Omnicom Celebrates International Women’s Day 2020

In honor of International Women’s Day (IWD), Omnicom agencies around the world will come together to celebrate the professional and personal achievements of women within the Omnicom Group and to reflect on progress made. This will also include several events hosted by Omniwomen, Omnicom’s internal organization that is dedicated to strengthening the number of female leaders in the Omnicom network. 

For a sampling of Omnicom’s IWD activities, please see our roundup provided below. If you have any questions about a particular event/campaign or inquiries on how to get involved, please reach out to Katie Beaule at [email protected].  

Omniwomen:

Chapter Plans

• On March 10th in London, Omniwomen UK + Allies will host their sixth-annual IWD Leadership Summit. The day is designed to bring new and aspiring leaders together in an open and supportive environment to meet, learn and share ideas and experiences. Around 300 employees will enjoy a day of workshops and discussions, including talks from speakers such as Sarah Brown, President of Theirworld, a charity that Omnicom supports as part of its commitment to the UN’s Strategic Development Goal for Quality Education. The summit will inspire and champion diverse leaders in STEM roles.
• Omniwomen Chicago will be hosting two activations this IWD. The first will be an all-agency activation on March 5th where groups from each agency will gather at a professional studio to take photos for the larger IWD #EachforEqual social media campaign. The second activation will be held over breakfast on March 10th and encourage Omnicom changemakers to gather for a roundtable discussion on women’s equity. Senior leaders from several Omnicom agencies will explore gender bias in the workplace and the important issues facing women in our industry.
•  Omniwomen Milwaukee will be celebrating IWD by holding conversations to help raise awareness against bias and advocate for a gender equal world. On Wednesday, March 11th, the chapter will be screening the documentary film Losing Lena. The viewing of this documentary will lead to a curated discussion about equality, bias and privacy in the workplace. 

CPM International:

To show its support of women this month and to amplify the 2020 IWD theme #EachforEqual, CPM offices globally will be hosting an abundance of activities from India to Barcelona, France, the UK and more. In Barcelona, CPM offices will be having a raffle for charity. All money raised during the raffle will be donated to Fundación Ana Bella, an international non-profit organization founded in Spain that supports women who have survived abuse with a mission to create a violence-free society. In Ireland, CPM will be sponsoring the International Women’s Day Gala Lunch hosted by The Executive Institute and fundraising for the National Women’s Council of Ireland. The CPM office in India will be screening a movie focused on fighting for self-respect and battling gender bias, a burden that married women constantly face in India. Discussions around tolerance levels in marriages will follow.

Credera:

On Friday March 6th, Credera Women’s Network will host an International Women’s Day celebration at each of Credera’s office locations. During the event, Crederians will have the opportunity to recognize the women who have made an extraordinary impact on their lives. They’ll also set intentions for how each person can contribute to creating an equal world, consistent with this year’s #EachforEqual theme. The results of the activity will be displayed as a reminder of the role each person can play in celebrating women and advocating for gender equality. 

DDB:

This year, in honor of IWD, DDB will be printing books with women leaders interpreting and sharing their stories around DDB’s Four Freedoms, originally developed by Keith Reihnard:

1. Freedom from Fear
2. Freedom to Fail
3. Freedom from Chaos
4. Freedom to Be 

The printed versions will be used as desk drops in the New York, Chicago and San Francisco offices. Digital versions will be shared on social as well.

Energy BBDO:

To continue support for IWD, Energy BBDO will renew its membership of She Runs It for all employees. Designed to encourage and promote women’s role in the advertising industry, She Runs It holds classes and dinners with presentations on advertising best practices while also giving out scholarships encouraging girls to pursue degrees in advertising. 

GMR:

In celebration of International Women’s Day, GMR Marketing will host an interactive session inspiring everyone to move off the sidelines to support complex change in gender equality. Bill Proudman, CEO and co-founder of White Men as Full Diversity Partners, will be the keynote speaker for the event, and the session will be live-streamed to all GMR offices.  

In addition, GMR’s Charlotte office has a number of activities scheduled, including self-defense training and a Women in Sports and Events (WISE) panel featuring GMR’s chief client officer Cameron Wagner.  

Ketchum:

This IWD, Ketchum will be supporting Women’s Business Collaborative—a new organization that aims to accelerate women in business—by offering pro bono services for its IWD event on March 9th.  

OMD:

OMD will be celebrating IWD this year with a week full of speakers, trainings and #EachForEqual social content. The agency will kick-off the week of March 9th with a panel led by Jenny Garrett, a leading women’s empowerment inspirational speaker. OMD EMEA CEO, Guy Marks, will open the session talking about steps the agency has taken towards equality and what OMD is planning for 2020. In addition, Stacey Stockwell will be stepping in to train employees on disability awareness and mental health.

