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Category
Popular Culture Impact
Annual ID
OS23_CD023M
About the Work
The gaming industry is booming and showing no signs of slowing down. But like much of the tech industry, gaming has a gender problem - both in its workforce and in the representation within the games themselves.
And with Girls Who Code's mission to close tech's gender gap, taking on the gaming industry for the millions of girl gamers was a no brainer.
Why? Because almost half of all gamers are women. And yet 77% of game developers are men.
As a result, female gamers are stuck with a gaming experience and culture marked by misogyny, gender imbalance, and harmful portrayals.
So how do you get young, aspiring female coders to see themselves in an industry that often alienates them, or worse, objectifies them?
With Girls Who Code Girls, we created the first experience that lets girls literally change the game by coding fully licensable gaming characters that look just like them.
Girls and young women were invited to choose their character’s body type, skin tone, facial features, hairstyles, outfits, accessories, personality, and identity details. And they did this all while using 4 different coding languages - CSS, HTML, JavaScript and Python. Over 624 BILLION character combinations were possible, providing unique, diverse representation we’ve yet to see in gaming.
In creating the experience, we had two goals in mind:
1. Provide girls and young women with a fun, creative entry point into coding, so they can see themselves in an industry that doesn’t authentically represent them.
2. Draw attention from gaming companies, and the world, to the fact that if more women coded video game characters, they would look like real women.
And we did that.
Girls Who Code Girls had:
624 Billion Possible Character Combinations
90k+ Site Visits
454k interactive coded actions.
225M earned media impressions.
And while the world competes for a few seconds of Gen Z’s attention, Girls Who Code Girls users spent an average of 6 minutes and 13 seconds coding and creating.
The short term impact of Girls Who Code Girls was to show a new generation of women the fun and creative opportunities coding can offer, and to seek the resources that Girls Who Code provides to get them there. The long term impact was to show gaming companies, and the world, that if there were more women video game coders the industry would get the update it so desperately needs.
And with Girls Who Code's mission to close tech's gender gap, taking on the gaming industry for the millions of girl gamers was a no brainer.
Why? Because almost half of all gamers are women. And yet 77% of game developers are men.
As a result, female gamers are stuck with a gaming experience and culture marked by misogyny, gender imbalance, and harmful portrayals.
So how do you get young, aspiring female coders to see themselves in an industry that often alienates them, or worse, objectifies them?
With Girls Who Code Girls, we created the first experience that lets girls literally change the game by coding fully licensable gaming characters that look just like them.
Girls and young women were invited to choose their character’s body type, skin tone, facial features, hairstyles, outfits, accessories, personality, and identity details. And they did this all while using 4 different coding languages - CSS, HTML, JavaScript and Python. Over 624 BILLION character combinations were possible, providing unique, diverse representation we’ve yet to see in gaming.
In creating the experience, we had two goals in mind:
1. Provide girls and young women with a fun, creative entry point into coding, so they can see themselves in an industry that doesn’t authentically represent them.
2. Draw attention from gaming companies, and the world, to the fact that if more women coded video game characters, they would look like real women.
And we did that.
Girls Who Code Girls had:
624 Billion Possible Character Combinations
90k+ Site Visits
454k interactive coded actions.
225M earned media impressions.
And while the world competes for a few seconds of Gen Z’s attention, Girls Who Code Girls users spent an average of 6 minutes and 13 seconds coding and creating.
The short term impact of Girls Who Code Girls was to show a new generation of women the fun and creative opportunities coding can offer, and to seek the resources that Girls Who Code provides to get them there. The long term impact was to show gaming companies, and the world, that if there were more women video game coders the industry would get the update it so desperately needs.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 3
Merit
Credits
Agency
Mojo Supermarket
Client / Brand
Girls Who Code
Production Company
makemepulse
Art Director
Connie Chewh
Copywriter
Rux Drilea
Creative Director
Rizzo Digilio
Designer
Yula Ye
Executive Creative Director
Jono Paull
Group Creative Director
Kate Carter
Producer
Saliyl Dotson
Account Supervisor
Caroline Main
Mary Corbin Burlingame
Head of Production
Tasha Cronin
Assistant Account Executive
Casey Mattis
Associate, Communications & Social Media
Jerica Deck
CEO
Tarika Barrett
Co-Head of Strategy
Nika Rastakhiz
Communications & Marketing Associate
Candice Slade
Director of Comms Strategy
Rachelle Avila
Director of production
Erica Grubman
Founder & Creative Director
Mo Said
Group Account Director
Steph Kim
Head of Brand Management
Ji You
Head of Communications
Hannah Benabdallah
Head Of Design
Camilo De Galofre
Head of strategy
Ryan McDaid
Managing director
Kendra Schaaf
Senior Director, Marketing & Communications
Ashley Gramby
Senior Manager of Content
Julia Zeilinger
Senior Manager, Communications & Public Relations
Poonam Mantha
Senior Manager, Marketing
Jenelle Hopkins
SENIOR PRODUCER
Jake Herman
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