About me

Madonna Badger is the Chief Creative Officer at Badger & Winters, an advertising, branding and design agency specialising in building brand love with women. For over twenty years, it has worked with brands like Avon, Chanel, Cover Girl, Diane Von Furstenberg, Godiva, Nordstrom, Pepsi, P&G and Vera Wang. She founded the agency aged just 29, and in 2009 partnered with Jim Winters, who led marketing at Vogue and who is an expert in women's brands. The agency has produced work for over 40 countries in 27 languages.

Before Badger & Winters, Madonna was at Calvin Klein, when she created the iconic Mark Wahlberg and Kate Moss campaigns and launched CK One. But recently, Madonna announced that she and her agency would no longer create imagery that objectifies women, through the #WomenNotObjects campaign.

Her agency's core belief that innovation is empathy: a belief felt by her more than ever once she returned to her agency after experiencing a life-changing event. She saw empathy as the pathway to knowing your consumers, to revealing a brand's humanity, to genuine emotional storytelling, and to building brand love. In 2016, that empathy led her agency to a new purpose - a more responsible portrayal of women in advertising. Because they saw that the objectification of women was contributing to how women are undervalued in society and to themselves. The agency vowed to never objectify anyone again. Through the #WomenNotObjects campaign, which has been seen in 175 countries with 40 million views.

This is also important to business empathy. A total of 91% of US women are not connecting with advertising, even though they make 80% of purchase decisions. Without preaching, Madonna will convince the eurobest audience that a responsible portrayal of women is necessary today.

Fitting perfectly with the eurobest theme of identity, this powerful talk is set to be a highlight of the Festival - guaranteeing to challenge the way the industry works, and offer an inspiring, commercially viable alternative.