Challenges Tackled

Aviva is working hard to become a top employer of female digital talent. But that’s easier said than done. How do we convince female students, graduates and experienced hires alike that this is the place to build a rewarding career in tech? How do we make them trust and believe that, at Aviva, they’ll be offered real choice (and real opportunities) to enable them to succeed? 

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Strategic Breakthroughs

We started thinking about choice, particularly when it comes to the ratio of women to men in the tech industry. According to PwC, only 15% of tech roles in the UK are filled by women – a figure which sadly hasn’t changed much in the past decade. The fact is from a young age, most women aren’t encouraged to pursue careers in STEM. And we wanted to do something about that.

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The Creative Idea

To highlight how women aren’t given enough exposure and encouragement when it comes to tech, we decided to conduct a social experiment. 

We invited five girls aged 6-8 into a film studio with two rooms. The first room was filled with dolls, tiaras, stickers, makeup and a toy oven. In short, lots of things that society tells us are ‘feminine’. The second room was kitted out with the latest tech: coding games, VR headsets, holograms, robots and more. Items which society tells us are ‘masculine’.

After playing in each room, we asked the girls a series of questions about their interests and what kind of job they wanted to do when they grew up. All to get a sense of how the environments girls are in – and the encouragement they’re given – affects the careers they want to do.

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Key Deliverables

Our campaign resulted in one key deliverable: a video telling the story of our social experiment. The main video was nearly 4-minutes long and hosted on the Aviva careers website. This video – and shorter cuts of it – were also promoted on Aviva’s various social channels. 

Outcomes & Achievements

After playing in the first room, we asked the girls a number of questions, such as “What kind of jobs do you think girls are really good at?” The answers, completely unprompted, included make-up artists, actresses and teachers. 

We then introduced the girls to the second room. And despite having little to no knowledge of any of the gadgets inside, they took to the experience like fish to water – or programmers to JavaScript. When we followed up with similar questions about their interests and what jobs women are good at, their answers all focused on science and technology. 

In the end, what did we prove? That exposure and encouragement mean everything. If women are given the right kind of exposure to careers in technology, they won’t necessarily move into technology – but at least they’ll know it’s a choice. 

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Outcomes & Achievements

In the end, the film received an overwhelmingly positive response from the moment it was shared. And, as planned, sparked conversations about the real choices that are open to women when it comes to their career. 

On LinkedIn alone, the video attracted: 

• 10,170 views
• 727 reaction
• 26 comments
• 75 shares

…and all with no spend. 

What’s more, it won ‘Best Creative Idea’ at the RADS and ‘Best Video (£15,001+) at the RMAs.

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