AdWomen Exhibition

When: April 28, 2025

Where: London, United Kingdom

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Running now until 28 April 2025, this unique exhibition explores 100 years of women in advertising. This first collaboration between the History of Advertising Trust and the Museum of Brands, tracks the challenges faced by women portrayed in ads or those working in the industry. This deep dive  into social history is essential viewing for anyone working in or studying the industry and would make a perfect and unusual celebration of #IWD2025 for any agency, brand, school or university looking to understand the past and help change the future.

The History of Advertising Trust (HAT) is excited to announce the launch of a new exhibition in collaboration with the Museum of Brands (MoB) exploring 100 years of women in advertising.  The exhibition, AdWomen, opens on November 8, 2024 and runs until April 28, 2025 at MoB’s Notting Hill venue.

This provocative exhibition will analyse advertising as both a cultural mirror and shaper; an active agent in curating women’s societal and domestic roles through defining periods of social history.  Featuring iconic adverts from the 1920s to the present day, AdWomen looks at the challenges and achievements of creative women behind the adverts and the portrayal of women within the adverts themselves.

Taking the theme of female power depictions in advertisements, the exhibition considers how advertising has both perpetuated power over women but also empowered women over the past 100 years, what has (and hasn’t) changed in British society and where the future might lie for brands to better reflect women in all their dimensions.

AdWomen brings together the world's biggest archive of brand communication and Robert Opie’s phenomenal collection of packaging and is supported by the exhibition’s Corporate Partner, Mars.

The rich content features historic Maltesers ads, a chronicle of WACL’s heritage and a documentary exploring the challenges and successes of the women who created iconic commercials.

Alice Kain, Curator at the Museum of Brands says: “The Museum of Brands is excited to be partnering with the History of Advertising Trust to create this unique exhibition. Showcasing both archives provides an incredible opportunity to delve deep into the subject of the portrayals of women in advertising over the last century. Working together we have been able to curate a variety of commercials, printed adverts, objects, and ephemera which allow for a rich exploration of the changing role of gender in advertising.”

John Gordon-Saker, Executive Director of the History of Advertising Trust said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with the Museum of Brands on an exhibition whose content is very familiar, having just curated WACL’s centenary celebrations. Our purposes as an archive and museum may be different, but we share a common desire to promote advertising as a force for good and, whilst we have so much content to contribute, the Museum of Brands provides the perfect venue to stage this exciting, current and relevant exhibition and its supporting events and seminars.”

AdWomen is supported by Industry Partners, the Advertising Association (AA), the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and Women in Advertising and Communications Leadership (WACL).  It was inspired by the fantastic Mad Women documentary, the story of pioneering women making iconic TV ads that changed the world, which was produced by South Shore and aired on Channel 4 in May 2023.