Omnicom agencies in Chicago delivered largest cross-agency event ever

 June 26, 2019

Collaboration is key to achieving a #BalanceforBetter. This is a fact that media holding company, Omnicom, understands very well.

Supporting gender parity and women's leadership development

International Women's Day 2019 marked the first time all 23 Chicago-based Omnicom agencies came together for a single event. With more than 220 people involved in the celebrations, IWD was the perfect time to officially relaunch the Chicago chapter of Omniwomen, an Omnicom initiative that globally supports gender parity and women's leadership development.

An opportunity for employees to voice their experiences

For the IWD event, Omniwomen Chicago focused on the idea of “activation" by offering opportunities for employees to put themselves into the story and add their voices to the fight for gender equity. This inspired a multi-modal event structure, encouraging both face-to-face and online participation.

Increasing engagement and reach for their IWD campaign

Omniwomen increased engagement for their IWD event through establishing an inter-agency Power Team to plan the event and increase communication and collaboration between companies that rarely, if ever, work together.

The team utilized the IWD brand throughout their activation, which included creating a video reel of the 220+ participants standing in the #BalanceforBetter pose, building a photo wall using IWD's iconic purple, and enjoying IWD custom cookies from a female colleague’s bakery.

Pledge boards were made available so participants could make their own commitments to gender parity.

Overcoming barriers to event participation

With a focus on diversity and inclusion and an aim to increase participation and impact, Omniwomen also focused on removing any barriers to participation. This included people feeling they couldn't step away from work for a long time, worrying about the implications of attending, or believing that they won't learn anything new or personally relevant.

Overcoming these barriers meant decreasing the pressure to attend, so participants were only asked to spend about ten minutes at the event (although of course they were welcome to stay longer, and many did).

As a result, Omniwomen saw a 559% increase in overall engagement from previous events including attendance by C-level executives, over-resourced art directors, and everyone in the middle.

Attracting the most diverse group of participants to date

Omniwomen Chicago's IWD #BalanceforBetter campaign was specifically tailored to their industry. Using a robust strategy, they navigated around the unique pitfalls agencies face when organizing large-scale events and welcomed their most diverse group of participants yet. As a result, Omniwomen Chicago saw both boosted engagement at subsequent events and increased attendance at monthly meetings.

Proud of the broader network that their IWD activation established, Omniwomen Chicago hopes participation in their events will continue to increase.

Pictured above: Randie Speir (The Marketing Arm), Jess Sokolowski (We Are Unlimited), Corson Barnard (Designory), Sara Bafundo (TPN), Nicole Lieb (Designory)