Transforming Business & Society with OPEN Campaigns

Browse Previous OPEN Campaigns

GENDER EQUALITY

'Common Interest' - Gender Equality Campaign

In November 2019, WeAreOpen presented in partnership with ELLE Hungary: the ‘Common Interest’ gender equality campaign. We asked dozens of business leaders representing different Hungary based companies, women and men to stand together to promote equal opportunities for women and men at the workplace. 100 representatives of 50 companies were featured on the pages of ELLE magazine’s 2019 December print issue and on their website. This campaign would not have been possible without ELLE Hungary and the special campaign sponsor Coca-Cola HBC Hungary, our supporters and of course the featured leaders who made this inspiring campaign happen. We believe along with the companies and organizations that already joined the campaign that women and men getting equal opportunities at the workplace is a common interest, and if we succeed in creating a gender balanced workplace, it benefits us all. The official launch of the campaign was set on the 6th of November 2019 at WeAreOpen’s OPEN Spotlight Award ceremony. After the official launch more than 160 representatives of 80 companies joined. In 2020 Many of these companies made public commitments to improving gender equality internally – resulting in over 150 improvements across more than 40 companies! In 2021 we will continue the Common Interest campaign together for equal opportunities for women and men at the workplace! While the past year we had to face many emerging social issues, according to UN Women’s global research the pandemic could wipe out 25 years of increasing gender equality and the crisis has deepened inequality between women and men. This is why today we ask Hungary based business leaders, women and men, to open up about their current experiences, best practices and make public commitments about their plans for this year. We will curate and publish the statements, best practices and thoughts of business leaders in an ebook, that we will make accessible to a large audience on our website, where you will also find the public commitments made. The campaign was supported by Coca Cola Hungary and ELLE Hungary.

GENDER EQUALITY

Commitments to Gender Equality at the Workplace

150+ public commitments from companies for positive change over the course of two years. Despite the fact that, when it comes to it, roughly half of people would not choose a female subordinate or boss, a national representative study by WeAreOpen x Gemius has shown that 77% of women and 69% of men believe that it is, or would be, important for the success of their company or organization for women and men to be equally represented at all levels of responsibility. Various global research studies also show that diverse communities with greater balance between the numbers of women and men are more successful. It makes sense for companies and is good for employees too. The findings of the research showed that there is need for action. To create change, WeAreOpen invited all who believe in openness to take a good look at their own company or organization to find if there is room for improvement. With the aim to ensure women and men have equal opportunities at the workplace on a daily basis, we asked organizations to make a public commitment on nyitottakvagyunk.hu to act. By standing up in large numbers for openness and diversity, including equal opportunities for women and men, and taking action we hope to inspire others too. We ran the campaign for two years – in 2015 and 2016. We created a list of 10+1 changes that organizations could implement to provide equal opportunities for women and men. Over 150 commitments were made by various organizations such as Google, Aon, BP, GE and many others. In 2019, we took this further with the Common Interest campaign.

GENDER EQUALITY

Two Steps Campaign

To achieve positive change we must keep moving forward: walk the talk towards gender equality! Backed by science, proved by experience: gender equality at the workplace has benefits for everyone. After several gender equality research studies and campaigns over the course of the years, in 2018 we launched something new, a long term campaign and service, Two Steps, to take a step forward in building a gender balanced workplace for all. We believe, along with 63% of both female and male employees, that women and men have to work together to ensure that women have access to equal opportunities at the workplace. That’s also why the campaign is called Two Steps – if men and women take that next step towards gender equality by working together, we get twice as far! As part of our first campaign under the Two Steps program, various Hungarian artists, comedians, actors, women and men, switched shoes for a little while to try to imagine themselves in the place of the other, and shared their experiences and thoughts with each other. The first step towards change is to spark meaningful conversations: men and women should act together to ensure equal opportunities for all.

