 2010s — by simply showing what 'like a girl' looks like before someone teaches you it means weak.
When you ask a 10-year-old girl to run like a girl, she runs. Hard. Arms pumping, legs driving, going as fast as she can. When you ask an adult woman to run like a girl, she minces forward with limp wrists and a self-conscious smile.
Lauren Greenfield’s documentary footage of that moment, shot for Always’s 2014 campaign, is one of the most quietly devastating pieces of brand content ever produced. It’s three minutes and eighteen seconds, and it changed what people heard every time someone used the phrase “like a girl” as an insult. That’s not a metaphor. Research conducted after the campaign found that the majority of people who saw it reported genuinely hearing the phrase differently afterward.
The Context
“Like a girl” had been used as an insult, a statement of comparative inadequacy, for generations. To run like a girl, throw like a girl, fight like a girl: each phrase encoded the assumption that female performance was, by definition, diminished performance. The insult was so embedded in language that most people deployed it without thinking.
P&G’s Always brand commissioned research that found girls’ confidence levels took a significant hit during puberty. This wasn’t just an emotional observation; the timing was directly relevant to Always’s business. The brand’s products were most relevant to girls in exactly the period when their confidence was most at risk. The connection between the brand’s commercial purpose and its potential social purpose was unusually direct.
Leo Burnett Toronto, working with creative director Judy John, developed the strategic insight: rather than trying to celebrate girls in a general way, Always could intervene at a specific cultural behavior (the use of “like a girl” as insult) and transform its meaning. Not by arguing against the usage but by making visible what it actually looked like.
The Campaign
Greenfield, whose prior documentary work had examined female body image and adolescent identity, was commissioned to direct. The methodology was simple: ask a range of people, including adult men and women, teenage girls, and girls around 10 to 11 years old, to perform activities “like a girl.” Run like a girl. Throw like a girl. Fight like a girl.
The responses divided cleanly along age lines. Every adult and older teenager performed the actions in a weak, self-parodying, stereotyped manner. The younger girls, who hadn’t yet absorbed the social meaning of the insult, performed the actions with full effort and commitment. One young girl, asked what it meant to run like a girl, looked directly into the camera and said, “It means run as fast as you can.”
The film launched online in June 2014. It ran 3 minutes 18 seconds in its full version, far outside the conventional parameters for brand advertising, which defaults to 30- or 60-second formats. It spread through social media without paid distribution. The hashtag #LikeAGirl was seeded alongside it.
A 60-second version ran as a Super Bowl XLIX commercial in February 2015, reaching the largest possible broadcast audience and generating a wave of additional coverage and social discussion. The Super Bowl context was a deliberate choice. It is the most watched American television event and traditionally a venue for advertising that targets men. Running a girls’ confidence ad in the Super Bowl was itself a statement.
Why It Worked
Three things set this campaign apart from the broader category of purpose-driven marketing that it’s often grouped with.
First, the campaign addressed something real. “Like a girl” was already a slur before Always showed up. The problem existed independently of the brand. This distinction matters enormously: campaigns that manufacture social issues to solve feel cynical; campaigns that name pre-existing tensions feel honest. Always didn’t create the problem and then position itself as the solution. It documented a cultural reality that its research confirmed was directly harming its core consumer.
Second, the documentary format made the argument without making it. Greenfield didn’t direct the film to make a point; she directed it to capture what was actually happening. The gap between how young girls and older people performed the same activities was what it was. The film didn’t manipulate it through framing, music, or narration. The viewers drew the conclusion themselves, which made the conclusion feel like their own insight rather than the brand’s argument.
Third, the call to action was the phrase itself. #LikeAGirl asked participants to reclaim the words, to use them as a statement of pride rather than diminishment. This created a participation mechanic that was active rather than passive: sharing a #LikeAGirl post was a small but genuine act of cultural intervention, not just brand engagement. The brand became the vehicle for that act, not just the topic of it.
The Results
The original film garnered over 76 million YouTube views within a year of its online launch. The hashtag #LikeAGirl trended globally multiple times throughout 2014 and 2015. The Super Bowl version generated an additional 30+ million views and became one of the most-discussed Super Bowl spots of 2015.
At Cannes Lions 2015, the campaign won the Grand Prix in four separate categories: PR, Titanium, Glass, and Television. The Glass Lion was a newly created award for campaigns addressing gender inequality, and Always was its first recipient. The campaign also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2015.
P&G’s own research found that the campaign had a measurable effect on perception: a significant majority of women and girls who had seen the campaign reported that the phrase “like a girl” had changed meaning for them after watching the film. This is an unusual metric to report. Most brand campaigns don’t measure cultural attitude shifts, and the fact that P&G commissioned and publicized the research suggests confidence in the finding.
Always brand sales grew during the campaign period, though P&G doesn’t publish brand-level revenue figures that would allow precise attribution.
The Lesson for Today’s Marketers
The #LikeAGirl campaign is the counterexample to the Pepsi Kendall Jenner ad. Both campaigns attempted to connect a consumer brand with social values, but one worked and one catastrophically didn’t.
The difference isn’t tone or production quality or intent. The difference is connection. Always makes products for girls transitioning through puberty. The confidence hit girls experience during that period is directly relevant to Always’s relationship with its consumer. A campaign about girls’ confidence is genuinely about the brand’s world.
Pepsi makes soda. Soda has no meaningful connection to protest movements, racial justice, or police-civilian relations. The attempt to attach the brand to those movements was decoration, not connection.
Purpose marketing succeeds when the brand has standing to speak. Always had standing, earned through commercial relationship with the consumer at the exact moment the campaign was addressing. That standing isn’t manufactured by running a campaign; it’s established by the brand’s actual relationship with its customers. The campaign just made it visible.
Key Results
- YouTube Views: Over 76 million views on YouTube within the first year of the original film's online launch
- Super Bowl Impact: The Super Bowl XLIX ad (February 2015) generated an additional 30+ million views and significant social media discussion
- Cannes Recognition: Won the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2015 in four categories: PR, Titanium, Glass, and Television
- Emmy Award: Won Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2015
- Social Impact Measurement: P&G research found that a significant majority of women who saw the campaign reported it changed their perception of the phrase 'like a girl'
SWOT Analysis
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Key Takeaway
The most powerful purpose-driven campaigns don't announce what a brand cares about — they do something about it, creating a genuine cultural intervention that the brand can credibly own because the connection between the brand and the cause is real.
