How brands can embrace International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day has become a globally recognized day to celebrate women, and highlight the inequalities they face. As the day has gained more and more traction in recent years, brands now often take part. In this blog we’re looking at the data to get a glimpse of what it’s like to be a woman within this industry. We’re also exploring some great examples of how brands can utilize their platform to support International Women’s Day, whilst also demonstrating brand values in the process.

Women in tech and marketing

Only 28% of the tech industry workforce are women, and just like most industries, this drops further when you look at women in leadership positions. Only 26.5% of executive, senior-level and management positions in S&P 500 companies are held by women. Take Amazon as an example within the tech sector; its female workforce is 44.8% of the company, however this almost halves when you look at women in senior management which is just 23.1%.

The percentage of female graduates with core STEM degrees is steadily growing, but the percentage remains low at just 26%. If the current pace of change remains consistent, the economic gender gap will take almost 133 years to close, according to the Women in Tech network.

In the marketing industry, it’s a slightly different story. Women make up almost half of the workforce, at 48%. Sounds pretty equal right? Unfortunately just like the tech industry, when you look at the number of women in senior-level positions within marketing, this percentage drops to just 37%.

Ultimately, the bigger players in the tech industry, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple in particular, are consciously working to end the gender gap within tech. From offering egg freezing to extending maternity leave, tech companies are trying to address the gap with benefits policies that will appeal to women. It’s certainly a start.

International Women’s Day at Dotdigital

International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate women, to advocate for women, and to raise awareness of the issues women face. At Dotdigital we are proud to have a number of causes we care about, and gender equality is certainly one of them. This week a committee from Dotvoice, our employee voice groups, have been running various events to celebrate the women who work for Dotdigital.

We’re also proud to announce our new corporate partnership with the UK charity The Girls’ Network. The Girls’ Network aims to inspire and empower girls from the least advantaged communities by connecting them to a mentor and a network of professional role models who are women. We know that women are incredibly underrepresented in the tech industry, so we’re excited to partner with such a fantastic charity to inspire the next generation of young women.

Standout brands embracing International Women’s Day

We talk about empathetic marketing a lot, it’s important for brands to have causes they care about so that their customers can feel connected on a deeper level. International Women’s Day is a great opportunity for brands to share their support for women and use their platform to empower and educate. Here are some of our favorite International Women’s Day campaigns from brands proudly walking the walk, as well as talking the talk.

fresh

Beauty brand fresh’s campaign celebrates and acknowledges the fabulous women who created the company. fresh also offered something of value to its female subscribers by offering free, professional headshots for women. This shows that the brand understands that the workplace is often tougher for women, and offering something to combat this, especially whilst not super relevant to the brand, is fantastic. It’s a great example of a brand sharing its story and values, and demonstrating those values in a way that serves its customers.

This Works

Skincare and wellness brand This Works sent out a campaign celebrating the women in the business, and kept its products front and center too. Highlighting women within your business is a great way to show your brand truly celebrates women every day, not just when it’s trending. Utilizing real people to highlight their favorite products adds depth to the product, which is something brands need to do to encourage sales in a crowded marketplace.

Splendid

Apparel brand Splendid have utilized email to launch a fantastic initiative. Encouraging subscribers to share their own successes, or those of friends makes for a really positive campaign. The brand states that women are less likely to speak about their achievements, and that needs to change. Picking out a particular issue women face is a nice take on International Women’s Day which can easily become an empty, generic message if you’re not careful. The brand encouraging women to celebrate themselves, and incentivizing it with a generous prize draw is a really nice show of brand values. It’s not a commercially led campaign, but you can guarantee anyone opening that email will, subconsciously or not, warm to the brand and likely opt for them more in the future.

Whistles

British fashion brand Whistles put its money where its mouth is with its International Women’s Day campaign. The brand let customers know that for every sale from its stores or online on March 8th, the brand will donate £1 to The Prince’s Trust’s #ChangeAGirlsLifeCampaign. This campaign is simple, it gets the message across and shows the brand cares. The brand is doing something to drive change where it’s needed, whilst also protecting that bottom line by encouraging sales at the same time.

Stance

Apparel brand Stance used their platform to highlight female voices in a male-dominated industry. The brand shared the stories of two female skateboarders, and two of its in-house designers. This is a great showing of advocating not just for Stance’s brand, but encouraging change in the wider industry too. We also like that there’s nothing but the message in this campaign, it’s not an option for every brand, but leaving out the sales tactics can really help amplify the integrity of your message when possible.

Conclusion

International Women’s Day is a chance to celebrate women, and a reminder that we should all be doing that every day. The marketing industry is powered by great female minds, so we’re looking forward to what this year’s campaigns have to offer. As for the tech industry, innovation is at it’s core, so let’s hope to see equality in a lot less than the predicted 133 years.