By Robert Goldrich

Filmmaker Lauren Greenfield of production house Chelsea Pictures recalled the storyboards she received from Leo Burnett for the social media experiment “#LikeAGirl” presented by Procter & Gamble’s feminine hygiene brand Always. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a photograph of me on a storyboards cover page,” said Greenfield. Next to the picture was a question asking if Greenfield “directs like a girl?”

“Leo Burnett got me engaged from the very beginning right when they sent me the concept,” Greenfield told SHOOT last year. She felt both the importance and inherent challenge of a project looking to tackle the negative “Like a girl” stereotype (“you throw like a girl,” “you run like a girl”), which permeates our culture. She was immediately drawn to the global campaign that aimed to helps girls and women feel proud and confident when they do things “#LikeAGirl.”

Greenfield and Leo Burnett creatives collaborated and developed the social experiment to see how people of all ages interpret the phrase “Like a girl.” The centerpiece viral video captured negative and positive feedback, generating a staggering 4.5 billion online impressions worldwide and resonating with its target audience and beyond. A broadcast version ran during this year’s Super Bowl. And last month “#LikeAGirl” earned the Primetime Commercial Emmy Award, capping a season of assorted awards and accolades.

Judy John, CEO/chief creative officer of Leo Burnett Canada, recalled. “We considered a handful of directors for the ‘#LikeAGirl’ project. The creative team sent me a link to Lauren’s work and they followed it up with a copy of her book ‘Girl Culture.’ You can tell from looking at her body of work, that she really gets girls and women and what they go through. Just by looking at her work, we had a feeling this was the perfect match up. And after talking to Lauren, we knew she was the absolute best director for this film.”

That body of work also included Thin, Greenfield’s directing debut which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary was based on her book of the same title which chronicled four women as they struggle to fight eating disorders.

Appropriately, “#LikeAGirl” also broke new industry ground for women. Earlier this year, on the strength of the viral video, Greenfield became the very first individual female director to garner a DGA Commercial Director of the Year nomination. (The only other females nominated for the DGA spot honor were part of directing teams; Amy Hill of the duo Riess/Hill earned a nom in 1999, and this year Katina Mercadante, half of The Mercadantes, was a DGA Award nominee.)

Reflections
In the aftermath of the Emmy win, Greenfield shared, “The response to #LikeAGirl has been incredible on so many levels, both personal and professional.  It started out as a small-scale social experiment and ended up reaching so many people that it was able to create real and measurable social change. More gratifying than any award was the fact that it was seen by 90 million people internationally, many of whom were inspired to share it, and speak out about how they had been affected by those words. It was this overwhelming grass roots social media response that prompted Always to air a 60-second version during the Super Bowl, giving regular girls, who are neither entertainers nor scantily clad, a historic opportunity to have a voice and speak to the biggest audience on American television.  One of the most emotional moments of this ride for me was seeing these girls make spectators stop in their tracks, in the midst of their Super Bowl revelry, and hearing the football audience erupt in cheering.

“The advertising awards,” continued Greenfield, “were also a great thrill, beginning with 7 CLIOs and capped by 14 Lions at Cannes (including the new Glass Lion for Gender Equality and the Titanium Lion awarded to game changers.)  A letter of congratulations from Sheryl Sandberg was a personal highlight. The recent Emmy was the icing on the cake.  It is profoundly satisfying to be recognized by one’s peers and the industry. The Emmy is particularly special because there is only one award given for commercials, and the audience is a broad television one, rather than strictly for the advertising industry.  I had been nominated once before for my documentary film Thin so it was really exciting to be recognized in a completely new category.  I was also very proud to win in the commercial category in which few women have been honored.  

“But more meaningful than any award is the social change caused by the campaign. According to research by Always, 19% of people had a positive association with the words ‘like a girl,’ and six months after the spot aired, 76% did.  The deep penetration of the campaign in the culture was also testament to its social impact. Self Magazine used the headline ‘Run like a Girl’ on its cover. Hillary Clinton supporters wore t-shirts that said, ‘run like a girl’ with a picture of the White House, and role models like Gloria Steinem and Michelle Obama tweeted the spot in support.”

