Contenders at Cannes 2023: Maybelline New York – Through Their Eyes | Hero

Leading up to Cannes Lions, we showcase creative campaigns submitted from across the Asia Pacific.

Campaign Background

Hero

The campaign sets out to change the game for good.

Maybelline New York wanted to engage with Gen Z, in particular the burgeoning gaming demographic, now with a total audience of 17 million in Australia. The brief was to connect with young female gamers in a meaningful and authentic way and enrich their gaming experiences.

The brand had a clear and long-established purpose; ‘give everyone the self-confidence to express their beauty, to play and to make change’. We knew of anecdotal evidence that female-identifying gamers were facing constant abuse online resulting in many playing in silence, or not at all.

The campaign was organically picked up by UN Women in the lead-up to IWD and shared across all their social channels, who commented that the film was “… difficult to watch, but shows we still have a long way to go”.

It seemed the online gaming world was a place where many don’t feel free to express themselves and play. It was time to change the game.

We commissioned an Australian research survey with over 600 gamers to garner deeper insights into the problem and the results were confronting. Over 83% of female identifying gamers have experienced abusive behaviour online and as a result the majority turn off their microphones to conceal their identity and avoid harassment.

Our strategy was not just to simply shine a light on an existing problem, but to amplify the silent voices on the subject matter, and create allies both male and female in the online gaming world.

Further to this, we wanted to shift the conversation from being between female gamers, and place the onus on males, because if the game is truly going to change, it starts with changing their current behaviour.

Firstly, we set out to show male gamers what it was like to play through a woman’s eyes. Two prominent Aussie male gamers had their real identities disguised with voice modification software and fake female profiles in an online first-person shooter game. They experienced first-hand the level of constant abuse and bullying experienced by the opposite sex.

Shared out by our four gamer influencers, the film quickly resonated with the online gaming community and beyond. Appreciating they’d been heard, female-identifying players shared their stories, many who had been hiding in silence, and most importantly millions of male gamers called for others to stand up and say something.

The brand had a clear and long-established purpose; ‘give everyone the self-confidence to express their beauty, to play and to make change’.

Then during IWD week 32 top female gamers joined the cause at a live national tournament, where they played on a custom Fortnite map and told their combined audience of 17M to keep their eyes up and call out abuse.

Most notably the campaign was organically picked up by UN Women in the lead up to IWD and shared across all their social channels, who commented that the film was “… difficult to watch, but shows we still have a long way to go”.

By the end of the campaign, we had done more than highlight the existing discrimination, we had motivated the male gaming community to call out the abuse and work towards the possibility of a safer and more respectful online gaming world.

The Work

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