‘Fearless Girl’ is one of the most
transformative ideas to emerge from our industry in recent years, and she has
just moved to an even bigger stage outside the New York Stock Exchange.
As Carolyn Maloney, a member of the
Democrats in New York, said: “Instead of staring down the bull, she’s going to
be staring down all of business right here in the centre and capital of
business for America.”
At ADFEST 2018, Joyce King Thomas gave a
fascinating talk explaining the making of Fearless Girl. As Chairman and Chief
Creative Officer of McCann XBC, Thomas was part of the team that created this
defiant small girl, who has stood fearlessly in front of Wall Street’s iconic
Charging Bull since International Women’s Day in March 2017.
“She weighed 110 kilograms. He weighed
three tonnes. There was a huge disparity; it’s a David & Goliath story –
she was designed to let everyone know about the transformative power of women
in leadership,” explained Thomas.
Commissioned by State Street Global
Advisors to promote the SHE Fund, Fearless Girl is now continuing her fight for
more women in leadership at the New York Stock Exchange.
Her endurance is inspiring – she was only
supposed to stay in place for a few days, but the world has come to see
Fearless Girl as "a powerful symbol of the need for change at the highest
levels of corporate America”, according to Bill De Blasio, New York City Mayor.
As Thomas explained in her talk at ADFEST
2018: “There are only five statues honouring historical women in New York City.
So a statue became the perfect way for us to talk about this issue: the power
of women in leadership.”
“We were relentless with the detail. Her ponytail is the kind every
little girl all over the world wears. The bronze matches the bronze of the bull
perfectly. We also made sure we had a woman sculpt her, Kristen Visbal, and her
first photograph was taken by a female journalist.”
It’s wonderful to see that Fearless Girl
lives on! Watch her being unveiled at her new home, via The New York Times.
* Joyce King Thomas presented a session called, 'How a 30,000 year old medium became the most transformative idea of 2017' at ADFEST 2018 on 24th March.