This success also underscores the importance of risk taking—and being willing to fail. Greenfield related, “#LikeAGirl was a social experiment in which we were able to bring forth something real, deep, and unexpected. To accomplish that required a huge amount of trust and an appetite for risk on the part of both the agency, Leo Burnett, and Always, the client. I remember when we had our early conversations, I warned the agency that there hadn’t been scientific research to predict the outcome and we were going to have to be open to the results and work with the real story that emerged. There could be no scripting or manipulation or we would not gain any meaningful results from the experiment. I have been directing spots for 9 years and in my experience, it is the rare client that can accept this level of unpredictability in the commercial space.  However, in my personal work, in photography and in documentary film, it is always the candid moment that unfolds in real time that is the most compelling source of revelation, truth, and magic. I try to work with thorough pre-production, research, and structure, but also preserve space for spontaneity and what Henri Cartier Bresson called ‘the decisive moment.’

“In the case of ‘#LikeAGirl,’ we achieved this by doing a video survey with hundreds of people to select a representative sample, and then allowing them to have real time revelations on film which were spontaneous, and could not have been predicted.”

Looking back & ahead
Greenfield recalled that “selecting the girls and boys, men and women, for the shoot was by far the most challenging and critical part of the process.  I designed a video survey for which we needed to ask the right questions, without contaminating the experiment by revealing the project’s content or aims.   With the help of fantastic DP David Morrison and great production by Chelsea Pictures, we created a safe and comfortable environment to capture candid testimonial in front of the camera.  The shoot day was the easiest part because the subjects were so honest and inspiring, they moved us all to tears. 

“The shoot was one day, the prep four to six weeks, and the edit several months, but my personal preparation for this project really began in 1997 when I embarked on my photography project ‘Girl Culture,’ a book and exhibition about how girls are affected by media messages, the exhibitionism of feminine culture, and the emphasis on girls’ bodies as their measure of value.  So to say we shot it in a day doesn’t really do justice to the creative process.

“I have done advertising in print and motion for the last 15 years, as well as editorial work for magazine clients, and I always try to merge my “personal” work and my commercial work so that I can bring my full passion and the depth of experience as a visual storyteller to every project.  That means being selective about projects and going beyond the classic contribution of a commercial director. I am hands-on in the pre-production, usually involved in the editing, and try to take on projects that I can get behind in principle, as well as in creative. While I love making documentaries and my last ones, The Queen of Versailles and Thin reached large audiences, the other unexpected part about ‘#LikeAGirl’ was that it reached more people and created social change like nothing I have done before. It was a lesson about new media, the power of a clear message, and the passion of an audience ready to embrace an idea whose time has come.”

As for what’s next, Greenfield shared that her “big project at the moment is a 25-year thematic retrospective about Wealth and the American Dream, which examines the way our values of materialism have been exported around the world. It is a multimedia exhibition that will open simultaneously in LA and NY and be shown at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles and the new ICP space in the Bowery in NY. Accompanied by a 465-page illustrated book published by Phaidon, the exhibition will bring together my photography, and short films shot in the United States, China, Russia, Dubai, Central and South America, and Europe in a full- throated exploration of the global culture of consumerism.  

“But as always,” added Greenfield, “I am multi-tasking and simultaneously directing a new feature length documentary, select commercials and branded content, as well as developing a fiction film to direct.   While I love to cross platforms to tell stories in fresh new ways, I try to keep a laser beam focus on the content that speaks to my personal passions and has the potential to make a difference on the issues that are important to me.”

Table of Contents:

Lenny Abrahamson
Scott Cooper
Cary Joji Fukunaga
Brendan Gibbons
Lauren Greenfield
Todd Haynes
Ridley Scott

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