Today, women and marginalised genders continue to face inequalities. With COVID having set back the century already estimated to reach equality, by a further 35 years, and even more for women in minority groups.

To ensure that we could represent the voices of a truly intersectional group of women we designed a highly targeted social media campaign that over-indexed on reaching LGBTQ+ women and women of colour and we worked with influencers from under-represented groups across our key markets. All of which was geared towards our ambition of hearing from those women who are typically unheard.

Mars believes the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today - and that’s why it’s taking action towards a world where society is inclusive.

But in recent years, corporate gender campaigns have become clichéd and cluttered. Perhaps no moment reflects this more than International Women’s Day. Amongst a wave of gimmicks, one-offs and soundbites, brands’ activity has started to become homogeneous and hollow. Designed more for the benefit of the brands, than for us as women.

Mars set out to create an internal, impact-led programme that would cut through with actions that spoke louder than this noise. To turn a single day into a legacy that lasts a lifetime. A legacy of change, created by building something with meaningful action and real impact against SDG 5.

Mars partnered with two panels of women with diverse experiences from different identity groups: a group of female Mars employees from the U.S. to Australia, and a panel of external experts. With their insights and ideas at the fore, we co-created #HereToBeHeard - a global, social-led and audio-first study that carved a new path for corporate communications.

For too long, we as women have been told what we want. But Mars listened to what we want. Gathering invaluable insights and data by asking “What needs to change so more women can reach their full potential?”. Mars then used its platform to amplify their voices and opinions to those who have the power to create change.

Mars listened to 10,319 voices across 88 countries. Making sure their answers were heard, and learnt from. By businesses and society, and most importantly, by men.

Gender focused programs are often designed with a particular type of woman in mind. But Mars listened to all women at all intersections of society - all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, ages, abilities, parenthood and socio-economic status.

The power of the human voice is hard to ignore. So partnering with audio platform Phonic, Mars captured women’s voice recordings, before a team of data scientists at Oxford University analysed every single one. The Business for Social Responsibility reviewed the data and consulted leading gender experts to produce the ‘Here To Be Heard Report’, including recommended bold actions towards SDG 5 from business and society.

By combining the rigour of a global study, with the emotion of women’s voices, and partnerships with the Unstereotype Alliance, CARE and the Geena Davis Institute, Mars was able to turn deeply personal perspectives into a landmark policy paper.

1. Spring 2021: Ask and understand

A crowdsourcing social campaign launched in early 2021, asked women like us one simple question. By April 2021, Mars had received 10,319 voices from 88 countries. From every intersection of life - 50% identifying as non-White, 40% non-heterosexual and 12% as living with a disability.

2. Summer 2021: Listen and learn

Every voice was analysed through Oxford University's AI machine learning – grouping what women said into eight themes. The voice recordings captured provided a powerful and intimate audio-visual report like no other gender white paper.

3. Autumn 2021: Share and Act

Insights were turned into action. The findings were amplified to Mars employees, stakeholders, C-suite executives, peers, NGOs, 22,000 supplier partners, and industries from advertising to healthcare. Crucially, 80% of women demanded an end to discrimination and harmful gender stereotyping and 71% stressed that men play a critical role in achieving gender equality.

By any measure of success #HereToBeHeard delivered.

Reach:

Outperformed benchmarks up to 10x

Reached 379.5M people in 46 countries

LinkedIn posts were 161% above the organic engagement rate benchmark

Earned media included Forbes, Fortune and Bloomberg

239M earned media impressions

20K suppliers reached

97K website hits

35+ markets activated

Reputation:

100% positive sentiment

Contributed to a significant increase in corporate reputation (between 2pts-6pts)

Women’s willingness to work Mars increased by up to 26%

Impact:

New family support benefits and policies for employees at Mars

A new male allyship program led by senior male leaders

A commitment to spending half a billion dollars with women-led suppliers

Transparency with the reporting of the annual audit of our marketing with the Geena Davis Institute

With peers and supply chain partners also deploying their own actions, that impact has multiplied, showing #HereToBeHeard created collective action towards SDG 5.