#LikeAGirl Campaign Case Study

“Always® recognized that this was not a simple branding problem, but a systemic communication challenge rooted in cultural narratives.”

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Background

This case study required selecting an existing mass media campaign (within the past ten years) that was focused on promoting a pro-social behavior, then producing a research-grounded, graphically designed case study that analyzed the campaign’s strategy, execution, and effectiveness.

I chose the 2017 Always® #LikeAGirl campaign. The campaign addressed the sharp decline in confidence and sports participation that adolescent girls experience during puberty which is also a well-documented public health and communication problem that made it a strong fit for the pro-social aspect of this assignment and for the course’s emphasis on evidence-based persuasion strategy.

To complete this case study, I had to focus on every element of the deliverable: primary and secondary research, academic literature review, campaign analysis, data synthesis, written content, graphic design, and layout.

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Scope

The assignment had significant built-in constraints that shaped every decision. There were six required sections (background, target audience, formative research, key campaign messages, project evaluation, and theoretical application) and all of it had to fit within a strict three-page limit. The document also had to be graphically designed, meaning written analysis and visual design had to be developed simultaneously.

Key Elements Included:

• Research: Finding and reviewing peer-reviewed publications to support each section with cited evidence as well as other industry reports that documented campaign outcomes.
• Statistical Analysis and Data Synthesis: Identifying, verifying, and contextualizing the campaign’s quantitative results, including the shift in positive association with the phrase “like a girl” from 19% to 76% among women ages 16 to 24, and recreating data tables from original sources instead of reproducing them verbatim, per the assignment requirements.
• Graphic Design and Layout: Building the full document in a professional publication format with a consistent visual identity, including a custom header with campaign title and data callouts, color-coded tables, typographic hierarchy, and photographic elements, all within the three-page constraint.
• Theoretical Analysis: Applying framing theory and identity-based persuasion to assess whether the campaign’s design and execution reflected sound communication theory and providing evidence-backed reasoning instead of surface-level description.

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Process

I began with researching options for campaigns and ended up selecting the Always® #LikeAGirl campaign because my 10-year-old daughter plays sports and this felt personally relevant. I also liked this campaign because it had public, and easy to find, documented outcomes which made the theoretical grounding easier to analyze.

Because of the scope of this campaign, the research was straight forward. It was important to me that this case study be grounded in primary sources because it seems like research on females receive extra scrutiny before it can be deemed believable and I didn’t want any of the sources I selected to take away from the results.

Writing and design were developed together because of the tight three-page limit. I had to be very deliberate about layout and content decisions. I found it was easiest to build the document structure as I wrote directly into the design. That allowed me to adjust the copy length to properly fit visual space instead of trying to retrofit a completed draft into a pre-made template. This approach required more iteration, but I feel that it produced a more cohesive final product.

Key Decisions Included:

• Leading with a custom statistics callout block on the first page so that the data made the case before the copy did.
• Recreating all data tables from scratch according to the assignment instructions instead of reproducing existing figures, which also allowed me to standardize the visual formatting across the entire document.
• Structuring the theoretical application section around one specific argument instead of a general description of framing theory, which I felt made the analysis more precise and defensible.
• Placing the target audience and formative research sections on the second page next to campaign photographs helped to break up the dense analytical text and that also gave the document visual balance and momentum.

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Lessons Learned

What went well:

I felt that focusing on primary sources made this case study much more effective. Overall, the analysis ended up being specific and evidence-based throughout without relying on basic or general claims.

I also found that building content directly into the layout as I was making it, prevented the issue of having a well-written draft that I really liked but ultimately wouldn’t fit into a graphicly designed available space. Every design decision that I made reinforced the content priorities, and the final document read as a cohesive publication and not a formatted report.

Lastly, the theoretical application section was one of the strongest analytical sections. By identifying that the social experiment format served a dual function by simultaneously validating the creative concept and market-testing the message before public launch, the analysis went beyond surface-level discussion of framing theory and instead ended up demonstrating deeper applied analytical thinking.

The main challenge:

The three-page limit was the biggest challenge of this project. I find myself wanting to include as much data as possible (to “prove” the finding that I’m arguing) and that simply wasn’t possible. Every sentence had to really earn its spot in this case study, resulting in multiple rounds of editing and, in some sections, difficult decisions about what I needed to cut entirely.

Balancing my graphic design ambition with analytical depth was also a small challenge. I knew I wanted to create a publication-style layout with callout boxes, tables, and photographs but those pieces also take up a lot of space. Making sure I was able to include all the necessary content, with the design elements I wanted to include, was a practice of finding the right ratios and being sure the design ultimately enhanced the analysis.

Outcomes:

Analytically, the project deepened my understanding of how formative research functions, not only as an audience insight tool, but also as a creative development and message validation process. From a design perspective, the project was a practical exercise in publication-quality communication design by simultaneously managing typographic hierarchy, visual consistency, data visualization, and space limitations.