Propaganda wins MCA Award for Social Value

We are incredibly proud to have won the 2022 MCA Social Value Award for our work with GenM. As the only agency that is accepted as a member of the Management Consultancies Association, winning an MCA Award is a particular honour for us as they recognise organisations that deliver long-term strategic results for their clients, rather than just celebrating one specific campaign.

The results were announced in a ceremony at the Park Plaza Westminster hotel, presented by Sir Trevor McDonald. This year, the Social Value category received a record number of entries and was revealed to be the second most competitive of all 25 awards.  Other shortlisted entries in the category included IBM Consulting with the UK Health Security Agency (HSA) and Netcompany with the Department of Health & Social Care. 

Our work with GenM has helped to transform the conversation around the menopause, empowering GenM to partner with some of the UK’s biggest brands across industries, improving the menopause experience for the UK’s 15.5 million menopausal women.

Having worked with Propaganda since 2021, GenM is partnered with 70 of the UK’s biggest brands including Boots, Royal Mail, Next, M&S, QVC and Co-op. GenM helps brands better cater for menopausal customers and employees; ultimately improving the health and happiness of millions with menopause-friendly products, services, signposting, workplace policies and marketing campaigns. 

Originally, GenM was positioned as a one-stop-shop website with the aim of being ‘Google for the menopause’. GenM appointed Propaganda to help launch the brand online. However, Propaganda’s consultancy quickly identified challenges with this model. As a two-person organisation with limited funds, reaching a broad audience was a challenging proposition and unlikely to quickly drive the wider scale societal change they desired.

Propaganda recognised that engaging directly with established brands and businesses, encouraging them to change, would allow GenM to achieve a much bigger, wider and more impactful influence on menopause-friendly products and support.

Propaganda set GenM on this new strategic direction, targeting the key audience of companies and brands. This approach, creating positive change for ‘the change’, has already generated more significant and enduring social impact than any direct-to-consumer efforts GenM could achieve.

This sustainable and long-term business model delivered by Propaganda has resulted in 70 of the UK’s biggest brands signing up as GenM Partners in the 12 months since launch, and has built GenM’s brand equity with consumer and business audiences, delivering messaging that menopause is a societal issue that affects everyone, including business. Propaganda has delivered national PR campaigns for GenM with a combined media reach of 450,000,000.

This has allowed GenM to have an unrivalled impact on menopause on the B2B space with initiatives such as the launch of a world-first recognisable menopause-friendly symbol (similar to gluten-free or vegan logos) now displayed across Boots stores nationwide.