Free the Bid: 1 year, 400% more women directors in bids, 50% more women directors hired

Free the Bid, the brainchild of film director Alma Har’el, is one year old. And it has been quite a first year. The non-profit, that asks agencies to include a woman director in every triple-bid project, has triggered a significant increase in hires and bidding of female directors of as much as 400% (in cases like CP+B and BBDO). It was an increase that needed to happen. Less than 7% of directors were women and only 9% of commercials were directed by women.

Free the Bid has also been the catalyst for the signing of more women directors to production companies.

By contrast, the numbers of women directors in Hollywood, which despite success stories of record-breaking films like Wonder Woman, have been reducing. Women made up just 7% of all directors working on the 250 highest-grossing domestic releases in 2016. That’s a decline of 2%, according to a new report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film.

In less than a year, Free the Bid year has become global, spearheaded by its executive director, Emma Reeves, former creative director of MOCAtv. It has extended from the US to Brazil, the UK, South Africa, and (announced by Cindy Gallop) Australia. There are further expansion plans underway. In each new territory, Free the Bid brings on board a high profile woman director to act as an ambassador. Australian born Kim Gehrig is to be Free the Bid’s ambassador for the UK.

Alma Har’el

Har’el came up with the idea for Free the Bid after PJ Pereira, chief creative officer of Pereira & O’Dell, after she participated in a Mashable story about the low number of women directors making ads. Pereira reached out to her to tell her that she had inspired him to act. He promised to take a mandatory bid from a woman director on every pitch at his agency, as a result of reading the interview.

B-Reel Films signs #FreeTheBid co-founder, director Alma Har’el

Early adopters were HP, Visa and eBay. Other major brands that have pledged to include a woman director are Coca-Cola; Airbnb, who came on board during Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity; and this week, Twitter, Levi’s and LinkedIn.

More than 40 agencies are also supporting the initiative, including: BBDO Global (which recently made a fiscal pledge), FCB Global, J. Walter Thompson Global, Y&R Global, McCann Global, Pereira & O’Dell, Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Campbell Ewald and DDB.

Emma Reeves told The Stable that it is also beginning to get pledges from Australian agencies. View Free the Bid’s Who’s In, here.

Emma Reeves

Since making the pledge to Free the Bid last September, the number of women directors invited by BBDO to participate in their bidding process has increased by 400% and the actual number of women directors hired has doubled.

“Since committing to Free the Bid in November 2016, half of our competitive triple bids in film and photography were awarded to women, who clearly had the best approach and merit. Free the Bid works!” stated Glenn Cole, creative co-chair & founder of 72andSunny.

Antonio Lucio, HP chief marketing and communications officer, named by Forbes as the second most influential chief marketing officer in the world in 2017, was an early supporter of Free the Bid. He commented,

“HP was the first sponsor for Free the Bid, and I consider Alma a true pioneer and innovator. We are thrilled to continue to support this essential organisation as we work collectively to drive systemic change in our industry. We share a goal with Free the Bid, which is to see more women sitting in the director’s chair. Diversity is a business imperative and leads to more authentic and creative outcomes reflective of the communities we serve.”

As Free the Bid celebrated its first anniversary, HP presented a Business Powered by Diversity event during Advertising Week New York. Emma Reeves joined Lucio as he announced that HP would be renewing its fiscal support for Free the Bid for a 2nd consecutive year with a donation.

Har-el commented, “The roots of gender inequality run deep and we are making it easier for people to discover women directors by working together with the whole industry. The drastic change in numbers is a result of many women AND men working together to ensure that women directors are given a seat at the table. The support of HP and Antonio Lucio has made it possible for me to take this initiative, which started on my laptop, and expand it from a conversation about adland’s gender imbalance into a global movement. Now that we’re about to venture into our second year, our focus is going to be on increasing the number of women directors of colour, and creating opportunities for more brands and ad agencies to implement Free The Bid around the world.”

Cindy Gallop, founder & chief executive officer of IfWeRanTheWorld/MakeLoveNotPorn, and former chair BBH New York, said: “I am blown away by everything that Alma Har’el has achieved with FreeTheBid in the space of just one year. Now I want to see Free the Bid scale to the point where the moment directors begin being discussed for a project, the very first names on the agency team’s lips are as much female as male.”

The Free the Bid website holds a constantly updated directory of over 400 women directors’ reels and is rapidly becoming the number one resource for women directors from around the globe, with editorial content, interviews, and a filterable database, which enables companies to source directors by location and a wide variety of skill sets, soon to include VR and tags for multi-lingual directors.

Free the Bid doesn’t expect a woman to win the pitch each time. The philosophy is to get women directors into the mix at the bidding stage, start a dialogue and begin to break old patterns of gender bias.

A snapshot of change:

Fred&Farid opened their NY offices in January 2016 and noticed that since its pledge to Free the Bid, female directors have been included in the bidding process for 7 out of 8 film production projects. More importantly, this resulted in a female director having been awarded the job on more than 50% of the projects.
According to Michael Fassnacht, chief executive officer president of FCB, since pledging to Free the Bid, FCB has included a woman director for consideration in 95% of its production bids, as opposed to only 40% prior to taking the pledge. A woman director was awarded the job on 30% of the projects.

Case studies of success:

For its one year anniversary, Free the Bid is releasing two videos that celebrate a handful of the countless success stories of directors being discovered through the Free The Bid site:

New York-based director Crystal Moselle, winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for her documentary, The Wolfpack, has landed jobs for major brands like eBay.