Shattering Beauty Stereotypes with Project #ShowUs

Journey

We facilitated a partnership between Dove, Getty Images and Girlgaze to create Project #ShowUs—the world’s largest stock photo library created entirely by female-identifying and non-binary individuals—in order to shatter beauty stereotypes. The collection includes over 10,000 photographs from 39 countries (and counting!), depicting women exactly as they are, not as others believe they should be. No digital distortion, no false narratives, no apologies. Every tag of every photograph is personally written by the photo subject themselves, so they can be defined on their own terms.

We started by combining quantitative desk research, census bureau data, local Getty image licensing trends, and qualitative interviews with women in 39 countries to identify the ways in which they were most marginalized in media & advertising in their country. Then we drove mass awareness and participation for Project #ShowUs by launching a global, integrated, 360 campaign that was adapted to the cultural nuances of 39 countries. The campaign included TV and digital video assets, OOH, Social Media, Print, PR, Influencer marketing, in-store activations.

We were determined to not only reach our audience where they were, but also on channels and platforms where the stereotypes of how women ‘should look’ run most rampant, such as lifestyle and fitness magazines, women’s talk shows, and billboards fashion districts. Furthermore, we leveraged media partnerships with leading global publications like Stylist, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, People, Elle, O, and Bazaar to explore the problem of representation in a deeper editorial format.