McCann Worldgroup aims to close the gender gap in creative leadership

McCann Worldgroup is launching a talent accelerator program called the Ambition Collective aimed at closing the gender gap within the network and the advertising industry’s creative leadership ranks. People identifying as women make up no more than 30% of creative leadership, according to The Ambition Collective, which was unveiled at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The collective aims to boost female leadership through a process centered on opportunity, education and community to increase visibility and advancement for women to more leadership roles. See all of Ad Age's 2023 Leading Women here The program began internally as a pilot in the U.K. and Europe at the start of 2023 and was developed by leaders across McCann’s creative excellence team and its DEI Creative Roundtable, an internal leadership group dedicated to promoting diversity across the company’s creative ranks. Later this year, the Ambition Collective will expand to North America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa and Latin America, and McCann is seeking client partners for each of those programs. The program's first brand sponsor is Reckitt and its Nurofen pain reliever brand, which gave the collective an opportunity to work on a “See My Pain” campaign created to address the gender pain gap in health care. U.K. and European leadership members within McCann who are part of the collective served as mentors to women creatives throughout the process. A handful of the 61 ideas by participants were submitted and selected as finalists and presented to creatives at Reckitt. The finalists’ ideas are currently being developed with the client for potential future rollout. Cannes Lions coverage Follow our live blog here Sign up here for email updates See all of the Grand Prix winners here Reckitt Global Category Director Catherine Lloyd said being the Ambition Collective’s pilot client was an “incredible opportunity,” and that she was looking forward to launching campaigns based on some of them. “Seeing ideas from female talent across Europe and being part of their learning journey was really exciting for us and ties very closely to our own fight on Nurofen,” Lloyd said in a statement. “The ideas were so diverse and yet all so on brand and on brief. They spanned from consumer tools, to [health care provider] comms, to AI and data visualization.” McCann Worldgroup’s initiative marks the latest public effort to boost female representation in advertising and marketing, and in the roles of those who create campaigns. Other efforts across the industry include SeeHer, a movement launched by the ANA in 2016 that in partnership with The Female Quotient aims to eliminate gender bias in marketing, and the 3% Movement, which held its 3% Conference for a decade.

McCann Worldgroup aims to close the gender gap in creative leadership

Featured Stories