Beginning at Cannes Lions 2017 as a hosted event to celebrate women in the media, creative, and technology industries, Twitter set out to use that event to create an emotive film that highlighted and raised awareness of women as powerful figures; a film that could then reach a far larger audience online. Flash forward to CES and the creation of the panel of women tech industry leaders, #HereWeAre, a doubling-down on the message from Cannes 2017, of the importance of gender equity in all industries. This panel was made of all-female speakers who shared their stories, insights, and advice. Not only was it streamed live, the panel was one of the most talked about events at CES.

What kicked off #HereWeAre was the lack of female panel members at CES 2018. Recognizing our work with women from Cannes Lions 2017, Twitter and CMO Leslie Berland assembled the all-female panel for #HereWeAre within a week, and utilized the powerful film we created in Cannes as a companion piece to advance the message of the importance of including women in the conversation. Once the panel was set, Twitter would globally stream the event live from its platform, allowing for people to engage in the live stream, to comment, question, and converse using the hashtag #HereWeAre. Again, this served as an opportunity for Twitter’s marketing strategy, that further reinforced its values of equality.

#HereWeAre gained enormous traction and we wanted to give it a bigger platform still, transforming it from an industry benchmark to a consumer movement. Following the revelations that have empowered women in the film industry in recent months, resulting in the #TimesUp initiative, the 2018 Oscars provided the opportunity for us to show the world that gender equality is a staunch principle of Twitter’s. Taking our original film, shot at Cannes Lions, we repurposed and added a number of inspiring women working in the film industry, including one of the most important female directors of our time, Ava DuVernay. As part of the multi-channel approach, we spent Twitter’s biggest ever media budget on a 60-second TV advert in the US and Canada, reaching over 27 million people in North America, positioning Twitter at the epicenter of the gender equality fight in the industry that is being most transformed by it.