GENDER EQUALITY

WeAreOpen X Gemius Hungary Research

Two national representative research studies brought light to important dynamics behind gender imbalance at the workplace. In partnership with Gemius, we have conducted two national representative research studies in 2014 and 2018 to understand the gender balance at the workplace as seen by employees. The data showed us that in the past two years 60% of people experienced some sort of change that aimed to create equal opportunities for women and men at the workplace. These results show that there is a genuine need for improving equal opportunities and gender balance. As a result, we decided to launch a long-term program for gender equality – Two Steps. The ‘Two Steps Campaign’ seeks to increase awareness about gender inequality at the workplace, while the ‘Two Steps For Companies Program’ helps companies identify and address this inequality. WeAreOpen partnered with Gemius in doing this research – thank you, Gemius!

GENDER EQUALITY

Women's Day Campaign

10 influencers and business leaders spoke up for change generating 200k views in only a few days. It’s a long-standing tradition in Hungary for men to get flowers for women on International Women’s Day. In 2015, at the workplace, instead of giving flowers, we sought to inspire positive change. What does a professional woman want instead of flowers? Giving flowers is certainly a nice and considerate gesture to celebrate Women’s Day but we believe that at the workplace, this thoughtful gesture should be altered or complemented with meaningful actions to trigger positive change in creating equal opportunities for both men and women. So we asked the Open Community, what they want #insteadoflowers or #besidesflowers? The campaign was supported by Vodafone Hungary.

LGBTQ+ INCLUSION

100 Business Leaders to Pride

In July 2019, 2018 and 2017 we brought together 100+ business leaders, whose joint statement and signatures Forbes magazine published on a double-page right before the march. Never before have so many business leaders officially featured in a print magazine showing support for LGBTQ+ inclusion in Hungary. The joint statement declared that they believe in the values of diversity and inclusion, therefore they will be marching at Budapest Pride to showcase their support for LGBTQ+ people

LGBTQ+ INCLUSION

Companies to Pride

Before WeAreOpen arrived, it was not a practice of Hungary-based companies and brands to show up at Pride marches to publicly support the LGBTQ+ community. We are only aware of 2-3 companies that attended Pride before. In 2013, for the first time ever, we attended the Pride march with a joint WeAreOpen float along with our founding members and the companies and organizations who joined WeAreOpen. Already in the first year, we could contribute to a large positive change: the number of attendees of the march grew from 2-3k people up to 10k, according to the organizers of the Pride march. Of course, it didn’t only happen because of the members of the OPEN Community who marched with us, but we were happy to see how we could contribute to making the idea of marching accessible to many more people. In the past few years, with WeAreOpen, hundreds of businesses, including business leaders, and 2-3 thousand of their colleagues marched together with WeAreOpen to support their LGBTQ+ friends and co-workers and lead by example. Budapest Pride is organized by Rainbow Mission Foundation each year: thank you!

LGBTQ+ INCLUSION

LGBTQ+ Love Songs

4 musicians’ rewrote their love songs to same-sex love songs Valentine’s Day, 2015: Love is love, and it’s in the air! In 2015, on Valentine’s Day we launched a campaign to raise awareness towards LGBTQ+ representation in pop culture and beyond. In cooperation with DDB Budapest we asked some of the most popular Hungarian musicians to perform their hit love songs, but change the lyrics to represent same sex couples where a girl is longing after a girl and a boy after a boy. The songs were played by radios and are available online. Watch the campaign videos!

LGBTQ+ INCLUSION

WeAreOpen x Humen Magazine: #Happyprideweek

In July 2019 WeAreOpen and Humen Magazine together launched the #DressCodeChallenge during Pride week to raise awareness to LGBTQ+ inclusion and showcase support and acceptance. Dozens of well-respected Hungarian public figures, social influencers, artists, company teams and individuals participated in the #DressCodeChallenge by wearing rainbow print t-shirts or Pride flags on their social media platforms. The challenge went viral soon and was a smashing success on social media; many media, TV and news outlets were flooded with rainbow covering the images of our campaign reaching millions of people in only a few days.

Join our Community of 1134

Join

More details

Get in touch to become a Member

Join

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Join our Manifesto