In college, we were charged with digging through magazines to find ads that depicted either minorities or women in a non-stereotypical (read: not sexy or homemaking) way. It was hard. For every 20 ads with an impossibly contorted white woman, we found maybe one with a minority—never mind a woman looking empowered, or even doing something normal like reading a newspaper … or welding, Flashdance-style.

At the time, we were told this isn’t the industry’s fault; it’s drawing from what the market wants. The subtext was that if we wanted to change norms in advertising, we’d have to change ourselves first.

On some level, this is true. But anyone who actually works in advertising recognizes that our relationship with society is more symbiotic than that. If we always waited for people to be ready, or tell us what they wanted, we’d never have gotten smartphones.

And there are costs to the norms we help perpetuate, both social and economic. Per Dove’s Global Beauty and Confidence Report from 2016, 68 percent of women can’t identify with the images they see in ads. This doesn’t just affect how women see themselves; it hurts margins, too.

Mindshare in Denmark wanted to do something about this. The result is “Image_Hack,” a Dove-branded effort to take the industry on through a common tool—Shutterstock.

After observing terms like “beautiful woman” and “real woman” mostly yield the same ol’ same, “we collaborated with some of the biggest photographers in the industry and took pictures of strong, independent and original women in non-stereotypical settings,” Mindshare creative director Kenneth Kaadtmann told AdFreak.

“The pictures were uploaded to stock sites and tagged to alter [their] algorithms, giving anyone who searches the site a realistic picture of women in today’s society. Then we encouraged agencies and advertisers to use these images to portray women equally in their ads.”

“The inspiration came out of a search on a stock site, where we had to browse through several pages until we found an image that was actually not in some way offensive,” Kaadtmann goes on. “That led to the question, ‘What if we could hack this site?’ which led to ‘What if we could hack this site, legally?’ That was how the idea was born.”

In the video, the agency claims it used a “back door” to upload and tag thousands of photos, but let’s get down to brass tacks—you don’t really need to “hack” Shutterstock to upload anything. It’s easy to become a contributor, and it’s in the site’s interest to let as many photographers as possible build out its database.

Kaatdtmann alludes to this when he talks about the idea of “legal” hacking, which for many might sound like an oxymoron. Still, the use of “hack” applies—just not for Shutterstock. As the narrator explains, “By hacking the industry from the inside, we can hack women’s self-image.”

First, though, it “hacked” agencies and brands.

“We narrowed it down to two target groups—advertisers and advertising/media agencies,” Kaatdmann says. “One group we needed to inspire to brief differently, and one group we need to inspire to recommend differently.”

The images were uploaded onto Shutterstock around Jan. 18. The site, ImageHack.org, went live in February. And on March 8, International Women’s Day, a series of outdoor ads appeared outside major agencies in Denmark, encouraging them to use these new images and jump aboard the transformation train.

“Whether we accomplished the mission, only the future will tell. We can tell you that we do get a lot of downloads and can only assume that a lot of brands are using some of these pictures,” says Kaatdmann.

Specifically, 1,729 images have been downloaded, per the video, which was published a week ago. Advertisers and agencies from all over Denmark scooped the photos up and used them in their own advertising—42 brands in all, including Ford, Frisko, GFB Pension, Panorm and IT firm any.mac.

All that with just $10,000 in media spend.

Those are some cool results. Dove was impressed, too.

“Dove loved the idea when presented, and we quickly found a way to extend the campaign in a more consumer-oriented angle, [using] some of the models from ‘Image_Hack’ in its regular advertising,” Kaatdmann says. “For Dove, it has never been about Dove; it’s about making an actual difference to society. Great brands hold great power, and therefore great responsibilities.”

The only real critique we can offer “Image_Hack” is that there’s little ethnic diversity in the examples given. Also, the brands shown all tagged their ads with hashtag #equalwomen, which suggests their use of the photos may be exceptional and not a new norm.

But maybe that will change along with stock photo sites. Speaking of, here’s how our Shutterstock looks when we look up “beautiful woman”:

Results for “real woman” are somewhat better, as you start to see variance in ethnicity and age:

Don’t get us started on results filtered under “New” instead of “Popular.” There’s still a long way to go.

Kaadtmann, though, seems up to the challenge: “The campaign is still running and hopefully it will continue to do so, until the entire media landscape has been unstereotyped worldwide.”

That’s a tall order!

“We all have a responsibility for portraying women the way we do in advertising—by portraying the stereotypical beauty ideals,” adds Mindshare strategist Mette Bierbum Bacher. “If we, as an industry, change the way we portray women, we can be a part of changing women’s self-image.”

CREDITS

Client: Dove

Agency: Mindshare, Denmark

Creative Director: Kenneth Kaadtmann

Client Director: Michael Hansen

Strategy: Mette Bierbum Bacher

Copywriter: Kenneth Kaadtmann

Copywriter: Anne Ingevold

Art Director: Sune Overby Sørensen

Digital Designer: Andreas Berglund

Media Buyer: Henrik Welling