Hudson Lake, a national public relations and visual communications firm, sought out the creative services of Simple Media in the support of Toyota’s International Women’s Day “She Drives” Campaign.

Though the initiative would have a spillover effect to the contributions of women worldwide, Toyota particularly wanted something “beyond digital norms” that would help celebrate the social, economic, and cultural achievements of women in its own workforce. Beyond digital norms in this case, would mean actually engaging, and interactive.

Taking up the charge, Simple Media got to work brainstorming. The solution would need promote a sense of value, empowerment, and gratitude. And it would need to be “viral” by its very design, not only encouraging users to share their stories and create organic awareness of the initiative, but also reach as many people as possible in a unique and significant way.

To help create visibility and awareness of Toyota’s women-driven culture and inclusive positioning (while reaching as many people as possible in the process), Simple would lean heavily to Instagram.

Instagram AR Filters (AR=Augmented Reality), provide a means to superimpose an interactive element into the user’s stories, working similarly to the Instagram filter many people are already familiar, but adding an extra layer of sophistication.

In keeping with the “She Drives” concept, Simple created an AR filter to put women “behind the wheel”, bringing to life a colloquialism reserved for those in charge and in control.

The filter itself features a car’s steering wheel and an artistic backdrop, which when combined with a user’s front facing camera on their mobile device, enabled an Augmented Reality (AR) perspective. Anchoring the left/right orientation of the user’s head to the left/ right movements of the steering wheel, users were essentially able to “drive” by leaning their head one way or the other.

Within the first seven (7) days of launch, impressions reached slightly over four thousand (4.1K), with roughly 31% of users launching the filter on their device. Approximately 72% of those that saved content to their phone also shared it to their Instagram stories, proving the viral effectiveness of the solution.

While there are no other cars to race, or track to navigate, there never needed to be. Recognition is its own reward, and the filter has proven itself more than capable of delivering the right sentiments. Women are “behind the wheel” in every way that matters—in leadership, in innovation, in creativity, and in quality. Women matter…at Toyota and beyond.