Documentary on McCann copywriter Ilon Specht makes global streaming debut

Before Ilon Specht wrote L'Oréal’s signature tagline, she helped her stepdaughter see that she was, in fact, worth something. 

“She was interested in me. She listened to me, treated me like I was lovable,” Alison Case said in a documentary about Specht, a McCann copywriter who in 1973 created the cosmetic company’s slogan, "Because I'm Worth It.”

The Final Copy of Ilon Specht chronicles her trailblazing role in the advertising industry during the era of Mad Men and how she empowered Case—and all women. 

The producers released the documentary on Amazon Prime, AMC+ and TED on Mar. 8, International Women’s Day.

“We felt that telling the true story of how she invented ‘Because I'm Worth It,’ how she broke the codes of advertising at the time, would be not only celebrating a woman but also making people understand what the actual slogan meant,” said Charlotte Francéries, president of McCann Paris, which came up with the idea for the documentary and pitched it to L’Oréal.

The documentary premiered at Tribeca X in June 2024, and it has since won several awards, including best short documentary at the HollyShorts, Lunenburg and Chelsea film festivals.

The brand released the documentary on AMC because the network’s iconic series Mad Men included McCann, Franceries said.

It did so despite the fact that the show did not always portray McCann in a positive light. The agency had already leaned into its place on the show when it was still on the air despite it being presented as evil.

“When you look at the way Ilon worked at the time — the environments, all the males deciding what a commercial for hair colour should look like — it felt a little bit like being back in an episode of Mad Men,” Francéries said in the documentary.

Viewers learn Specht’s fate at the start of the documentary when she can’t recall the entire copy of the original advertisement but could if she had more time. 

When asked why she doesn’t have more time, Specht looks at the camera and says, “I’m dying.”

Specht, 81, died in April 2024, two months before the film premiered and did not get to see it. 

“The fact that we did that documentary is a constant reminder that we need to be worthy of Ilon's legacy,” Francéries said. “We need to make sure that everything we are going to create is at the level of what she was expecting for women.”

Ben Proudfoot, who won two Academy Awards for best short documentaries, directed the film, and his company, Breakwater Studios, and Traverse32 produced it along with McCann. McCann’s Daryl Lee, Charlotte Francéries and Julien Calot serve as executive producers for the documentary.