The Campaign Showcasing The Ts And Cs Of Being A Girl

With the world’s attention is pulled in countless directions, it takes a brave statement to cut through and connect with an audience on a personal level. The Fine Print campaign, by global children's charity Plan International UK and The Gate, managed this by generating a level of discomfort with an important message about gender inequality, striking a careful balance to capture the public’s attention with an insight into the future of young girls.

The charity, which advances equality for girls, took a harrowing truth and brought it to life. The insight that most women alive today will not see gender equality in their lifetime was the foundation to shape a campaign that leaves the viewer unable to scroll past.

The film shows a days-old baby lying in an incubator with a long list attached to her wrist. This is the terms and conditions of being a girl. With no option allowing her to decline to this list which includes truths about harassment, education, and body autonomy, the visual showcases an invisible contract that is continuously ignored. The ad encourages people to acknowledge the realities of gender inequality to help drive meaningful change.

Rather than choosing to cast a new born baby, the production used model babies filmed on a real set, then used AI to bring the baby’s expressions and movements to life. It was a deliberate, principled decision - one that removed consent issues, protected the integrity of the creative, and gave the team the freedom to get every frame exactly right.

To get an insight into the partnership as well as the thinking behind a striking production, Nick Radmore, CMO at Plan International UK and Helen James, CEO at The Gate talk about the work.

Creative Salon: How did this partnership come about?

Nick: We went through a competitive pitch process, and The Gate stood out for the energy and ambition they brought to it. It felt like they really got us, and where we’re trying to go next.

We’ve been doing some honest thinking as an organisation about how we show up. In a noisy world where so many issues need urgent attention, our research showed us that achieving progress on gender equality can feel unsurmountable for our audience. So we knew we needed to shift gears a bit and be braver in how we communicate. The Gate felt like the right partner to help us do that.

Helen: From our side, it was clear from the very first conversation that this was a partnership with real purpose behind it. Plan International came to us with a genuine desire to be braver and more honest in how they communicate, and that's exactly the kind of brief that gets us excited.

As someone who has spent a lot of time working on International Women's Day (IWD) campaigns, championing female focused initiatives and advocating for gender equality, I felt a deep personal connection to what Plan International is trying to achieve. When an organisation comes to you not just wanting great creative, but wanting to genuinely move the needle on girls' rights, that means something. The brief and the opportunity immediately connected with us, motivated everyone to dig deep and ultimately made us push really hard to find the right response.

And what was the brief that led to ‘The Fine Print’ and the idea of a metaphor of terms and conditions to talk about gender inequality?

Helen: What struck me about the brief was how clear-eyed Plan International were about the problem. They weren't looking for something that felt good, they wanted something that told the truth. And the truth is that gender inequality isn't some distant, abstract issue. It's structural, it's systemic, and for millions of girls, it starts at birth.

I’ll be honest, it took us a moment to hit the right tone. This is such an important topic and there is a sensitivity that needs to be considered when writing work in this space. We needed something that drove immediate impact and created a cultural conversation, but we didn’t want to move into shock tactics, point fingers or alienate anyone. It was a fine line to walk.

The Terms and Conditions metaphor felt so powerful because it reframes something mundane, something we all scroll past without reading, into something suddenly very uncomfortable. That's the point. These conditions exist whether girls consent to them or not. Making that visible felt like the right way in. The T&Cs construct also gave us a clear and immediate visual language that felt impactful and gave us a connection across the campaign and was instantly understandable.

Nick: Our brief was about inspiring our target audiences to stand with Plan International UK in protecting girls’ rights worldwide by making the issue feel personally relevant, urgent and winnable.

Research told us that our audiences resonate strongly with the uncomfortable truth that women and girls won’t see gender equality achieved in their lifetime. And so, we wanted the campaign to be rooted in this fact, whilst making clear that this is a projection, not a destiny.

‘The Fine Print’ concept exposes the silent terms and conditions girls are forced to accept from the moment they are born. By pairing lengthy T&C copy with imagery of a new born baby girl, the creative highlights the inequalities girls face throughout their lives. Many of these  ‘conditions’  are universal, prompting emotional recognition and a desire for change among our audiences.   

Was it important for the ad to generate a feeling of discomfort? Why was that?

Helen: Absolutely. As a woman working in a creative industry, I know how easy it is for gender equality messaging to get softened, to be made more palatable, more digestible, less threatening. And every time that happens, something important gets lost.

This campaign was a deliberate choice not to do that. The discomfort is the message. If you're a woman reading those terms and conditions, there's a good chance you recognise yourself in them. That moment of recognition is where change begins. We wanted people to feel it, not just process it intellectually. However, importantly, we didn’t want that discomfort to assign blame. We wanted the work to pull people in and share a problem to solve together rather than point fingers. We hope we struck the right balance?

Nick: Girls’ rights, both in the UK and globally, are under real pressure. Hard-won progress is being questioned, and in some places actively rolled back. We’re seeing everything from restrictions on reproductive rights to rising misogyny being packaged up as common sense. These are big, complex issues, but they have very real consequences for girls’ lives.

The ad had to reflect this. It doesn’t rely on shock tactics or graphic imagery, but it does ask people to sit with some difficult truths and really think about them. For many reading the ads, they might be able to personally relate too. Ultimately, we wanted to spark reflection and conversation. Unless people feel something, they’re unlikely to remember what they’ve seen and they’re unlikely to act.

What is the process to produce work like The Fine Print that genuinely stops people when scrolling online?

Helen: It starts with finding an idea so rooted in truth that it's impossible to ignore. With The Fine Print, the insight was devastatingly simple, most women alive today will not see gender equality in their lifetime. From that, everything else followed.