PHD Worldwide:

In honor of IWD, PHD will post images of leadership from around the network in the #EachforEqual pose along with a quote on what International Women’s Day means to them. In the March edition of her bi-monthly newsletter, CEO of PHD Worldwide Philippa Brown will be focusing on IWD and featuring the recent successes and highlights of female leadership around the network. PHD is to be featured in WeAreTheCity in celebration of IWD.

Porter Novelli:

On March 10th, in celebration of IWD, Porter Novelli will host a panel of accomplished female leaders that will come together to discuss how they’ve made power moves to earn noteworthy positions while redefining success through purpose. The panel will address how to bring your whole self to work, how to own leadership skills deemed “female”, how to achieve self-mastery, self-esteem and self-care, and how to share your power. Some panel members will include Sara Porritt, Senior Director and USA D&I Lead at OMD and Ayanna Robinson, EVP at Porter Novelli. 

RAPP:

During the month of IWD, RAPP has various activations planned both digitally and internally. To start, it will be spotlighting female leaders within Omnicom once a week throughout the entire month along with fearless female clients. Local offices will then be hosting a series of breakfasts, speaker sessions, donation drives and more on Monday March 9th to show support for gender equity. In addition, on March 11th, RAPP will be hosting a panel featuring some of its key female leaders as well as male ally, Global CEO Marco Scognamiglio. 

Siegel+Gale:

On Tuesday, March 3rd, Siegel+Gale hosted its sixth annual IWD celebration featuring a conversation with preeminent marketing executives. This invite-only experience convened 50 senior marketing executives from the most prominent companies in the New York area. CMO, Margaret Molloy led a conversation around the challenges of building brands and forging a gender equal world. Panelists shared their personal journeys as leaders and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Siegel+Gale will be hosting 5 global activations this year across London, Zurich, New York, San Francisco and LA. Last year, Siegel+Gale was recognized and awarded by International Women’s Day for its efforts. Read more here. 

sparks & honey:

Sparks & honey is hosting three special Culture Briefings throughout March exploring the power of women in different spaces and the opportunities to advance women’s equality: 

1. Women Rising, March 5th: In partnership with The Quorum Initiative, sparks & honey will co-host a special briefing on the power women have in the coming election. RSVP here.
2. The Future of Equality, March 12th: In partnership with the Women’s Business Collaborative, sparks & honey will co-host a special briefing focused on equality for women in all aspects of life starting from conception through their career. 
3. Women in the Workplace, March 24th: As part of sparks & honey’s Diversity & Innovation briefing series co-hosted with ADCOLOR, this briefing is focused on exploring the different opportunities for brands and corporations to include women in the workplace.

These events are free and open to the public, and you can sign up here to attend. If you can’t make it in person, you can tune in on LinkedIn and Facebook at 12:05pm for the full-hour.  

TBWA:

The TBWA collective has a variety of local IWD efforts happening in its various markets around the world. Several offices will be hosting speaker sessions with influential female leaders, fundraising and supporting local charities and non-profit organizations in their region. Other local activations include:

• Juniper Park\TBWA is launching #NotaMirror2020, an initiative calling on the public to submit their own reimagined designs of “the female symbol.” ♀ The agency aims to challenge the symbol’s history, which dates back to the 16th century when French scholar Joseph Justus Scaliger deemed it to represent a hand mirror for Venus, “the Goddess of Beauty”. 
• TBWA\Asia Pacific agencies will launch an IWD research piece, which feeds into the region’s overall thought leadership program in 2020. The program includes quarterly themes, with IWD kicking off the first theme to focus on the challenges and opportunities of getting gender stereotypes right.
• TBWA\Thailand is partnering with client L’Oreal Paris to implement the brand’s “Stand Up Against Street Harassment” campaign internally. The agency will host training sessions for both men and women on how to stand up against harassment, under the campaign’s 5Ds of instruction: Distract, Delay, Delegate, Document and Direct. 
• TBWA\London has created a campaign which celebrates outdated stereotypes of female leadership qualities previously unwelcomed in the workplace, such as empathy, vulnerability, kindness and generosity, calling for everyone to celebrate these leadership qualities and ‘Bring Your Stereotype to Work’, to mark this year’s IWD.

The Marketing Arm:

This International Women’s Day, The Marketing Arm will invite employees to celebrate the awesome women in their lives with Mad-Lib-style postcards. Later in the month, the agency will be hosting social events across all of its offices to highlight women-owned businesses.