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Activia's latest social video campaign offers empowering message for women

A new video campaign from Activia, optimized for mobile viewing, offers women an empowering message of self-confidence in the face of a world that is constantly downplaying what they can do.

The video campaign is called ?It Starts Inside? and encourages women to stop being so self-critical. The campaign continues Activia?s focus on adult women but with a mobile twist that reflects the changing tech landscape of the market.

"The 'It Starts Inside' campaign embraces a new brand purpose and vision to encourage every woman to overcome her inner hurdles and unlock the potential to be her best self," said Carolina Cespedes, senior brand director for Activia at The Dannon Company.
 
Message of empowerment
Social video is one of the hottest advertising formats right now and it is providing an excellent way to engage consumers on a deeper level than static ads while remaining lightweight and flexible enough for mobile devices.

Activia is tapping into that popularity and ease of use with a new campaign centered on empowering women.

The campaign posits that too often, in the face of harsh criticism rooted in sexism, women can internalize critiques of their abilities or bodies and become their own worst critic.

Activia cites a study that confirmed that 80 percent of women see themselves as their own worst critic.

The campaign interviews regular everyday women

From the start, Activia has prided itself on its message of empowerment for women and pushing back against the unfair expectations placed upon them by society.

That is why the video campaign shows interviews with women asking them to recall moments of doubt and adversity they faced from others as well as from themselves.

The spot is meant to empower women to feel that they do not need to let these types of criticism bring them down, and that confidence and empowerment starts from the inside.

The title of the campaign is also a clever nod to yogurt?s probiotic nature, promoting a healthy body by starting with the essential bacteria provided by yogurt.

Social video
While mobile, as the hot new digital channel on the market, is traditionally associated with the cutting edge of younger generations, Activia is making good use of it for targeting its customer base of adult women.

Social video allows the company to produce engaging video content that can be served to customers in a variety of settings and social media platforms, optimized to be consumed on mobile.

The Activia video campaign takes a pretty straightforward stance on this new strategy, but others have played with format to offer a different experience.

For example, Pepsi recently created a host of video content that was hosted on a single mobile hub (see story).

The women speak about moments of adversity they have faced

Conversely, Jack Link?s recently leveraged its own consumers for a campaign centered on user-generated video content (see story).

These campaigns show the variety of ways that mobile, social video can be used to reach consumers.

This series from Activia also shows that the format can be a vehicle for delivering  a powerful message that serves as both act of good will to the public and a branded message for consumers.

?We're marrying the benefits of our yogurt with a new rallying cry ? It Starts Inside ? to offer a product and platform to help women feel good inside and out," Ms. Cespedes said.