International Women’s Day 2026 raised the bar for brand participation in the Philippines. Campaigns moved beyond purple posts and one-day greetings, anchored by three overlapping frameworks: the global “Give To Gain” campaign, the UN theme “Rights. Justice. Action. For All Women and Girls,” and the Philippine Commission on Women’s (PCW) sub-theme “Lead like the Babaylans, Filipinas!” Here are the brands that showed up with substance.

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  • SM Supermalls and SM Cares
  • Filipina CEO Circle
  • Hershey Philippines
  • Dove Philippines
  • L’Oréal Paris Philippines

1. SM Supermalls and SM Cares

SM Supermalls and SM Cares transformed Philippine retail landmarks into large-scale advocacy spaces for Women’s Month. Iconic structures including the SM Mall of Asia Globe, SM North EDSA, SM Megamall, SM Aura, and SM Seaside Cebu were lit in purple in line with PCW’s #PurpleYourIcon push. Women’s Month programming included the “Walk in Her Shoes” exhibit, mall-wide perks under the “Serbisyo para sa Kababaihan” framework, and digital campaigns addressing women’s leadership and unpaid care work, all developed in partnership with PCW and UN agencies.

Multi-venue activations like SM’s purple lighting generate high-volume media coverage across broadcast, online news, and social media simultaneously. MediaWatch can track which activations drove the most conversation, helping co-activating brands understand their share of earned media during Women’s Month.

2. Filipina CEO Circle

The Filipina CEO Circle (FCC) ran one of the most direct social campaigns of the IWD cycle with “Know Your Place, Woman. You Belong at the Top.” The line intentionally subverted a phrase historically used to diminish female ambition, accumulating a cumulative reach of approximately 27,000 individuals across its advocacy posts. FCC also co-presented Women’s Run PH 2026 at SM Mall of Asia on March 8, projecting more than 16,000 participants across distances from 1 km to 16 km, with TikTok Shop signing on as the official e-commerce partner.

Advocacy campaigns that subvert familiar phrases tend to generate polarized but high-engagement conversations. Monitoring sentiment shifts alongside reach metrics gives PR teams a clearer picture of whether a bold message is landing as intended.

3. Hershey Philippines

Hershey Philippines launched “Love for Every Bar” spanning Valentine’s Day through International Women’s Day. The campaign turned chocolate packaging into a personalization gateway: consumers scanned QR codes on wrappers to access celebratehershe.com/en, where they could generate AI-powered cartoon e-cards and augmented reality tribute messages for the women in their lives. Marketing director Clarisse Villanueva framed the initiative as a way to make expressions of appreciation “as personal as they are creative,” building on earlier #HerSHE and “She Inspires” activations.

Hybrid campaigns that combine physical products with digital personalization generate layered media coverage, from product reviews to social shares of AI-created content. MediaWatch helps FMCG brands identify which layer of a campaign is driving the most conversation across Philippine media.

4. Dove Philippines

Dove has built one of the most consistent women’s advocacy platforms in Philippine marketing through two campaigns that continue to shape IWD conversations. “Raise Your Arms,” launched in April 2024 with Ogilvy Singapore, tackled underarm shaming by citing research that 8 in 10 Filipino women avoid raising their arms in public. The #FreeThePits hashtag invited Filipinas to reclaim the gesture. Building on that foundation, the “Invisible Game” initiative launched in March 2025 featured volleyball player Michelle Cobb, footballer Inna Palacios, and former gymnast Sofia Gonzalez, spotlighting body insecurity in Filipino women’s sports. Through a partnership with Atleta Filipina, Dove organized “StrongHER Together” events and the digital series “Atleta Filipina: She Speaks,” giving more than 60 Filipina athletes a platform to share their stories.

Dove’s multi-year approach across lifestyle and sports verticals demonstrates how a consistent advocacy platform compounds earned media value over time. SharedView can map engagement by audience segment across each campaign phase, useful for measuring how well a long-running platform retains relevance year after year.

5. L’Oréal Paris Philippines

L’Oréal Paris localized its global “I’m Worth It” platform into “Sayang? No, I’m Worth It,” an evolving multi-year campaign that has grown since its March 2024 launch. The original event at Puerta Real Gardens in Intramuros used a Modern Filipiniana aesthetic to signal a break from outdated norms, with ambassadors Pia Wurtzbach-Jauncey, Iza Calzado-Wintle, Belle Rodolfo, and Deng Garcia sharing personal narratives of overcoming stigma. That launch generated over 69 million impressions, nearly 30 million in reach, and an estimated PHP 10.6 million in PR value. The platform has since expanded with new ambassadors including Janella Salvador and KaladKaren, deepening its cultural resonance heading into 2026.

Campaigns built on a locally specific insight and sustained across multiple years consistently outperform one-off empowerment messaging in earned media metrics. Tracking how a platform’s PR value and sentiment evolve from launch to successive cycles helps teams demonstrate the compounding returns of long-term creative strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions About International Women’s Day Campaigns

What is the International Women’s Day theme in the Philippines?

The Philippine Commission on Women set the 2026 sub-theme as “Lead like the Babaylans, Filipinas!” under its 2023–2028 banner “WE for Gender Equality and Inclusive Society.” This runs alongside the global “Give To Gain” campaign and the UN theme “Rights. Justice. Action. For All Women and Girls.” Themes shift annually, but PCW’s multi-year banner provides a consistent framework that brands can anchor across IWD cycles.

What is the “Serbisyo para sa Kababaihan” initiative?

It is a PCW-led initiative inviting public and private organizations to offer concrete perks, discounts, or services to women and girls on March 8 or throughout March. For brands, it provides a practical mechanism to demonstrate appreciation beyond social media and align commercial gestures with a government-endorsed advocacy framework.

Which industries are most active in International Women’s Day brand campaigns in the Philippines?

FMCG and beauty brands have historically been the most active, but recent cycles have seen meaningful participation from retail and professional advocacy organizations. The broadening reflects how Women’s Month advocacy has shifted from a marketing exercise to a business-strategy signal across sectors.

How can PR and marketing teams measure International Women’s Day campaign impact in the Philippines?

Effective measurement tracks mention volume, PR value, sentiment, and share of voice across channels. MediaWatch monitors brand mentions across 1,500+ Philippine media sources, while SharedView covers social conversations across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. For campaigns spanning events, digital activations, and influencer partnerships, cross-channel monitoring is essential for a complete performance picture.

How can brands use media monitoring to improve future International Women’s Day campaigns?

Year-over-year tracking reveals whether a campaign’s cultural resonance is holding or declining, critical for brands running multi-year advocacy platforms like Dove’s or L’Oréal’s. Monitoring competitor campaigns over the same window also shows which creative territories are becoming crowded and where white space exists.

Media Meter provides the benchmarking, sentiment analysis, and share-of-voice data brands need to make those decisions with confidence. Request a demo or view our sample reports.