The Margot Collective: Ensuring Women’s Voices Are Heard in Advertising and Beyond
The story of The Margot Collective is rooted in frustration – frustration with the many campaigns that miss the mark when it comes to representing women, and the systemic reasons why this keeps happening. From ill-conceived ads portraying women jogging alone at night as a ‘liberating’ experience, to government campaigns reinforcing outdated gender roles, McCann Birmingham managing director Lucy Hudson and McCann Central creative director Melissa Down have seen first-hand how work can go awry when the right perspectives aren’t involved from the start.
This frustration wasn’t just about bad ads – it was about the wider industry problem of women’s voices being absent from key moments in the creative process. Melissa recalls being brought onto a female health project that was struggling to connect emotionally with its audience. “We took the project from being a practical ask to becoming a big platform in an emotional space, completely transforming the work,” she says. “And I thought, wow – why aren’t we doing this more often?”
The team – initially all male – had built the campaign around assumptions that weren’t resonating. When she assembled a group of female creatives and strategists, the project transformed into something meaningful and powerful. It was a lightbulb moment.
This led to The Margot Collective, a female-led (but not female-only) initiative within McCann, which launched in 2023. Rather than creating a separate division, the aim was to embed female perspectives at critical points in the creative journey. Early on, Lucy and Melissa assumed that simply bringing more women into the creative process would be enough. “We were probably a bit naïve,” says Lucy, “thinking, Let’s just get loads of female creatives, and they’ll do all the work. But that’s not the answer. What we’ve really learned is that it’s about getting involved earlier in the process – making sure that women are present, even if it’s just someone checking the brief.”
They soon realised that the real impact happens much earlier – at the strategy and insight stage. If a brief is built on flawed assumptions, no amount of great creative can fix it. The key is making sure the right people are in the room when those early conversations happen, whether that’s through a quick dipstick survey, a focus group, or assembling a bespoke team of experts. Lucy notes that even if projects have good representation of women on them, representational issues go unchallenged because those are “junior women who don’t feel they can challenge it.” So building in a step to specifically address gender-based issues is unfortunately necessary.
This approach has already shaped real-world client work. One example is a project with a train company that was looking at why female travel drops in winter months. The brief was based on statistics, but it lacked real understanding of why those numbers existed. Through a focus group of women across McCann’s network, the team uncovered deep emotional and behavioural truths: the fear that sets in when an empty train carriage feels less safe than a crowded one, or the mental checklist women run through before walking home alone. These insights didn’t just inform creative – they influenced service offerings, communication strategies, and even policy discussions.
“What was supposed to be 30 minutes turned into 90 minutes of us explaining what it’s really like to travel alone on a train in the dark,” remembers Lucy. “It turned a statistic into something personal, real, and difficult to ignore. That’s a huge part of what Mel and I do – being direct, open, and honest about what’s missing.”
This insight led to an entire program of activity – rethinking how to communicate safety measures on trains, what kinds of services could be offered at night, and whether different types of carriages might be needed.
That’s one example, but it can take different forms. The Margot Collective can work on briefs through a questionnaire, a focus group, a workshop with clients, Or, in rare cases, a fully bespoke team. “But honestly, if you’re getting the insight right from the start, you don’t need to build an entirely separate team – we’re not here to say, ‘Only women can work on this creative,’” adds Lucy.
Beyond its external work, The Margot Collective has driven significant internal change at McCann. What started as a client-focused initiative quickly gained traction within the agency itself. HR, training teams, and leadership became involved, leading to meaningful policy updates – including a new parental buddy scheme designed to support employees through the often-isolating experience of starting a family. “Because going on maternity leave is terrifying,” says Lucy. “From the moment you start trying for a baby, you feel like you have to hide it. You want to ask questions, but you can’t. You’re vomiting in toilets for 12 weeks, keeping it a secret. That is insane[...] Coming back is terrifying – I’ve done it multiple times, and it’s still scary.” It became clear that The Margot Collective wasn’t just about making better work; it was about creating a better workplace.
Lucy and Melissa are passionate about applying this thinking beyond traditionally ‘female-focused’ brands. “The natural assumption is that we’d work with brands selling tampons and bras – we always joke about that,” says Lucy. “But actually, what I’d really love to work on is something like ISA products – a bank with an all-male board that’s too scared to even think about how to approach women.”
While they’ve worked on beauty and health projects, they see an even bigger opportunity in categories that have historically overlooked women – finance, automotive, and beyond. The issue isn’t that women aren’t interested; it’s that brands often don’t know how to engage them authentically and are afraid of getting it wrong. The Margot Collective helps them bridge that gap, ensuring that campaigns reflect women’s real experiences, rather than outdated stereotypes or marketing clichés.
“The fact remains – the majority of people creating ads are men,” says Melissa. “So we’re not just trying to change that – we’re making sure there’s a woman’s voice and insight embedded in the work. That way, women can actually see themselves in what’s being created.”
Their work is backed by data, but it’s also driven by instinct – an insistence on asking difficult questions, challenging lazy assumptions, and pushing brands and agencies to do better. McCann’s global Truth Central research team has been instrumental in this, helping The Margot Collective re-segment existing data through a female lens. Findings from studies on escapism, for example, have shown striking gender differences – while men tend to seek external distractions, women often want to escape their own thoughts. Understanding these nuances allows brands to connect with their audiences in more meaningful ways.
Yet, despite all the progress, Lucy and Melissa are acutely aware of the challenges ahead. They acknowledge the growing backlash against feminism, and the fear from some brands that engaging in gender conversations could be risky. As far back as 2020, reports showed that half of all gen-z men thought that feminism had gone ‘too far’. “When you really sit with that, it’s terrifying,” says Lucy, noting the news around figures like Andrew Tate recently. “When you’ve been in a position of ultimate power, any progress for someone else can feel like oppression.” But the reality is clear: women’s economic power is growing at an unprecedented rate, and brands that fail to recognise this will be left behind.
Named after Margot Sherman, the first creative female VP at McCann Erickson in 1949 and the first woman to ever sit on the board in 1965, The Margot Collective founders often think about how they can “be more Margot,” as Melissa says. It’s about more than just making sure women are in the room – it’s about ensuring they’re heard, valued, and integral to the work. Whether it’s helping brands navigate sensitive topics, influencing internal policies, or reshaping the way agencies think about gender in advertising, The Margot Collective isn’t just a nice-to-have.
“If we had to summarise The Margot Collective, we’re like the grit in the oyster,” says Melissa, “Great creativity comes from great insights. If you start with the right insights, you get the right creativity – and that makes the work more powerful and meaningful.”
