As a highly purpose driven brand, Vodafone Greece wanted to support female empowerment, specifically focusing on women entrepreneurs with a series of tailored products and financial support. In a country that only ranks 84th in gender equality and within a context where talk about gender equality and women empowerment has become very widespread, the challenge was for Vodafone to find its own voice and to inspire female entrepreneurs in a way that was impactful, insightful, and relevant without alienating men at the same time.
Vodafone WomenInBusiness Connected
A purpose-led initiative to support female business empowerment
Client
- Vodafone
Bureau
- Athens
Challenge
Inspiration
Until now, the issue of female empowerment in business has been mainly addressed in the context of external factors. But what about barriers women create themselves? We designed specifically tailored research to explore the connection between women owned business performance and how women actually feel about themselves running a busines. What we found was truly revealing! Women run businesses outperform the market average on key KPIs, yet only 4 out of 10 women feel confident in their abilities to run a business! We needed to show them how great they were doing and inspire them with the confidence to go even further
Idea
We wanted to make women see how great they are doing in running their own business, thus empowering them to go further. We also need to do it in a way that female entrepreneurs would relate to and without sounding condescending. So, we created a social experiment. We invited 4 women business owners for an interview. We told them that behind the door in front of them was a successful businesswoman who had managed to outperform the market average as far as business efficiency is concerned. And then a simple question “What would you say to that woman?”. Their words were truly inspiring. And their reaction was really touching when they found out that behind this door there was… a mirror.
Growth
After empowering women through a campaign that made them realize how great they actually perform in the market and doing it by sharing undeniable research data, Vodafone provided a series of specific business solutions for free to practically support women using the power of technology – one area where they had specifically indicated less confidence. With this approach, the purpose of the campaign, which was to empower women in business succeeded in doing so both through communication and in a tangible way, bringing to life the brand’s promise “together we can” in a really meaningful way.