UN Women UK IWD campaign urges the country to take action on gender equality

UN Women UK has launched an advertising campaign challenging everyone to take action to drive equality for all women and girls.

Launched on International Women’s Day, the campaign, created by Revolt, brings to life this year’s IWD theme forUN Women: ‘For ALL Women and Girls. Rights. Equality. Empowerment.’ which marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration demanded action on gender equality. Progress for women and girls has been made, but it has been slow, fragile and uneven, which makes UN Women UK’s work just as important today.

The campaign's creative focus is on driving the conversation from awareness to action. 

UN Women UK and Revolt wanted to focus this awareness around the prevalence of everyday sexism in the UK with tools for everyone to take action. It is particularly important to make everyone feel included, as 70% of UK womenhave experienced sexual harassment in public, but only 4% have reported it because almost half (45%) felt they didn’t feel reporting it would change anything.

In response to this, Revolt devised ‘Oi! - Observe & Intervene’ – a powerful campaign designed to challenge and stop sexism in everyday life. Each creative asset highlights a micro-aggression - made massive - that’s challenged by an ‘Oi! Intervention’. All the microaggressions featured in the work were overheard by real women on social media, in the street or the workplace. We used outdoor media, Instagram and LinkedIn to contextualise each asset to where it had been seen or heard.

Running every day across what has now become International Women’s Week, the campaign was created in partnership with Build Hollywood, Ocean Outdoor and London Lites, with the creative appearing on social media and across outdoor.

“Sexism isn’t always loud—it often manifests in everyday microaggressions that go unchecked. That’s why it was important for us to be as loud as possible this International Women's Day. By Observing and Intervening when we witness these behaviours, we can create real change,” said Alice Dowdall, senior creative, Revolt.

“Women shouldn’t bear the responsibility of ending sexism. It’s on all of us to change our behaviour, calling out sexism when we see it. With our Observe and Intervene campaign, we’re shining a light on those sexist expressions we hear daily and empowering people to challenge them in the moment. By making these comments impossible to ignore, we can create a culture where sexism is no longer tolerated anywhere,” said Tabitha Morton, CEO, UN Women UK.