In 2016, TBWA launched Take the Lead: 20\20, the global network’s initiative to bring awareness around achieving a gender-balanced workplace and increase women in leadership roles by 20% by 2020.

In preparation for celebrating International Women’s Day 2016, the Take the Lead committee reflected on it’s accomplishments to date, but realized we had a challenge that was still standing in the way of real progress - we weren’t engaging our male counterparts.

What we saw in our own office was one symptom of larger issues within the advertising industry and beyond. The push for more female leadership or a level playing field was often misconstrued as “women’s issues” and failed to create awareness or resonate with all employees. Men, in particular.

Using real women’s quotes juxtaposed against photos of their male colleagues, we amplified the power of our message challenging the notion of “women’s issues.”

We made a hero film and posters to hang in all TBWA regional offices around the world, extending the executions call for everyone - in particular men - to join the conversation.

Because the importance of this topic goes beyond our agency, we were inspired to show our commitment to the world. The film, website, region-specific films and posts were all pushed across our TBWA owned social media channels as well as individuals personal profiles. In a show of solidarity, the men involved in the campaign changed their social media profile pictures. All combined, we galvanize the TBWA network around the world to Take the Lead.

On International Women’s Day, TBWA, the disruption network did just that - disrupted traditional women’s parity communications by creating a juxtaposition of just how absurd these issues can be in our industry and beyond. We placed the spotlight on our male colleagues who powerfully, and sometimes uncomfortably, communicate words and feelings they have never had to address.

The entire campaign was launched with no media budget, simply internal promotion and PR to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2016.

Within 24-hours the film had over 120K views on Youtube and had feature articles in Bustle, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Cosmopolitan, Self, Daily Mail UK, Campaign, AdWeek, AdAge, Mumbrella, The Drum etc.