Ditch the pink this Women’s Day, Marketing & Advertising News, ET BrandEquity

March 8, 2025

0 Views 0

SaveSavedRemoved 0

Sakshi Choudhary and Samyu Murali

POV: It’s March 9

The brands that spent yesterday urging women to “rise, shine, and slay” have gone quiet. The ones that called you ‘QUEEN’ are back to underrepresenting women in leadership. Logos have reverted and the reality of pay gaps, workplace biases and missing maternity policies remains unchanged.

Welcome to the day after Women’s Day — where the marketing fades, but the real work still isn’t done.

Brands put out messages of empowerment, but real progress isn’t measured in hashtags or heartfelt campaigns. It’s measured in leadership pipelines, pay equity, workplace policies and long-term commitment.

Beyond the message: A call for action

For years, brands have leaned on femvertising — a surface-level approach that equates empowerment with a viral ad or a pink product. But real change goes deeper than marketing. It requires action.

Women’s Day shouldn’t be a branding exercise — it should be a reflection of a company’s year-round commitment to equity. That means looking beyond how brands speak about women and focusing on how they support them — through hiring, promotions, fair pay and policies that create real impact.

The Women’s Day Test

Indian Creative Women exists because women bring unique perspectives that drive creativity, innovation and profit. We are women in design and the advertising industry who have seen first-hand how brands get it wrong — and what it takes to get it right.

That’s why we built The Women’s Day Test. It’s a framework to assess whether a campaign actually advances gender equity. We look at gender-equal screen time, inclusive casting, representation behind the camera and — most importantly — a brand’s internal policies. If a campaign asks women to “take a break” but doesn’t challenge workplace biases, it’s missing the point.

Beyond lip service

A campaign is only as strong as the actions behind it. Brands that claim to support women must back it up with:

Hiring and promoting women at all levels — not just in front of the camera but behind it.

Policies that matter — paid maternity and paternity leave, pay transparency and real anti-harassment measures.

Authentic representation — women shown in all their complexity, not just as strong, nurturing, or inspirational figures.

Long-term commitment — not just a once-a-year marketing play, but an everyday priority visible in boardrooms, budgets and business decisions.

One-size-fits-none

Women are not a monolith. Women’s Day messaging must reflect real diversity — not broad, generic strokes that reduce women to a single narrative. A meaningful campaign considers intersectionality, factoring in race, gender identity, economic background and more.

Put women in the room

If a Women’s Day campaign is being created without women in key decision-making roles, it has already failed. Brands must include women of diverse backgrounds in their creative and strategic processes to ensure the work is not just well-meaning, but well-informed.

Do the work, not just the marketing

Women’s equality isn’t a moment — it’s a movement. It’s not about a campaign; it’s about an everyday effort to create workplaces, industries and societies where women thrive.

At the end of the day, the real measure of a Women’s Day campaign isn’t how many likes it gets — it’s how many systems it challenges.

(Samyu Murali, founding member and creative at Talented, is co-lead at independent platform, Indian Creative Women team; Sakshi Choudhary, ECD, Ogilvy, is the founder of Indian Creative Women. All views expressed are personal. The article is for general information purposes only.

ETBrandEquity.com makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information. It does not assume any responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions, or damages arising from the use of this information.

We reserve the right to modify or remove any content without prior notice. The reproduction, distribution, or storage of any content without written permission is strictly prohibited.)