Background

When women have equal access to information and opportunity, anything is possible. While gender gap persists, women are unable to fulfill their human potential. Women Will is a Google initiative that focuses on digital programs for economic empowerment for women across the world. Women with access to economic opportunity disproportionately benefit their families, their communities, their countries. Whether via research, access or leadership, Women Will addresses the gaps in information and empowerment to help where women are being excluded. Digital is their tool for success, and our instrument for making the world more equal - one woman at a time. Simultaneously we are driving conversations around the issue to promote gender equality and accelerate change collectively. By making everyone, men and women, understand the benefits of gender equality, we hope to raise awareness on the issue, help bridge the gender gap together and live more fully.

Describe the cultural/social/political climate in your region and the significance of your campaign within this context

Gender gap is a universal issue. The challenges continue to be more acute for women in Asia Pacific - the 2018 Gender Gap report by WEF ranks Indonesia as 85th, India 108th, Japan 110th, and Korea 115th, of 149 countries. Gender inequality varies by country, but rigid cultural norms (women as the main bearer of unpaid work at home, or restricted responsibility at work), are often the major factor holding women back from equal opportunity. Societal norms that are embedded in people’s everyday lives make it difficult for everyone to see the real problem and missed opportunity - which leads to fewer discussions. The Women Will Data Explorer campaign surfaced the contradictions between how we think we live and how we really do. By using data in an interactive tool and storytelling, we provided a thought-provoking trigger for the conversation to be had and hopefully for change to happen.

Describe the creative idea

Understanding the data behind the gender gap is the first step in seeing the problem. The Women Will Data Explorer is an interactive data tool that tells the stories behind the gender gap as they surface by gender, country, and activity across 9 APAC countries. Users can explore the study, customize the statistics, share the facts and drive conversations. It launched with The Divide interactive editorial, exposing contradictions between how we think we live, and how we really do. For men to be actively engaged in the conversation, the campaign included Stuff We Never Talk About, a video featuring real conversations between sons and their fathers on manhood and gender equality. The questions surfaced from the research. By bringing gender data to life, we bring more people into the conversation and hopefully sow the seeds for real change to happen.

Describe the strategy

The data for Data Explorer is from the quantitative survey we conducted in nine Asia Pacific countries - Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, from March to May 2017. It focused on men’s and women’s perceptions of the gender gap, and values and behavior related to family responsibilities, work-life balance, careers, community, digital literacy, and internet usage. The data is crucial for gender equality advocates, as it is to the public at large. The interactive Data Explorer brings it to life: instead of dry numbers, we can see our lives played out by gender, by country, by activity. Users can explore, customize and share all the data 6 different languages in order to truly create an Asian perspective.

Describe the execution

November 2018 - Launched the Women Will Data Explorer using the original research data focusing on men’s and women’s perceptions of the gender gap, values and behaviors related to family responsibilities, work-life balance, careers, community, digital literacy, and internet usage in the region. The total is localized for 9 Asia Pacific countries and available in 6 languages. December 2018 - Digital media campaign to promote the Data Explorer with The Divide, an interactive editorial highlighting key insights of the survey. Those insights also ran on Facebook and Instagram for the Japan market, reaching 5M on Instagram alone. March 2019 - For International Women’s Month, and in collaboration with Seattle-based YouTube channel CUT, we released the video Stuff We Never Talk About. The video plays out data points in real life, by having father & son talks on manhood and gender equality. The video reached 500k views organically.

Describe the results/impact

Instagram: 5 Million reached Youtube: over half a million views, with drop off point at around 4mins of the 6:50 length Advocacy: invaluable. WomenWill is a program that has positively affected the lives of millions of women across Asia (and now in a total of 42 countries around the world) and this is the working tool of data for the program. Change: progressive.