With Specht on board but unable to leave her apartment in New York’s historic Dakota building, Proudfoot filmed from her home.
McCann takes accountability
Leaning into the film’s honest depiction of advertising in the 1970s is consistent with McCann’s brand and its own tagline, “Truth Well Told,” according to Gaul. “I will tell the truth, which is that Ilon was quite mad at McCann,” said Daryl Lee, McCann Worldgroup global CEO, during the panel.
Traverse32 named three IPG leaders as executive producers of the film: Lee; Charlotte Franceries, McCann Paris’ president and global L’Oréal account lead; and Julien Calot, McCann Paris’ chief creative officer.
Getting approval to make the film required “a very short meeting,” Gaul said. “[L’Oréal Paris brand leader Delphine Viguier-Hovasse] walked to the front door of the office and shook my hand and said, ‘We have a deal, and we’ll figure out how to get it done.’”
Traverse32 is handling the film’s distribution strategy in the U.S. and internationally. Gaul is not “particularly interested in an exclusive distributor,” he told ADWEEK.
We’re looking at multiple editorial streaming and broadcast partners to get it out to as wide an audience as possible.
Brendan Gaul, IPG Mediabrands’ global chief content officer and Traverse32’s global president
‘Because I’m worth it’
Even after Specht wrote the copy and got it approved, McCann-Erickson shot two versions of the ad. One was Specht’s version, and another was a version her male colleagues wrote. In Specht’s version, a woman walks alone and addresses the camera confidently. In another, she walks with a man who does all the talking.
When the agency tested it with audiences, Specht’s ad far outperformed the other version. Since then, it’s become synonymous with L’Oréal Paris and become a widely known feminist slogan.
“I am an ambassador for L’Oréal. And so I get asked all the time, what does saying, ‘Because I’m worth it,’ mean to you?” Fonda said during the panel. “It’s agency. It expresses a woman’s agency.”
Naomi King still remembers the first time she said the tagline during a shoot at L’Oréal’s offices. In that moment, she remembered watching her mother put makeup on in the morning.
“You know, a Black woman working in an industry where there were very few other women that looked like her, if women at all, and tons of men … Having that moment to herself in the morning to go out into the world—it was like putting on armor,” said Naomi King. “Being in that dark studio in New York and just saying those words, ‘I’m worth it,’ took me back to that moment of watching her.”