The process was about finding the unexpected idea for that truth. We took something mundane, the terms and conditions we all scroll past every day without reading and made it impossible to ignore. The tension between the familiar format and the devastating content is what stops you in your tracks . Oh and of course, using a baby helped too! When someone sees a hospital wristband wrapped around a new born baby's wrist, printed not with a name but with pages of fine print, they can't unsee it.

But the craft is just as important as the concept. Every execution, the phone interface with no 'decline' button, the OOH stills and the films had to work as hard as the idea itself. And the decisions we made in production, like using AI to bring the baby's expressions to life rather than casting a real infant, weren't just ethical choices, they were creative ones too. They gave us the freedom to get every single frame exactly right whilst also creating assets that could be as relevant in the UK as anywhere else in the world. That wouldn’t have been possible without technology, especially on limited budgets.

Ultimately, work that stops people, earns attention. You can't buy the kind of reaction where someone stops, shares it, talks about it. You have to deserve it.

What were the main challenges you faced with the development of the ad?

Helen: One of the things I'm most proud of is how seriously the whole team took the responsibility of this work. It would have been easy to default to imagery that feels impactful but inadvertently strips girls of their agency, portraying them as victims rather than as people whose rights are being violated. That distinction matters enormously, and it shaped every creative decision we made.

Balancing that with the need to create something genuinely arresting, something that cuts through in a world of relentless content, was the central creative challenge. It required a lot of honest conversation and a real willingness to push back on ourselves.

Nick: One of the biggest challenges was finding that balance between creating something eye-catching and impactful, without taking away girls’ agency in the creative execution. It was essential that we didn’t want to fall into portraying girls as passive or powerless.

Another challenge was the sheer scale of what we’re trying to communicate. Girls around the world are facing a mix of issues – from access to education, to violence, to restrictions on their rights – so distilling this into one clear, compelling idea took a lot of thought.

And then there was the use of AI. We knew it could help us bring the idea to life in a powerful way, but only if we handled it carefully. That meant putting a lot of time into making sure it was used responsibly and ethically, and that it genuinely served the story.

How did conversations you have around the use of AI for the work and how did you ensure that it served the idea, rather than becoming the campaign itself?

Nick: We had really open conversations about AI early on, and were clear from the start that it should only ever play a supporting role. The idea, the story and the emotional feel of the campaign all needed to come from people.

In ‘The Fine Print’, AI played a very specific role in how we created the baby visuals. We shot everything practically, using dolls on set, and then used AI to bring expressions and movement to life. As a children’s charity, safeguarding is something we think about all the time, so this approach helped us avoid involving real babies, which comes with a lot of complexity around consent and welfare.

It also meant we weren’t telling the story of one specific child, but representing something much more universal. That felt important. In the end, AI helped us realise the idea in a responsible way.

Helen: There's a lot of conversation right now about the appropriate use of AI in creative work – particularly in campaign execution. AI can accelerate production and scale ideas, making things achievable on budgets where they simply wouldn't have been before. But we have to be conscious of the ethical choices we're making as storytellers – will this decision cost someone work down the line? Those questions feel even more pronounced when you're a not-for-profit, a charity, or communicating a social issue. So, for this brief, it was front of mind.

That said, there were specific reasons AI made sense here. Given the nature of the campaign, we were acutely aware of not wanting to exploit a newborn girl through the production process – AI meant we didn't have to. And on a limited budget, it allowed us to create different assets for use across different markets, so our child could feel relevant globally without multiple shoots. Both felt like the right reasons to use it.

But AI was one tool among many on this project - not the centrepiece of the production approach, and it shouldn't distract from the message being told. That's what matters.

What has the response been so far?

Nick: We’ve been really pleased with how it’s landed so far. From a numbers point of view, we’ve seen an uplift – around a 60 per cent increase in people coming to our website, and strong traffic to the campaign page itself, which is always a good sign that people are engaging with the message.

Some of the most encouraging feedback has been more anecdotal. We’ve had people get in touch after seeing the ads, saying it stopped them in their tracks or made them think differently. That kind of reaction is exactly what we were hoping for.

It’s also been great to see people sharing it and talking about it online. You never quite know how work like this will be received, so when you start to see that organic response, it feels like you’re hitting the right note.

Helen: The response has been really affirming, not just in terms of the numbers, which have been strong, but in the quality of the reaction. When people tell you an ad stopped them, made them think, made them feel something, that's what you're working towards.

What's also been meaningful to me personally is seeing younger women in the industry engage with it. Work like this sends a signal about what's possible when you don't compromise on the truth of what you're trying to say.

Where next for Plan International?

Nick: This is really just the start for us. We’re not looking at this as a one-off campaign, but as part of a longer journey to build the brand properly over time. It’s about helping more people understand who we are, what we stand for, and why girls’ rights matter so much.

We’ll be back with another burst of activity in the autumn, which will build on what we’ve started here and keep that momentum going.

The partnership with The Gate is a big part of that. There’s a shared ambition to really shift the dial in how people connect with the issues. If we can get more people to stop, pay attention, and feel motivated to act, then we’re doing our job.

Helen: This partnership is built for the long term, and that's how it should be. Shifting perceptions around girls' rights isn't something you do in a single campaign, it takes sustained, consistent, brave communication over time.

What excites me most is that we're only just getting started. There's a real shared ambition here to build something that genuinely changes how people think and feel about these issues. For me, that's the most important work an agency can do.

The development of the campaign was also discussed at this year's Cannes Lions at the Empower Cafe space.