- 12/06/2024
Close The Gender Pay Gap
Jens Mortier, founder and CEO of mortierbrigade.
When mortierbrigade just started out, Equal Pay Day was one of its first and tiniest clients. Nearly two decades later, they’re near-conjoined twins. Their often ludicrous campaigns are synonymous with the wage gap debate.
‘Equal Pay Day is a small NGO. You could call it low-budget. You could also call it no-budget’, says Jens Mortier, founder and CEO of mortierbrigade, with a smile. ‘Vera Claes, who founded Equal Pay Day, understood we had only one chance per year to send out a message. So we had to make it count. We quickly found each other in the odd, provocative style we developed with Czar and direction team Lionel Goldstein.’ ‘Equal Pay Day always gave us the freedom to go for it. That brought us success, exposure, awards, and societal change. This relationship gave us the freedom to fail. And you know what they say: if you fail, fail hard. Throughout the years, we’ve had a couple of campaigns that didn’t really hit the spot. I remember one called Shitty Jobs, in which men fulfilled all kinds of odd professions. It was fun, and it looked great. But even we couldn’t quite recall what the message should have been (laughs). But because of our close-knit bond, the client could see through it. So, the year after, we tried again, building on trust.’
- CREATIVE BELGIUM AWARDS (2023)
- gold, long term creative brand platform
- AGENCY: mortierbrigade
- BRAND/PRODUCT: Equal Pay Day
- ACCOUNT: Charlotte Coddens
- ADVERTISER/CLIENT: Julie Van Garsse
- AGENCY PRODUCER: Charlotte Coddens
- CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Joost Berends, Philippe De Ceuster, Jens Mortier
- PRODUCTION COMPANY: CZAR
- SOCIAL MEDIA: Lisa Smets
- STRATEGY: Vincent D’Halluin, Stephanie Zimmerman, Dorien Mathyssen, Maaike Dewae
