Publicis Hawkeye’s Passion Project Changes the World in 2014: #HeForShe

In our search for a pro bono client, Publicis Hawkeye sought out Elizabeth Nyamayaro, senior advisor for strategic partnerships and outreach at UN Women, the United Nations entity formed in July 2010 for gender equality and the empowerment of women. Nyamayaro was looking for a creative partner to develop a global campaign idea for gender equality…one that would shift thinking.

Through collaborative cross-disciplinary creative sessions, Publicis Hawkeye came up with a campaign platform we called “HeForShe,” which is a totally unique women’s rights campaign that deliberately does not feature women. Instead, the campaign speaks directly to men. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, called it “revolutionary.”

HeForShe was officially launched on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2014. Stuart Elliott, former marketing columnist at The New York Times, seeded the idea in his March 7, 2014, column called “U.N. Women’s Rights Group Seeks Men’s Support” and credited our agency’s role in developing the concept. He emphasized the basic strategy behind the campaign: “men ought to stand up for the rights of the women of the world who are their mothers, sisters and daughters.”

On September 20, 2014, Emma Watson, in her role as UN Women goodwill ambassador, spoke at the UN headquarters, catapulting the HeForShe digital and social-centric campaign, on which UN Women collaborates with multiple agency partners. In just two weeks, her speech helped to generate 1.1 million tweets from 750,000 different users, reaching a total of 1.2 billion unique Twitter users. To date, her speech has been viewed online more than 8 million times.

More than 200,000 men around the world have pledged their support of HeForShe, including numerous world leaders and celebrities from Hollywood’s A-list. Also, Twitter painted the hashtag HeForShe on the wall of its headquarters. By redirecting a conversation to men, Publicis Hawkeye’s unique idea has grown into a global movement and doesn’t appear to be waning.

Publicis Hawkeye is an integrated advertising and digital agency based in Dallas and part of the Publicis Worldwide global network. The agency additionally provides specialist capabilities in analytics, CRM and experiential marketing to the Publicis North America region. Publicis Worldwide is the largest global agency network within holding company, Publicis Groupe S.A. Publicis Hawkeye clients include: American Airlines Cargo, Anheuser-Busch, BASF, Bridgestone Americas, Cargill, Continental Mills, Delta Dental Plans Association, Gortex, Men’s Health, Nestlé, The North Face, Terminix and TruGreen, among others.

*CNN’s HLN Article Link