Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day! IWD is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The campaign theme this year is #BeBoldForChange.

What are you and your brand doing to celebrate and recognize the contributions of women around the globe? How will you “Be Bold for Change”?

We at APR support and encourage our clients to be diverse and inclusive and recommend the following best practices when it comes to marketing content production:

1. Include diversity language in your production casting specs and ensure your creative brief calls out a range of ages, ethnicities and abilities

2. Require your creative agencies to work with minority and women-owned suppliers (this includes directors, editors, photographers, production companies, etc.)

3. Take the #FreeTheBid pledge, and ask your creative agency to do the same. Insist that every commercial production triple-bid include at least one bid from a woman director

#FreeTheBid (www.freethebid.com), an initiative started by filmmaker and commercial director Alma Har’el, asks advertising agencies, brands, production companies and “guardians” to take a pledge to include at least one female director every time it triple-bids a commercial production. They also have a database, currently at over 300 reputable women directors (and growing daily).

Diversity and inclusion is about doing the right thing. Your brand and your business will be better for it.

For more information about how to include diversity in your marketing efforts and how to support women in advertising and marketing production, please contact APR’s diversity specialist, Jeri Vaughn, at jvaughn@aprco.com, with any questions.