Who: Girls Opportunity Alliance (a program from The Obama Foundation), with Toronto purpose agency Public Inc. for strategy and creative.
What: “Dear 25-Year-Old Me,” a video produced for “Get Her There,” a new platform described as “a global call to action” to educate and empower adolescent girls around the world to reach their full potential. It is Public’s first work since winning the Girls Opportunity Alliance mandate in an RFP last year.
When & Where: The campaign launched on Monday, coinciding with the 10th annual International Day of the Girl. It is running across donated media through Comcast, which is among a group of high-profile corporate partners including lululemon, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Lego Group and FedEx.
Why: The Obama Foundation launched the Girls Opportunity Alliance in 2018 with a goal of inspiring, empowering, and connecting more than 4,000 leaders and community-based organizations working to support adolescent girls globally.
Since its inception, it has funded 54 projects from community-based organizations in 20 countries, including India, Malawi, Cambodia, and Peru, and has provided these organizations with access to resources to help inform and strengthen their work.
The “Get Her There” platform will fund more than 100 organizations and grow its network of leaders who are helping to educate and empower our girls. As part of its latest efforts, it is adding 12 new community-based organizations from countries like Kenya, India, and Colombia to its funding.
“When we launched the Girls Opportunity Alliance four years ago today, we knew the key to advancing our work was an alliance of stakeholders coming together to support girls completing their education,” said former First Lady Michelle Obama, in a release. “And that is exactly what the ‘Get Her There’ campaign was created to do.”
How: Shot in five countries (Cambodia, India, Guatemala, Uganda and the U.S.) with real girls from grassroots organizations within Girls Opportunity Alliance’s Network, the creative was built around the simple premise of asking young girls what they would say to their 25-year-old self.
Their responses are presented as a voiceover that backs a series of images of the young girls fulfilling their various dreams, such as graduating from secondary school, to more concrete goals such as becoming a filmmaker, a tattoo artist, a business leader, etc. The spot was directed by Black-ish star Marsai Martin.
And we quote: “The barriers our girls face today are steep and are leaving millions of girls out of school. Our goal is to help clear away all that’s standing in the way of girls achieving their dreams. While that’s too big of a challenge for any one of us to tackle alone, it’s something I know can be accomplished if we all work together.” —Former First Lady Michelle Obama
