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P&G: Project Body Love

  • Date:

    18 September 2020

P&G: Project Body Love

WINNER: Magnetic Spotlight Awards 2020 for Best Use of Magazines for Good

“Project Body Love was a hugely important topic that P&G is proud to be involved with. The content was thought-provoking and involving and has clearly done the job on shifting the needle for how women feel about themselves. Hopefully with Hearst’s ongoing commitment to this cause even more women’s lives will be affected for the better.”

spokesperson P&G

The Challenge

Only 6% of UK women love their body and with 9 in 10 women opting out of important life events when they don’t feel good about the way they look, low body confidence is holding UK women back.

Our negative state of mind is also creating a damaging legacy for our children – with 80% of 10-year olds having been on a diet.

Many have attempted to tackle this problem, but efforts have done little to drive up female body confidence and improve these shocking statistics.

Put simply, Hearst and P&G’s challenge was to create a campaign that would truly get under the skin of the body confidence issue, to instigate lasting change for us and for future generations.

The Idea

Three-quarters of women believe that body confidence is more about state of mind than physical appearance. Yet despite this, we’ve all neglected the power of our minds, becoming overwhelmed with how we look, instead of how we feel. Project Body Love’s mission was to change the way we think, feel and speak about our bodies in order to empower women from the inside out.

The confidence boosting strategy was three-fold:

  • Addressing negative language and self talk
  • Promoting and supporting a more positive mindset
  • Future-proofing for the next generation

With body confidence being a personal journey, ‘one-size fits all’ was not going to work.

Instead, using the breadth and depth of the influential Hearst portfolio along with rich data and insight, to offer tailored support and more meaningful solutions, based on age and lifestage.

In collaboration with P&G brands Always Discreet, Pantene and Venus – and in a Hearst first, the team worked alongside psychologists, linguists, behavioural therapists and body confidence specialists to create a comprehensive survey that was sent to 2,500 women.

They asked women to bravely monitor and share their body confidence diaries. Research informed a Project Body Love content roadmap – helping to pinpoint negative triggers and tailor content by age and lifestage in order to maximise impact.

Hearst and P&G dedicated more than 50 print pages and 30 online articles to Project Body Love. The campaign gained the support of over 30 experts and influencers (including Emma Willis, Rochelle Humes & Jada Sezer) and saw more than 1,000 consumers share messages on Instagram to help spread the word.

Highlights included…

Addressing negative language:
Original use of print with perforated, sharable ‘mirror mantra’ cards. With research finding mirrors to be a key negative trigger – the positive mantra cards offered a critical opportunity to remind women how strong and beautiful they are when they needed it most.

Promoting a more positive mindset:
Project Body Love Podcast – In order to support lasting change, working with experts in the field, Hearst created a 30-day body confidence course. The audio series comprised of daily three-minute podcast lessons including cognitive strategies, mindful breathing exercises, body functionality, connecting with nature and mirror exercises. A Project Body Love wall at Women’s Health Live, gave 6k attendees the opportunity to spread Body Positivity by sharing the thing they love most about themselves

Future proofing:
A 24 page e-learning book for parents, teachers and carers covered how to raise, coach and mentor young women with body image in mind – ensuring the campaign leaves a much brighter legacy for future generations.

The Results

Project Body Love has reached more than 9 million women to date.

All content KPIs were exceeded with average engagement scores outperforming other commercial campaigns that were live during 2019. But could the campaign finally turn the tide and make a positive impact on something as complex as women’s confidence?

After just five months, the team saw:

  • A 37% uplift (pre vs post) in women agreeing they have ‘high body confidence
  • Body confidence increases across EVERY age group
  • Women embracing a more positive mindset; with those exposed to the campaign half as likely to say ‘nothing’ positively impacts their body confidence
  • 1 in 2 people agreeing that Project Body Love content made them feel really happy 😊
  • 77% more likely to agree P&G brands help them feel more positive about themselves
  • 69% more likely to agree that they are ‘very likely to buy’ P&G brands