As a newly minted father-of-a-girl (I have three boys, too), this caught my attention.
Spend some time talking about "green" marketing or sustainability, and pretty soon you get into the LOHAS (lifestyles of sustainability and health) market and eventually social justice and, by extension, cause marketing. They definitely overlap.
As with my previous post, the Girl Effect campaign suggests the connection is both real and urgent: economic opportunity means social justice and thus, at least in theory, a healthier planet.
Although I love this site, by Grow Interactive of Norfolk, Virginia, the argument in the video seems glib: hey guess what, girls will save the world.
On the one hand, advertisers need to piece the force field we wrap around our brains, and this piece does it. On the other hand, there's something a little trite about the connect-the-dots solution it argues. But spend some time with the "fact book" on girls in developing countries, and you may find, as I have, a deeper appreciation of the place girls can and should have in parts of the world where they have the least opportunity.
Footnote: I find it interesting that the Nike Foundation is one of the program's sponsors — Nike has taken heat for many, many years over its labor practices in Third World countries. I'll let you decide whether this is window dressing for the company or if its help is meaningful. This much I'll say: the work is great and I thank God my daughter will have the opportunities awaiting her here in the states.
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