As brands gear up for another International Women’s Day, the real challenge isn’t louder campaigns – it’s embedding meaningful support for women into brand behaviour year-round. Yet amid the flurry of activations and hashtags, one truth is becoming impossible to ignore: performative solidarity may generate noise, but it rarely generates change. Authenticity, consistency and cultural understanding still rely on listening to women’s lived experiences and reflecting them honestly across every touchpoint.
To explore how brands can build sustained cultural impact, leaders have shared their perspectives on what brands still misunderstand about IWD, how ‘women supporting women’ can be authentically reflected across the customer experience, and what strong, consistent representation really looks like in practice.
Melissa Levy, President, Sparks
International Women’s Day is often treated as a campaign moment when it should be a commitment. Visibility without accountability is performative. The real question is what measurable progress companies are making on pay equity, leadership representation, and reentry pathways, not just in March but throughout the year.
Authentic “women supporting women” shows up across the full experience. It means designing products and experiences with women in mind, eliminating patronizing language in customer service, and moving beyond tired tropes in creative. It requires featuring real journeys and ensuring women are shaping the work from R&D through campaign review.
Strong, consistent representation starts at the top. It demands intentional hiring at leadership levels, meaningful development programs, and policies that support women through major life stages. Progress is not guaranteed — and when brands retreat from equity commitments, audiences notice. If a company speaks on International Women’s Day, it should have meaningful action behind it.
Polly Hopkins, UK Managing Director & Global Head of Corporate Brand at Elmwood
The occasions model has served the industry well commercially, but it has a ceiling. Brands that rely on tentpole moments to signal their values to women are essentially admitting those values aren’t embedded anywhere else. The more interesting strategic question isn’t what to do on March 8th. It’s what the brand is communicating to women on March 9th, and in September, and every other unremarkable day when no one is watching. That’s where trust is built or lost. Agencies that help clients answer that question, rather than just the seasonal one, are doing genuinely useful work. The rest is just well-funded noise.
Elinor Frothingham, Senior Consultant, Strategy at Lippincott
Inauthenticity can hurt brands as much as silence. While participating in global days of celebration like International Women’s Day can feel like easy ‘wins,’ sacrificing authenticity for visibility can come at the cost of consumer trust. Showing up meaningfully is what ultimately allows audiences to distinguish genuine support from publicity plays but requires brands to take a stance and take action.
An unlikely source demonstrating what consistently showing up for women looks like? None other than Flavor Flav. From sponsoring the US women’s water polo team during the 2024 Summer Olympics to more recently championing the success of the 2026 gold-medal-winning US women’s hockey team, Flavor Flav has done something many brands don’t – initiate. Having taken note of the organic reach Flav’s first sponsorship had, brands have been quick to piggyback on the rapper’s ‘She Got Game Weekend,’ but it begs the question why aren’t they the ones leading the charge?
Before joining in on the inevitable flood of IWD posts and hashtags this Sunday, brands should take a step back to consider what they’re contributing to the conversation, and whether they’re living up to that message every other day of the year.
