To celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) 2023, we wanted to shine a light on the women leaving their mark in the creative industries. Here at Natcho, our co-founder Flo Charlton – Creative Director, entrepreneur and feminist – couldn’t help but notice the lack of female colleagues within the industry.

To paraphrase, your business is only as strong as your branding, but what does ‘branding’ actually mean? And how can you do it well?

Raise your glass, this month Natcho Creative celebrates a milestone – our three-year birthday! When you take into account that 20% of new businesses will fail in their first year and around 60% will be broke by year three (Business Startup Statistics UK 2022) it is an incredible achievement.

At Natcho, we strive to achieve equality and a more inclusive environment, so we have investigated ways to move forward. Here, we discover what is being done and what more needs to be done to fix the gap.

Action Aid reports it will take 257 years to close the gender pay gap and in the United Kingdom, the gap stands at 15.5%. Worse still, if you’re a female in the creative industry, research tells us your gap is even wider.

The creative industry has a diverse labour market made up of self-employed workers and freelance professionals. There is a real disparity in pay and career lifespans.

Out of the 16,000 people surveyed, more than half (60%) of adults and over two thirds (68%) of young people said their mental health got worse during lockdown, with loneliness being a key contributor.

With most brands having a social media presence in some way or another, and with there being over 3.8 billion social media users worldwide according to Smart Insights, the noise on social media platforms can be pretty loud and the fight to stand out is real.

The past few months have been unsettling for both large and small companies. Employees have had to readjust to working from home, people have been furloughed or lost their jobs, and there is the possibility of a catastrophic result for many businesses.

As we continue to stay at home to protect not only ourselves but our loved ones and the NHS, being restricted to the walls of our home and to only one outing per day to buy food or for daily exercise is undoubtedly starting to take its toll.

Despite its lack of physical presence, a digital platform humanises your brand as you are able to showcase the realities of your business which you may not necesserily be able to do otherwise, making your company more relatable.

More and more homeware stores have been selling foliage in funky pots and memes about millennials becoming ‘plant mums’ have been taking social media by storm.  

Welcome to Natcho, the production company that offers a variety of promotional content for brands and that puts professional creatives at the heart of what they do.