Heroines

Read the campaign story

Hasselblad launched Heroines on 8 March 2019, according to its contemporary release. The programme featured women photographers through recurring accounts of their work, experience and inspiration. All annual editions and related profiles belong to this family. The brand’s role as publisher is distinct from the photographers’ authorship of the images and stories.

The source establishes the programme’s form and stated purpose, not a measured improvement in industry representation, careers or camera sales. Visibility and structural change are different outcomes. This case examines how a brand can create an editorial platform that gives practitioners meaningful space while avoiding the assumption that a selected group represents every experience or that recognition establishes product superiority.

Editorial interpretation: recurring profiles can make representation more substantial than a single celebratory image. The value depends on the questions asked and the room given to each person’s own priorities. If every account is forced into the same inspirational arc, the platform may erase differences while claiming to celebrate them. A useful editorial system preserves distinct viewpoints rather than treating contributors as interchangeable proof of a brand message.

Editorial interpretation: recognition programmes should explain the boundaries of selection. Being featured is not an objective ranking of everyone in a field, and absence does not imply a lack of merit. Clear language about editorial scope can reduce that confusion. The brand can support discovery without claiming to resolve unequal opportunity, speak for an entire group or make itself the central source of a practitioner’s achievement.

Give the subject control over their account

A profile brief should distinguish necessary editorial structure from optional personal disclosure. Ask only for material relevant to the agreed story and allow the contributor to identify inaccuracies before publication. For a concept test, use invented profiles rather than soliciting real testimony. Review whether the questions invite specific professional experience or push everyone toward a predetermined narrative of struggle, gratitude or inspiration.

Make selection legible without inventing authority

State what the programme is intended to show and what it cannot represent. Avoid language implying a comprehensive ranking unless a defensible process actually exists. Ask reviewers how they interpret inclusion and exclusion in a fictional gallery. If they assume featured people are objectively the best, clarify the editorial purpose and remove visual or verbal cues that encourage an unsupported hierarchy.

Evaluate the quality of attention

Counting views alone says little about whether readers understand a practitioner’s work. Ask what they remember about the person’s decisions, methods and perspective. Compare that with recall of the sponsor. A useful platform should not require the brand to disappear, but it should leave contributors with recognisable authorship rather than turning their work into anonymous visual texture for a corporate reputation story.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: create a fictional editorial series about adult illustrators’ different working methods, using original placeholder drawings and explicit notes about the limited selection scope.

Measure whether reviewers remember distinct perspectives, recognise authorship and understand that the series is an editorial selection rather than an exhaustive ranking. Compare a uniform inspirational template with profiles organised around each person’s own professional question. Ask whether the sponsor appears to claim credit for their achievements. Retain the platform only if it supports useful discovery without stereotyping, extracting sensitive testimony or overstating its social impact.

Stop if profiles erase authorship, imply a definitive hierarchy or treat visibility as proof of structural change.

• Use invented adult practitioners.
• Create original placeholder art.
• Seek no personal testimony or real nominations.