During the two weeks around International Women’s day, four teenage girls are in charge of J. Walter Thompson London’s social channels.
These four 15 and 16 year old girls from Streatham and Clapham High School won J.Walter Thompson’s Young Tribes Day challenge last year with their initiative, #ifedmygoodtoday, that encouraged people to do a good deed and post it on social media.
Young Tribes launched in 2016 with J. Walter Thompson staff presenting to year 10s in all types of schools all across London and culminated in December at an all-day event at J. Walter Thompson London offices. Thirty-eight Year 10s from nine schools heard presentations, had meetings with staff, tackled the live Wagamama brief with help of JWT mentors and presented their campaign idea back to a group of industry leaders and influencers.
Now they have been given full creative licence to create and curate JWT’s Twitter and Facebook content, and use their voice to discuss how gender issues affect their everyday lives and what International Women’s Day means to them.
Delighted to support these ladies over the next two weeks. Please follow @JWT_London as @SCHS_GDST takes over. #IWD #JWTeenTakeOver https://t.co/VvrnzkMi9W
— Sophia Ridley (@RidleySophia) March 7, 2017
At the initiative’s launch James Whitehead, chief executive at J. Walter Thompson London, commented, “The young women who came into our agency for the Young Tribes Day were intelligent, talented and inspirational. The winning team from Clapham and Streatham showed great potential for a career in advertising. We wanted to give them the platform to continue creatively expressing this. We can’t wait see how they do this using our social channels.”
The initiative, #JWTeenTakeOver, is built around a key piece of content, an interview with their local MP, Chuka Umunna, which the girls set up independently and handled face-to-face. They asked him important questions around female issues and what International Women’s Day means to Umunna’s place in parliament.
The Young Tribes Programme at the heart of JW Teen TakeOver is a merger of two key agency programs, JWTeach and Female Tribes. The program’s aim is to instil into young people the importance of strong female role models, diversity and inclusion and the need to inspire them – young people from all schools around London and from all backgrounds – to consider careers in advertising.
Kachanda, student at Streatham and Clapham High School, commented, “The Young Tribes Day opened up our eyes to the possibilities for young women like us in the advertising industry. To be given the opportunity to share our ideas further and have full creative control is really exciting, and the research we’ve done on positive female role models and events for this project has been really inspiring.”
