STOP

Background

GRRRL is a sportwear brand for women with the mission statement, ‘It’s time to change the game’. Partly, this is aimed at other sportswear brands that simply do not offer clothing in large enough sizes for many women. Partly it is a statement about female empowerment.

1 in 3 women in the USA has experienced physical violence by an intimate partner.

1 in 5 has been raped. Women are more at risk from this abuse than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria. The poverty rate for women aged 18 to 64 is 13.4%, while the poverty rate for men aged 18 to 64 is 9.7% in the United States.

African-American women earn 64 cents and Latina women earn 56 cents for every dollar earned by a Caucasian man.

94% of all teenage girls have been shamed for the way their body looks. These statistics aren’t just horrible, they point to a pattern of behaviour that needs to stop.

Idea

To mark International Women’s Day, a guerrilla team took to the streets of Los Angeles with five large stencils. As the athletes painted, they filmed.

The next morning, they put a video together from their combined footage. Teaser ads cut from b-roll footage were created to run as Instagram & Facebook GIFs to their combined audience of 135k followers. The GIFs suggested a launch date and landing page. In fact, GRRRL brought the launch forward to the weekend before IWD to ensure they didn’t get caught up in the noise of the day, and to make sure their point wasn’t missed.

Results

Hosted initially on Facebook, where GRRRL have modest but loyal 30k followers. The spot had over 316,000 views and was shared 345 times. The five interview films on Instagram and on Facebook were also successful in driving engagement, the interview of Angel Rice getting 36,000 views. On IWD, GRRRL TOGETHER was Ad Age’s campaign of the day. There were also lead stories on Media Post’s Agency Daily and Think LA’s IWD newsletter.

Our Thoughts

Kortney Olson is the founder of GRRRL and is a Hollywood story in the making. Australia’s first female arm-wrestling champion, among other accomplishments, she started the GRRRL movement first, then created the clothing brand as a tool communication.

Olson experienced bullying, rape, depression and addiction herself and came through it to inspire other women to do exactly what they’ve been told they can’t, or shouldn’t, do.

This is brand PURPOSE in capital letters. ‘Stop’ isn’t particularly slick or clever. But it has a raw authenticity that the other sports brands (Nike) can’t get near. It avoids the glossiness of the big brands, Under Armour, Nike, and Adidas. It feels very different to anything a network agency would ever do. The aggressiveness is palpable and that is why some 50 of its customers have had the brand’s name tattooed on their skin. Sales are increasing by 200% year on year and this is why. GRRRL is clothing for the larger woman and it’s going to be huge.