Social impact report

In 2019, Greenpeace Russia worked with Isobar Moscow to raise awareness about climate change, using the Oldify FaceApp trend as inspiration. The outcome was a series of Instagram carousels, which depict how the most beautiful places on the planet are going to look, if we do nothing about climate change. 

With striking images such as St Petersburg flooded with water from the Neva river, the campaign received a lot of attention. Many influencers shared these visual future predictions on various social media platforms. As users were shocked, they shared, inviting more and more users to join the Greenpeace movement against climate change. 

The Code is Dentsu Aegis’s global flagship work-ready programme, launched in the UK in 2017. It is the accelerator programme for our Social Impact target to improve the digital skills of 100,000 people by 2020. It opens the doors of our industry to the next generation of diverse talent, equipping them with the skills to thrive in the digital economy through immersive workshops, competitions, work experience opportunities, apprenticeships and early career opportunities. 

The Code Canada 

The Code is embedded into Canada’s future talent strategy and led by our Talent Acquisition team in Toronto, who are building a network of partnerships with schools and organisations across the country. During Autumn 2019 over 200 students from secondary schools across Toronto and Vancouver took part in Insight Days at our offices and through in-school workshops. They also ran a careers event in Toronto in November 2019, reaching 1300 students.  

The Code Bulgaria 

Launched at Bulgaria’s Digital Camp in February 2019, the initiative is a collaboration between Dentsu Aegis Network Bulgaria and Isobar Commerce Bulgaria. 

In March, 300 students (aged 14 and 15) across seven schools participated in the Rise Up digital marketing competition. Students tackled marketing and e-commerce briefs from Mastercard and Mondelēz.  

The Code Singapore 

Dentsu Aegis Network APAC launched The Code in Singapore in July 2019. According to the Digital Society Index 2018, almost two thirds (64%) of people in Singapore are concerned that the pace of technological change is too fast. The Code aims to address this, by helping young people to develop the skills they need to thrive in the digital economy. 

65 Dentsu Aegis volunteers hosted Introduction to Advertising workshops in schools, reaching 400 students aged 15-16. They were challenged to bring a client brief to life, promoting a new ad for KFC’s sustainability campaign, Say NO to Plastics, and then pitched back their ideas to peers. 

The Code UK 

In 2019, the UK supported 1,282 students through The Code, with 660 taking part in the annual Rise Up competition. Dentsu Aegis teamed up with WWF, to challenge students across the UK to respond to a marketing brief to attract regular young adult donors to the charity and help tackle climate change. The students participated in workshops led by volunteers across Dentsu Aegis Network, to help build their understanding of marketing, the different tools and techniques that can be used, and the wide variety of roles available in the industry.  

Student project entries were shortlisted down to 13 teams, who had the opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges from WWF, media agency Vizeum and Facebook, at the Facebook London headquarters in December 2019. Three students from Oaklands College in St Albans were declared winners and secured work experience with Dentsu Aegis. 

The Code Poland 

Poland’s Code programme was delivered with global education partner, Junior Achievement, and helped to improve the digital skills of 600 young people in 2019. 48 high school students undertook work experience insight days at the office in Warsaw, supported by 25 volunteers from Dentsu Aegis Network. Students had an interactive visit to Poland’s Dentsu Maker Lab to test out some of our latest advances in marketing innovation and technology, spent time working on a live marketing brief from client Gillette, and job shadowed DAN employees to learn about careers in our industry. In November our people visited high schools to deliver workshops with over 400 young people. 

Female Foundry is our business growth programme, designed to give female entrepreneurs access to the tools, training, connections and resources they need to build successful businesses for the digital age. The programme supports our overarching Social Impact target to mentor 100 female entrepreneurs by 2020. 

South Africa 

In December 2019, 15 female entrepreneurs became the first cohort to graduate from Dentsu Aegis Network South Africa’s Female Foundry programme.   

Women entrepreneurs from businesses including Encapsulate Consulting, C Fruit, Recro Business Services, The Homing Pigeon, Vela Personnel, Maximillion Digital, MLB Digital, Our Salad Mix, Hot Head Media, Zeloi Agency, Gadifele Communications, Brendmo Incorporated, Createplay, Makeda Media and Rhomona G Marketing were selected to participate in the three-day bootcamp in Johannesburg, led by experts from the Global Entrepreneurship Network. They were paired with an experienced mentor to help strengthen their businesses for growth and success, with mentors joining from Dentsu Aegis Network and its agencies John Brown Media, Carat, Amplifi and Vizeum, and partners and clients including Estée Lauder, iAfrican Hub and ABB Global.    

