Starting in June 2014, Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) Always brand made it their objective to keep girls confident while undergoing puberty. According to AdWeek, the Always #LikeAGirl campaign has received over 54 million views on YouTube and close to 30 million views on other websites. Always has recently followed up with another advertisement in the #LikeAGirl campaign this past summer, titled ‘Unstoppable.’ We can all thank Leo Burnett for being the production company behind this extremely successful social media campaign. Judy John, CEO and CCO at Leo Burnett Canada, spoke to contagious.com about the strategies behind the campaign and how the ad has instilled such a large impact on its audiences.

The first strategy that Judy John mentions is not featuring any Always products in the campaign. This is particularly interesting because it is not entirely common to watch an advertisement that does not try to get its viewers to buy the product on the screen. Instead, this campaign was created to start a conversation on social media. Always wanted viewers to know its message about empowering girls was bigger than trying to gain sales on its products. This translated well over social media as people’s positive reactions to the ad rather than the product garnered more views, tweets, and shares on different social medias.

This strategy is especially influential because it is not like the rest of advertisements we see on a daily basis. The advertiser isn’t trying to “pull one over on us.” Instead, they want us to watch their ad to garner real reaction and emotional ties to the message they’re sending, which may very well result in ties to the brand.

It seems that Always has successfully not made the campaign all about them, but rather about the girls within it. This strategy is extremely smart, especially when you see the response it has created. According to 522 productions, there have been millions of shares on Facebook and retweets on Twitter after the campaign was posted on the Always website, alongside discussions by Time magazine and other networks about what this campaign has done for girls.

Another strategy John mentions was to include participants who were unprepared and unaware of the questions they were going to be asked. This strategy was meant to elicit real responses from the girls and boys in the ad as they each gave their own definitions and true reactions to the phrase “like a girl.” It was used as a way to make the campaign as natural and honest as possible. This is particularly moving for viewers as they see that many girls and boys have a bad perception of the phrase. Audiences can fully acknowledge the damage this sort of phrase would do to girls, especially during puberty when girls’ confidence plummets. This makes the campaign all the more powerful as society itself recognizes the sad limitations it puts on young girls.

A third strategy noted on 522 productions’ website was the brand’s decision in using video to market its campaign. It’s clear after watching the video that a picture or written document could never instill as much emotion or send as powerful a message. By being able to view the girls, audiences can put real faces and examples to their understanding of the campaign. It makes the campaign more relatable as viewers imagine themselves, their friends, or perhaps, their daughters being affected by the same societal constructions made out for girls.

Always also used the strategy of tagging on a hashtag to its campaign. The #LikeAGirl hashtag can definitely be attributed to allowing such widespread response across the web. This hashtag can be searched on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, which has lead users to the original video on the Always website or allowed them to engage in a conversation about the video’s message.

An even bigger impact came for this social media campaign as it was shortened and aired during the Super Bowl in February. As listed by Ad Meter, Adobe ranked “Like a Girl” the top digital campaign of the Super Bowl, based on an analysis of mentions on a variety of social networks and Internet platforms.

Then, according to contagious.com, for Interntional Women’s Day in March, Always encouraged girls to get on social media and share photos and videos to their accounts to show ‘how awesome doing things #LikeAGirl really is.’ This marketing initiative was followed up with another online film titled ‘Stronger Together.’

Through these various strategies, the #LikeAGirl campaign has skyrocketed. It has even received 14 awards at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. It’s obvious that there are plenty of positive lessons to be learned about this particular social media campaign.

First, emotion is powerful. Viewers are moved by this emotion and ultimately, associate the positive emotion they receive from a campaign along with the brand that produced it. Second, hashtags go a long way. Hashtags make it easy for a campaign to be found online. All you have to do is simply search the hashtag on a multitude of social media platforms, and you’re bound to find plenty of links or conversations directing you to the campaign. Lastly, one video posting on social media does not and should not always be the only one in pushing a campaign forward. The follow up video, ‘Unstoppable,’ sends another powerful and emotional message. Again, a similar conversation is elicited, but this time on a more specific topic such as what specific limitations can do to girls.

The only negative to this campaign seems to have little to do with the actual campaign. MTV reported that some users on Twitter began tweeting back to undermine the campaign after seeing its sixty-second commercial during the Super Bowl. Rather than supporting the hashtag, #LikeAGirl, people started tweeting #LikeABoy to post their negative comments.

However, this did not turn the campaign for the worst. Supporters came back harder on Twitter, posting about the even bigger need for this campaign after seeing these negative posts.

In a way, these dual reactions on Twitter enforce the conversation Always started itself. As long as people are talking on social media, awareness increases to raise girls’ confidence during puberty and beyond.