Say The Pay

Salary secrecy has been treated as “business as usual” for decades. But behind the silence lies inequality: hidden salaries widen gender and ethnicity pay gaps, erode trust, and cause businesses to lose great talent.

Our founders experienced this first-hand – which is why we’ve been committed to salary transparency from the very start (just one of the ‘rules’ of work we were intent on changing – to improve working lives for all).

So when we saw no UK equivalent of the EU Pay Transparency Directive on the horizon, we asked: If the government won’t act, how can we persuade businesses to change voluntarily?

The insights that shaped our strategy

Every Jack & Grace campaign starts with evidence. For #SayThePay, we:

• Reviewed the research – from Harvard Business Review to Glassdoor. The ethical case was overwhelming; the business case was harder to prove.
• Tested the arguments – staging a team debate to unpack both sides.
• Listened to people – our poll of 2,003 UK workers revealed:
  • 64% wouldn’t apply for a job without a listed salary.
  • 58% were willing to share their own pay to reduce inequality.
  • 41% had discovered colleagues in similar roles earning different pay.
• Spoke to stakeholders – leaders, recruiters, and clients shared why the status quo still felt “safer.”

The pattern was clear: businesses weren’t resisting transparency because the evidence was weak. They were resisting because the status quo was comfortable.

From silence to stigma

To create change, we needed to do two things:

• Stigmatise the old norm – make salary secrecy look outdated and absurd.
• Normalise the new – showcase businesses already embracing openness.

That meant we weren’t just designing a campaign. We were building a movement.

Why ice cream?

How do you expose the ridiculousness of secrecy without alienating the very people you want onside? Ice cream.

You wouldn’t buy an ice cream without knowing the price. So why accept hidden salaries when applying for a job?

With Mill Road Studios and influencer Henry (That Corporate Lawyer), we staged a street stunt outside an East London co-working space. Henry played a sketchy ice cream vendor dodging every question about price. The baffled reactions captured on film distilled our point in seconds: pay secrecy makes no sense.

Rolling out the movement

We built an integrated launch around social, PR, and partnerships:

• A hero video as the centrepiece.
• A Wall of Fame celebrating 40+ early adopter businesses pledging to #SayThePay
• Coverage in 13 outlets, from The Big Issue to PunchMag.
• Partner amplification via We Show the Salary, PRCA, and Latte Recruitment.
• A LinkedIn ad plus a steady drumbeat of organic content.

 

The impact

The campaign sparked national conversation:

• 130,000 video views across platforms.
• Hundreds of comments and shares generated on Jack & Grace and partner posts (including our ice cream vendor’s)
• 732,000 combined monthly reach through PR coverage.
• Website traffic doubled on campaign pages.
• Most importantly: 40+ businesses committed to salary transparency – creating a new benchmark for fairness in recruitment. We even had one business formally change their policy with a client in order to back the campaign!

For us, success wasn’t the views. It was the shift: businesses choosing to stand up and say the pay.

What’s next

Phase one was about galvanising early adopters. Next, we’re scaling: broadening the community, sharing case studies from businesses already benefitting, and growing the Wall of Fame until transparency becomes the default.

Because once you’ve seen how absurd salary secrecy looks in the context of ice cream, it’s impossible to unsee it anywhere else.

Why it matters for Jack & Grace

#SayThePay wasn’t just a campaign. It was proof of what we, as an impact-first communications agency, stand for:

• Creative ideas grounded in evidence.
• Playful storytelling that lands a serious point.
• Campaigns that don’t just raise awareness – they drive behaviour change.

This is the kind of work that excites us: bold, movement-building communications that change culture for the better.