Pink Chip (case study) - UN Women, United Nations, DEGIRO | Clapboard Ad Archive

Pink Chip, launched in Year 2024 by AKQA for DEGIRO, the United Nations, and UN Women, challenges longstanding investor bias by introducing a quantifiable index that tracks the superior financial performance of women-led companies, positioning itself at the forefront of the finance and government sectors’ push towards gender equality. Addressing the stark insight that just 6 per cent of CEOs in publicly listed companies are women — and that, paradoxically, those appointments often trigger an initial drop in share price despite clear data connecting female leadership to higher profitability and stronger stock returns — the campaign deploys a precision-calibrated creative strategy that shifts the narrative from symbolic support to evidence-based action. Pink Chip’s central asset is a publicly accessible financial tool, offered via pinkchip.org and DEGIRO’s platform, enabling investors to objectively assess the return potential of women-led businesses across global markets, and making the business case for gender-diverse leadership in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5. The campaign’s demonstration-led approach — what Clapboard’s taxonomy would classify as FORMAT#1—Demonstration — is unmistakable: eschewing generic narrative and emotional appeals in favor of showing, in real time, the impact and usability of a groundbreaking index that evidences the outperformance of its constituent companies. Its strategic timing and activation, including the high-visibility International Women’s Day launch at the Euronext stock exchange, was matched by immediate, tangible results: Pink Chip companies surged 6.7 per cent in stock price within two weeks, the index subsequently outperformed market benchmarks by 9.48 per cent, and new investor participation soared past 14,500, amplified by over 2 million campaign impressions and nearly 70,000 site visits in its first week. The collaboration with UN Women NL underscored the campaign’s credibility and positioned it as a reference point for socially responsible investing, while its multi-award trajectory — including a Cannes Lions Gold in Creative Strategy, Sustainable Development Goals, and Glass, as well as Eurobest’s Innovation Grand Prix and D&AD’s Graphite Pencil — cemented its influence in both creative and financial circles. The campaign earns 86/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. As a data-driven benchmark for bias-shattering financial communications, Pink Chip demonstrates that creative rigor and hard evidence now shape the narratives advancing gender equality across the world’s capital markets.