Watsons embraces equity with regional empowerment campaign for IWD

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Watsons has unveiled its “DARE TO BE” campaign to further its commitment to transcending stereotypes and standing with women to discover the best version of themselves.

This comes following the Asia-wide “The New Beautiful” campaign launched last year that inspired a heightened awareness of holistic beauty. In an interview survey of 11,000 women conducted by A.S. Watson, over 50% of women described themselves as “unconfident”. Through this initiative, Watsons continues to advance the cause of gender equality with its 90 million female Watsons Club members in the global community.

As Watsons believes that everyone has the power to transcend their own limitations and break the stigma that society puts upon them, the holistic empowerment campaign also seeks to change this by featuring women who are breaking down boundaries and leading the way for others.

In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, a spokesperson from Watsons said “DARE TO BE” is a regional empowerment campaign which spans across 15 markets from Asia, Middle East and Eastern Europe, including Hong Kong, Mainland China, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Ukraine.

In terms of marketing strategies, Watsons picked IWD as the date of launch for the campaign in order to celebrate women who are its core group of customers. The idea behind the campaign is built on women’s status in society and negative adjectives which are patronising to women, therefore Watsons wants to take back the control of the power of words with the campaign by using positive adjectives such as “BOLDHER, STRONGHER, BRAVEHER” to encourage more women to see the strength within themselves. A number of charity projects are being planned globally to help women get “empowhered”.

For activation, the campaign relies primarily on social, where Watsons collaborates with KOLs across the region with interesting line-up of celebrities, sportswomen and social entrepreneurs.

In terms of engagement, there will be Instagram filters featuring the “BRAVEHER, BOLDHER & STRONGHER” messages to let customers express their values of the campaign, whereas in Hong Kong Watsons will be partnering with YWCA and distributing ChariTea red-date tea bags at Watsons outlets, alongside social services. 

Don't miss: Watsons dives deeper into sustainability with 'Go Green with MIRROR' campaign

Back in February, Watsons also tapped further into sustainability with its "Let's Go Green with MIRROR" campaign, done in collaboration with local boy band MIRROR. The campaign was launched across four Asian markets including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore.

This came following Watsons's "Greener Stores Global Framework" campaign last April to make its stores more sustainable and to empower the brand's 18m members to make better choices to lower environmental impacts. To further its mission, Watsons has unveiled its cross-over campaign with MIRROR this time to encourage customers to take positive actions in their daily life to make more eco-friendly choices.

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