The Honey Partnership wins a Cannes Lion Award for Work with hasan & partners 🦁

Together with our Finnish friends, Honey has brought it home from Cannes this year.

“Tell the world about it.” That was the brief from hasan & partners’ creative director Tobias Wacker when he briefed us on the Sheboard campaign, created for humanitarian organisation Plan International Finland.

So we did.  

Sheboard is a virtual keyboard for boosting girls’ confidence that uses predictive text to suggest gender-neutral language. It received attention from all over the world; in more developed, relatively equal countries, and in those where girls’ rights are neglected. We took the campaign from being a localised Finnish campaign to being world renowned. 

With a carefully curated campaign we seeded content on social media and it showed up in every corner of the world from Finland to the Middle East, China to Turkey and Australia to India. Editorial reach was more than 712 million across consumer, business, tech, social and trade media – from the London Evening Standard to Business Insider all the way to Trend Hunters and NowThis.  

The app is now being rolled out in multiple languages across various continents. 

The Next Web asked: “Sheboard raises an interesting question: if we change our use of language regarding young girls into one that emphasises strength and capacity, will it change the way they think about themselves?”

The concept came from Katariina Harteela, a creative at hasan & partners, and we played a vital role in her idea reaching a global and diverse audience. The campaign was recognised by the industry’s most prestigious awards and we are fighting over a very desirable bronze Cannes PR Lion whilst beaming like Cheshire cats.

Why is Sheboard so important?

Research shows that we talk to boys about their abilities, skills and potential and to girls about their bodies and feelings. A study confirms that by the age of six girls are more likely to think that boys are smarter and believe that men will do better.  

So we MUST change the way we speak to girls, so they stop internalising the gender stereotypes that we blame the gender pay gap and innate lack of self-worth women agreeably have compared to men in later life. The Sheboard app, supporting videos and successful campaign seeding will truly play a role in changing that.

What’s better is the PR Cannes Lions came the same year as the 100th anniversary for International Women’s Day. 

Our inner Beyonce is beaming and she’s all over our Spotify playlist in the office today!