MATCH International Women's Fund
#RestingStitchFace

Campaign Background

The Match International Women’s Fund saw the need to raise awareness about issues women face daily. With low brand awareness in Canada, the organization saw an opportunity to launch an always-on campaign for International Women’s Day 2018. Match recognized that the language used to oppress women is widespread, and all women seem to have many variations of sexist discourse readily available. The #RestingStichFace campaign allowed Match the opportunity to encourage women and their allies to ban together to challenge societal norms, becoming catalyst in starting a conversation about women’s rights and innovation.

Goal, Objectives and Targets

The goal was to raise awareness among Canadians for the Match International Women’s Fund and women’s rights work it supports. The idea was to unite Canadian women on International Women’s Day to empower them to challenge the sexist phrases they’ve been hearing their whole lives and kick-start an ongoing conversation about women’s issues around the world. Through the campaign, the brand wanted to garner support for its fund with donations and newsletter subscribers, as well as tap on earned media and social impressions

The Plan

International Women’s Day receives a great deal of attention in Canada, especially with sexual misconduct being at the forefront of mainstream media in early 2018 with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. Much like your grandmother’s cross-stitched patterns, sexism is passed down through generations. The organization saw a need to create a relevant and relatable yet disruptive campaign that attracts attention to this issue. The insight was based on the notion that regardless of gender, all people face sexist language in a variety of social settings each day.
#RestingStitchFace, sought to destroy the patriarchal language hiding in plain sight by calling it out with homely cross-stitch patterns to create a striking contrast that would get people talking and help Match stand out on International Women’s Day. The campaign title, “Resting Stitch Face,” is twofold. Not only does “stitch” represent the cross-stitch aspect of the campaign, it’s a replacement for “bitch”, a commonly used verbal attack directed at women. Some challenges and limitations included needing to look at opportunities to share the message about women’s rights year-round, not just on one day like International Women’s Day given these are issues women face on a daily basis. Additionally, as a not-for-profit organization, the ideas needed to be simple and affordable to execute, with a strong message and high social sharing capability.

The campaign featured a three-tiered integrated approach with digital tools, traditional media outreach and leveraging of social platforms. The campaign pre-seeded the organization’s content play with influential, female-focused news outlets like She Does the City, Fashion Magazine Online and Brazen Woman to increase word of mouth on IWD. The team created an online, cross-stitch meme generator with personalized and shareable images to highlight and challenge the discriminatory discourse rooted in everyday language. The agency co-ordinated a regional media tour in Toronto for the Match fund executive director, Jess Tomlin to spread awareness and highlight key facts from the meme generator.

The Results

80 pieces of coverage, which garnered more than 10 million traditional media and social media impressions including op ed with Jess Tomlin in the Toronto Star, coverage in the Toronto Sun (Print and online), interview with Fashion magazine. Tomlin was interviewed for broadcast outlets such as Canada Talks on SiriusXM and What She Said Talk.

In a few short months following #RestingStitchFace, the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, The Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, signaled her government's intention to contribute up to $300 million towards the creation of a new and innovative equality funding initiative, created to support women's rights organizations and movements around the world. Tomlin was selected to be one of three women in charge of designing and developing the initiative. It is because of the work that Match is involved in, and the awareness of this important topic that their work is desperately needed, that resulted in the grant. As a result, the Match fund will be able to continue the important grassroots work around the globe that is needed to support women in their daily struggle and continue to make an impactful and revolutionary change in the world.