Participant Chirene Jelbert, CEO of C Fruit, said: 

“It has been a very long time since my soul has been so fed. Entrepreneurship can be so lonely and it was the most phenomenal experience to hear that everyone struggles with the same thing.”  

India  

12 female founders joined our first Indian Female Foundry programme in November 2019, hosted at Facebook’s offices in Mumbai. The launch of the initiative was featured across all mainline and trade press, including India’s Economic Times. 

We welcomed a range of businesses including Leogirl Productions, Rank Me Online, Tell Me Your Story, Networking Now India, Tute Consult, 71 Events and AIMPI English Academy. Over the three day bootcamp the women entrepreneurs mapped out business canvasses, focusing on a deeper look at their customers, their business models and their opportunities for growth. They also had sessions with mentors from DAN, IBM, Facebook, Neotech Hub and WinPE. The bootcamp culminated in the women pitching their formulated business goals and objectives to their peer and mentor community. 

Koral Dasgupta, Founder of Tell Me Your Story, commented: 

“The workshops run by Dentsu Aegis Network with GEN helped me think harder and strategise without leaving gaps. They got me to face some fundamental questions, which I hadn’t asked myself earlier. Those answers built supporting blocks for many other dilemmas I had before me. On the last day of Female Foundry we were put before a team of mentors; interacting and listening to the knowledge banks were inspiring. The Female Foundry bootcamp would remain as one of the most pleasant and powerful inputs in my initial phase as a new, first generation entrepreneur.”  

Mexico 

The first phase of the initiative in Mexico saw 15 mentors and female entrepreneurs pair up to develop actionable strategies for achieving scale and growth. The initiative was covered in national media, including TV and radio appearances, press releases and influencer marketing, achieving 900,000 impressions. 

Lourdes Ambrosi, founder of de Cochinita Vinil, an online stationary company, said: 

“Increasingly women are deciding to start a business, and the role of women in business is becoming more recognized. I think there are many women that with this little push from Female Foundry, they would decide to do a lot more.”  

Chile 

In November 2019, 15 female entrepreneurs took part in Chile’s first Female Foundry. The bootcamp went ahead despite the protests and unrest in Santiago at the time. The build up to the initiative saw 60 pieces of coverage released across radio, digital press, social media and direct marketing through women’s organisations. 

The female founders represented a range of varied industries and included organisations Bamasuah, Eggy Cafeteria, comunicaxio, Ziru Chocolates, Mamurri and bodynew. Mentors joined us from our agencies iProspect and Isobar, alongside the founders of established businesses within the Chilean entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Sandra Navarrete, Founder of Bodynew, a cosmetics company, said: 

“I entered the Female Foundry program in November 2019, despite the unrest and protests in Chile at the time. I immersed myself in the three days of bootcamp where I received a lot of knowledge, and where I could see my company from others’ eyes. I realised that I had been moving away from my main objective as a businesswoman, and Female Foundry gave me the roadmap and tools to continue growing.” 

In the UK, 225,000 older people often go a whole week without speaking to anyone. It was time for the public to forfeit their own words in a display of empathy for the lonely elderly. So, Cadbury, backed by a heritage of bringing people together, partnered with Age UK to encourage consumers to join them to ‘Donate their words’ to the elderly. Cadbury removed its famous logo to create a brand-less limited-edition Dairy Milk chocolate bar. 30p from each bar was donated to Age UK. On social media, consumers could post wordless posts that would donate to Age UK. It also sought to encourage the public to donate their own words, by reaching out to older people in their community for a friendly chat to brighten their day. Using a partnership with Sky and comedian Sue Perkins, we placed Sue in isolation to record the brutality of old-age loneliness. We also worked with Channel 4’s programme, Gogglebox, to show the emotional reactions of the cast to videos about loneliness. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk saw a 90% increase in sales during the campaign period, showing that doing good can also be good for business.

Challenge

1st for Women (FFW) is a challenger insurance brand specifically designed for women. Our aim was to position FFW as a leader in the fight against abuse of women during the global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign.

In a country where gender-based violence is widespread, desensitised and almost normalised, our challenge was to mobilise a nation to notice, rethink and pledge to fight against it.

Solution

For 16 nights we projected personal tributes, written in light, onto some of the darkest places in South Africa – the actual locations of femicides, turning #16DaysOfActivism into #16DaysOfLight.

Each day, we released a new film that gave numbers a face, a place, a real human story – brought to life, one by one, in a harrowingly poetic way that was impossible to ignore. Viewers were directed to for-women.co.za where they could pledge their support against gender-based violence, or ask for help if they needed it.