Brawny Celebrates Women’s History Month By Featuring a Woman on Its Packaging

For the entire month of March shoppers will be able to pick up the new female mascot packaging only in Walmart stores. The brand and agency Cutwater have been looking to change the packaging for a few years now and were finally able to pull it off.

“The biggest, most courageous piece of it was, we are going to put a woman on these packages and make them available for everyone. I always think it’s fun when packaged goods clients are hip enough to change something and offer something special, kind of like when Coke put names on its cans,” Chuck McBride, Cutwater chief creative officer, said.

The move also fits nicely with the brand’s ongoing Stay Giant campaign, aimed at encouraging Americans who “face adversity with strength and resilience.”

Brawny worked with Cutwater to create a series of short films for the campaign as well. Each of the four films features a woman in the science, technology, engineering or mathematics field. One woman, Vernice Armour, is the first African-American female combat pilot and the first African-American female pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps. Another, Brittany Wenger, came in first place in the 2012 Google Science Fair for developing an app called Cloud4Cancer that provides users with a breast cancer diagnosis test.

“These aren’t just stories of strength, but they are stories of intellectual strength as well,” McBride said. Each one is designed to showcase stories of women who have navigated different obstacles to achieve their goals. Another spot, for example, features an oral surgeon and clinical assistant professor of OMFS at Penn Dental School, Dr. Anna Kornbrot. She was the first woman to graduate from Columbia College. The final is the story of Patty Lopez, Ph.D., an engineer who created more than 50 products for five different businesses. She also holds seven imaging patents.

Cutwater also created the spot “Breaking Barriers,” which is meant to be the more emotional piece in the campaign. It features some of the most iconic women who have broken barriers in their time using the visual of glass actually shattering to convey that idea.

Finally, throughout the month, Brawny will be working with Girls Inc. to encourage more young women to get involved in STEM fields by donating $75,000 to the organization.

The brand kicked off the #StrengthHasNoGender campaign last year on International Women’s Day with a campaign from Cutwater. For the first iteration of the campaign, Brawny replaced its iconic male Brawny Man mascot with real, powerful women, but didn’t get as far as replacing the mascot on the actual packaging.

CREDITS

Agency – Cutwater
Chief Creative Officer – Chuck McBride
Associate Creative Director – Aaron Sanchez
Art Director – Nathan Lewis
Art Director – Rebecca Schefkind
Copywriter – Jay Brockmeier
Executive Producer – Michael Huntley
Content Producer – Robbie Weidie
Producer – Kimberly Grear
President, Principal – Christian Hughes
Group Account Director – Coleen Karkazis
Account Director – Greer Gonerka

Client: Brawny® – Georgia-Pacific, LLC
Gary Gastel – Senior Brand Director
Shari Neumann – Senior Director, Content Lead
Santiago Arboleda – Director, Brand Building Leader
Frances Morgan – Senior Brand Manager
Joel Potts – Senior Associate Brand Manager

Breaking Barriers Credits
Scheme Engine – Production Company
Executive Producer – Sheira Rees-Davies
Producer – Cisco Newman
Director – James Larese
DP – Sing Howe Yam
Triggr & Bloom – Post Company
Color & VFX – Triggr & Bloom
Post Producer – Monica Blackburn
Editor – James Larese

Interview Video Credits
Mat Guido – Blast
Director – Alison Klayman
Line Producer – Dana Popoff
Editorial Company – Beast
Editor – Doug Walker
Color – Dave Burghardt
Executive Producer – Jon Ettinger
Assistant – Seth Andrews