WORK FOR GOOD CUT - PR

Women On Site - Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA)
B2B

Shortlist

Title:	Women On Site
Brand:	Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA)
Product/Service:	B2B
Client:	Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA)
Entrant Company:	Burson
Agency:	Burson
Release Date:	2025-03-06
Individual Credits:	Mirna Eskarous, Creative Director, Burson
Individual Credits:	Alexander Sophoclis Pieri, Account Director, Burson
Individual Credits:	Bobbie Davies, Account Lead, Burson
Individual Credits:	Lucy Harvey, Chief Growth Officer, MENA & Turkey, Burson
Individual Credits:	Theodora Gabrah, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, EGA
Individual Credits:	Khadija AlMarzooqi, Senior Associate, EGA
Individual Credits:	Simon Burek, SVP Corporate Affairs, EGA
Individual Credits:	Manal Zayour, Operations Lead, Burson
Individual Credits:	Mohammed Samy, Senior Art Director, Burson
Individual Credits:	Nicolas Maalouf, Senior Art Director, Burson
Individual Credits:	Amar Beydoun, Senior Creative Copywriter, Burson
Individual Credits:	Youssef Yammine, Creative Director, Burson
Individual Credits:	Amani AlShaali, Creative Designer, Burson
Individual Credits:	Nidal Bou-Ghanem, Multimedia Designer, Burson
Individual Credits:	Leen Nasreddin, Digital Content Specialist, Burson
Individual Credits:	Makram Abi Faraj, Senior Production Manager, Burson
Individual Credits:	Sanjana Soman, Associate Director, Burson
Individual Credits:	Karim Oghly, Senior Content Creator and Film Creative, Burson
Individual Credits:	Farah ElSayegh, Production Lead, Burson
Notes for Judging:	Brand Context: In the UAE, 56% of STEM graduates are women, yet only 15% enter heavy industry. From workplace norms to imagery, heavy industry remains one of the most visibly male-coded sectors in the region and globally. This is not just a matter of belonging but also business: 70% of top-performing teams in the Middle East employ more women. Women are often absent from the environments they are being asked to join. In heavy industry, they unconsciously reinforce who is expected to work there. Even safety signage, one of the most crucial visual systems on any industrial site, depict only male pictograms and language. For EGA, this was not a distant social issue. As the world’s largest premium aluminium producer, EGA operates large-scale industrial sites where visual communication guides daily operations. It is one of the entities most capable of influencing what inclusion looks like on the ground. And if EGA wanted to attract more women into the sector, which is one of the brand’s diversity and inclusivity missions, it needed to start with its own environment. The timing mattered. EGA launched the campaign at a time when the UAE was actively investing in talent, especially women’s participation in future-facing sectors. Women on Site responded to a clear cultural tension: women were being educated for the future, but not reflected in the workplaces shaping it. The Creative Idea: When industrial signs only show men, the message resonates clearly: “this space wasn’t designed for women.” If industry workplaces want more women on site, then they should first be made visible. Knowing that bias starts with what we see every day, we looked to the worksite safety signs—a visual indicator seen daily by all employees. Women on Site replaced male-only visuals and language with gender-inclusive signage that represented women in operational roles across all of EGA’s sites. Through subtle but meaningful additions—female hairstyles, facial features, workwear, and language—signs encouraged belonging while still adhering to strict global safety and regulatory standards.The signage system was made open-source, inviting partners and companies across the UAE to adopt the designs on-ground and amplify the message regionally. We then used the momentum of the signage change to extend our inclusivity message to women STEM students and society. The Strategy & Execution: The strategy was built on a clear cultural insight: visibility shapes belonging. Our research found women in the UAE are not absent from STEM, they are absent from how heavy industry presents itself. We knew we couldn’t buy our way into change—we had to earn it across culture. We started with a tangible, meaningful change that would spark broader attention and conversation. The gender-inclusive signage created a widespread dialogue that started within EGA, spread across the industry, and engaged culture at large. The signs were launched on Emirati Women’s Day to capture attention at this timely cultural moment. The signs were also made open-source to be adopted as widely as possible. The campaign positioned EGA as a leader not just in the industry but also in inclusivity, leading to an increase in searches for careers and nearly doubling our number of women employees since launch. Our visible, company-wide change from the inside-out made the idea inherently PR-able. We implemented signage and launched our campaign on Emirati Women’s Day, then created an open-source signage toolkit, allowing all heavy industry partners and companies to download and adopt it as well. This gave media, industry and advocates something concrete to discuss and share. The story was then scaled through earned media outreach nationwide, generating coverage around the gender gap in heavy industry and EGA’s response to it. University panels featuring women in industry brought the issue directly to the target audience — future female talent. Social storytelling of family-focused content addressed another critical audience in the UAE: those shaping career decisions at home. A conversation that started within our own walls scaled organically across the industry and society, generating lasting industry and business impact for EGA. Impact & Results: • Permanent gender-inclusive industrial signage installed across EGA operations • Open-source signage toolkit has been made available, to enable other companies to adopt and scale. • 6 major industry partners have backed the change • 178M earned media reach • 168 media stories • +890K social impressions • +120% rise in search interest for EGA careers • Since launch, the number of women working at EGA has risen by 51%, from 550 to 830 The long-term expectations/outcome for this work: The ambition was never to create a one-off moment. While the signage itself is a permanent worksite intervention, its wider role is to normalize women’s presence in the places, systems, and culture of heavy industry. By making the designs open-source, EGA created a system that scales across companies, extending the impact beyond their own sites. As more organizations adopt the new system, with support from 6 major industry partners to date, the work has the potential to influence how inclusion is communicated across the industrial sector globally. What comes next is continued adoption across the industry, deeper engagement with future female talent, as well as working with the UAE government to mandate further gender-equality in heavy industry.