F&B Creates Free Digital Tool to Drive Diversity in Production Across the Advertising Industry

While more commercials are depicting a broader scope of gender identity, race, and sexual orientation, diversity behind the scenes is still lacking.

Last year, Forsman & Bodenfors New York set out to run an entire production with a female-only crew. When the team found it incredibly challenging to achieve its goal, the agency took action and created Grow Your Circle, a digital tool that allows agencies and producers to find underrepresented talent in the U.S. from disciplines across all types of production including film, digital, and experiential. More importantly, it gives access to many other underrepresented entrepreneurs, like those who identify as LGBTQ+, come from diverse backgrounds, or live with a disability.

Since the platform soft-launched at the 3% Movement conference in November 2018, membership has skyrocketed with partners and talent including, 3% Movement, ad agencies 72andSunny and Droga5, and independent production companies Prettybird, WAX, and Armada.

The platform lets agencies and producers search for underrepresented talent directly from the homepage, or they can browse companies and individuals in the Talent section. Filter menus help find the right talent based on expertise, location or category specialty. The database is also searchable based on company certification – whether it’s a women-owned small business or a minority-owned business.

"We hope Circle inspires the industry to recognise the power of their buying decisions, fulfills our responsibility to help minimise the inequality across the production industry, and creates better work as a result of it," said Amber Wimmer, Forsman & Bodenfors New York.