Most Likely To

Background Teenage girls are fast learners. Tragically, due to the onslaught of toxic social content they see online, a generation of girls are learning to hate themselves. Unrealistic beauty standards, harmful trends and damaging advice from influencers are teaching them to critique and hate every part of their bodies. And it’s not just harming them now: it’s harming their futures. Dove’s independently-commissioned research uncovered a shocking statistic: 2 in 3 girls stop participating in school because they hate their appearance. This reduced participation occurs in all aspects of school life: in the classroom, in extracurricular activities, and social settings. Not only does body dissatisfaction impact the mental health of millions of girls, it also limits their future opportunities by preventing them from reaching their full potential. While girls are learning to hate themselves, no one is teaching them the most crucial skill of all: confidence. As the world’s foremost champion of self-esteem, we knew Dove had to act. Our goal was twofold: firstly, we needed to create and share new, specifically-designed resources for Dove Day—the campaign’s launch day—that would measurably improve girls’ confidence in social and academic environments. Secondly, we needed to bring mass awareness to the link between self-esteem and decreased school participation. By alerting teachers to the scale of body hate teenage girls were experiencing – and showing how low-self esteem damaged their engagement and attainment at school – we aimed to change their behaviour in how they saw and taught confidence: turning it into a subject as crucial as Maths or English. Creative Idea The work consists of a series of specially-created workshops, called Confidence Classes, alongside an integrated campaign which was led by a film. Both were launched on Dove Day, which served as the launch day for the entire integrated campaign. The creative idea behind the Most Likely To film, OOH and print was to invert the classic yearbook trope of “Most Likely To”, in order to show how the devastating impact of low body confidence is holding millions of girls back at school. By playing on the fact that the “Most Likely To” trope is normally finished with a positive achievement: e.g. “Most likely to be Prime Minister”, “Most likely to be famous”, we captured the true damage that low body confidence causes in girls’ attainment at school. But we didn’t just want to tell the world about the issue; we wanted to show them. So we created a film shot in a single, uninterrupted 124-second take that put the viewer in the shoes of a teenage girl. Insights & Strategy The fact that low self-esteem harms girls’ happiness, mental health and immediate well-being is established. But for the very first time, we discovered and shone a light on the fact that low self-esteem deeply damages girls’ future potential and limits their opportunities. This campaign was informed by and created in response to a shocking statistic uncovered by Dove’s independently-commissioned research: 2 in 3 girls stop participating in school because they hate their appearance. This reduced participation occurs in all aspects of school life: in the classroom, extracurricular activities, and social settings. Our strategy was to create a resource, Confidence Classes, which could provide long-lasting change and inspire confidence in every student who completed it. To ensure Confidence Classes reached as many students who needed it as possible, our Most Likely To campaign was built around a talkable, relatable and engaging film, supported by tactically-placed OOH near Canadian high schools, which drove viewers to Dove’s website where they could access Confidence Classes and other resources. Execution To create mass awareness of Dove Day, we made Most Likely To, a film featuring five real high school girls—Alyssa, Lorelai, Olive, Sophia, and Tajiah—sharing true stories of how low confidence has impacted their participation at school. The film uses the classic yearbook trope of “Most Likely To,” where students vote for each other in positive categories like Most Likely To Be Famous or Most Likely To Become Prime Minister. We inverted this to show how the devastating impact of low confidence is holding millions of girls back. Every person in the film—from the leads to the background talent—were real high school students; no actors were used. None of the five girls starring had ever acted before in a commercial capacity, and each scene was inspired by each girl’s personal account and experiences with body hate and her self-esteem journey. The girls were cast through three rounds of interviews, in which they shared their own stories of how low confidence impacted their school participation. Working with Oscar-nominated director Henry-Alex Rubin, we created a raw, true-to-life portrayal of the pressures teenage girls face. The film was a technical and creative feat. Shot in a single, unbroken 124-second take that immerses viewers in the unrelenting pressures faced by teenage girls. This shot required extraordinary effort to execute: the camera was handed off mid-sequence to a crane that traversed the gymnasium, swept up into the bleachers, and was then picked up by another operator. With no rehearsal day and only a single day to shoot, the cast and crew navigated a complex choreography of camera movements and coordinated hundreds of students to achieve the perfect balance of authenticity and precision. This pulls the audience into the girls’ world, making their struggles feel immediate and unfiltered, ensuring every girl watching knows she isn't alone. Results The film urged Canadian schools and teachers to take action, driving sign-ups for our free in-school Confidence Classes. Within 48 hours of its launch, 403 schools enrolled. The live-streamed sessions reached over 400,000 Canadian students, with millions more accessing the workshops on-demand. Engagement and completion rates of Confidence Classes has become Dove’s highest ever for an educational resource. Beyond the classroom, Dove drove real change at the national level—leading the federal government to invest $1.5 million in expanding body confidence programs in schools as a result of the campaign. The campaign and Dove’s work was also spontaneously mentioned by multiple members of Canadian Parliament. The campaign showed that confidence is a girl’s most important lesson – a claim championed by teachers across Canada, who have now made Confidence Classes and lessons on self-esteem an official part of their school’s curriculum.