Australia’s agency bosses are male, white and mainly employ under-40s, survey confirms
A survey of some of Australia’s biggest creative agencies has revealed that only one-in-six of their leadership are women, only 20% of workers are older than 40 and that between them they employ just a single member of staff of Aboriginal background.
The homogenous background of the organisations charged with tapping into the zeitgeist of everyday Australians is among the first data to be released by The Agency Circle, which features 15 creative agencies who came together earlier this year with the aim of promoting diversity.
The top tier of creative agency management – recorded in the survey as chair, CEO or MD – is 84% male and 16% female.
The next tier down – labelled as “senior executive” is 60% male and 40% female.
“Creative & design” is 71% male and 29% female.
According to the survey, the departments where there is a significant proportion more women than men are account management, HR, finance and admin.
Strategy roles are almost even, with a 48% male and 52% female representation.
The survey also suggests a lack of diversity in ethnic backgrounds with agency staff 85% caucasian and 15% non-caucasian.
Overall, 53% of people working within the agencies are women.
The survey identified just one person within the 15 agencies who said they were of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background.
The most common age within agencies is 25-30, with 36% of staff falling into this group. A total of 80% of agency staff are aged below 40.
Agency Circle chair and director of strategy at VCCP, Michele O’Neill, said: “Agencies who took part in the inaugural survey are digging deep into their findings, listening to their staff and planning the changes they want to make in the coming months.”
And Emily Perrett, managing director of Clemenger BBDO Sydney was quoted as saying: “There’s not much to be proud of in the numbers – and we’ve no interest in being the best of a bad bunch. We’ll use this snapshot to track our individual progress, and make sure that the plans we’ve already got in place are making an actual difference – with regards to gender diversity and beyond”.
Among the 15 agencies participating in The Agency Circle are Leo Burnett, which was called out last year by diversity campaigner Cindy Gallop after it announced new creative hires with a photo featuring seven young white men.
Leo Burnett’s press release triggered criticism but is by no means the only creative agency dominated by young white men
Also among the membership is M&C Saatchi which apologised after celebrating its anniversary earlier this year by having a woman jump out of a birthday cake to perform a burlesque routine.
There were 1211 respondents to the survey among the agencies. The other 13 agencies involved are VCCP, Clemenger BBDO, M&C Saatchi, Havas, TBWA, The Monkeys, JWT, The Hallway, CHE Proximity, Marketforce, DDB, 303 Mullen Lowe, BWM Dentsu and McCann.
Other stats included in the data included the finding that 45% of women surveyed felt vulnerable in the industry because of their gender, compared to just 3% of men.
And 42% of women said they had been sexually harassed, including through comments “disguised as jokes”.
30% of women said they believed that mothers are overlooked for promotions because of perceptions around family commitments. And more than half of those aged over 50 are worried their role is vulnerable because of their age.
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Another fact you missed out – all of the agencies you surveyed were founded by men.
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Lol! Phew, I guess I got in ‘under the wire’, then, eh.. I worked in Australian advertising (between stints in Europe and America) off and on from ’76, finally landing a job in NZ as Chairman/ceo for five years from ’90 to ’95! Though, to be fair this article, I do remember my first interview back in ’75 in Aus with the chairman/ceo Aus/NZ of the then third largest agency in the region who immediately said, when his CD wheeled me in with a ‘hire him’ recco: “But he’s an INDIAN, mate! We don’t get much call for INDIAN copy here, do we?”. (He also said, upon noting in my cv that I had spent 2 years as a young man in Paris, “Ah, the bloody Frogs! Never could stand the Frogs! They fight with their legs and fuck with their faces!”)
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And your point is what? They may have been founded by men (several decades ago in most cases and almost none of the founders remain) but that doesn’t mean the most senior positions should be reserved for men
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The figures clearly show that ageism and sexism is well entrenched in agencies & openly condoned as nothing changes!
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The old “white men created all the things” furphy which conveniently forgets that until quite recently in the history of the world (and still the case in some parts of the world), women and people of colour were completely disenfranchised from education, property ownership, access to financial instruments, agency over their own bodies, the vote…
It’s pretty easy to be the group who creates everything when you’ve ensured no one else has the power to do so.
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My experience is most women are very focussed on how they spend their time. After all the generally find themselves needing to take a career break while they have kids. So they are loathe to spend the time in agencies where their time is not valued, they are forced to deal with “man-child” senior managers, the endless meetings, the need to bill 150% of your time because the agreed rates with the client don’t cover the costs etc. Also the lack of diversity means most advertising women are cut from the same cloth. So the geeky, shy, not quite perfect, not blonde enough women don’t get employed in agencies.
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Great that Mumbrella are publishing these real numbers and bringing attention to this. Let’s hope it makes a difference.
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Well, what a shock (not)
It’s been this way for aeons and is getting worse, especially regarding ageism. My CV would qualify me for a job running the Pentagon but no replies (much less an interview) from the recruiters if you’re over 40, 50 or (Heaven forbid) 60.
While we experienced, engaged, talented and mature creatives watch the dismal standard of Australian advertising plummet even further, we are occasionally permitted to teach or to accept outrageously exploitative hourly rates from freelance ‘agents’ for one or two gigs a year if we’re lucky.
The teaching turned out to be a joy but a couple of semesters a year on vocational teaching pay is a pittance and the occasional (successful) workshop butters no parsnips either.
In both arenas, I have been verbally abused, screamed at and treated with contempt while made to feel I should be grateful for
the opportunity to clean up after people with half the talent and none of the knowledge. It’s demeaning, humiliating and poverty-inducing.
It’s also pretty stupid when you consider that up to 85% of all household purchase decisions are made by women, and the 50+ market continues to grow along with their spending power.
Consider this: All great creative comes from an empathetic understanding of your audience. I have yet to find a 25-30 year old who knows what it’s like to be 40, 50, 60 or 70 but all of us in those age groups have been 25 or 30.
We are getting the advertising we deserve until we wake up to who we’re really talking to and agencies have the gender and age diversity in their creative departments needed to do it well.
Until then, what a terrible, tragic waste of resources. And what bloody awful results.
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Ricki, what have you been smoking?
Either get your ass off the couch and start something, or, while you’re sitting there, read a history book.
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Well done for stereotyping all men execs and all women working in advertising. I bet you’re just about perfect yourself.
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The problem is, even when 20 year olds try to advertise to other 20 year olds, what they come up with is embarrassing. Great creatives create great advertising no matter who it’s targeted at.
The argument that e.g. only old women can target old women successfully is simply not true, although very convenient for a lot of people.
Australian advertising doesn’t need diversity, we need better creatives.
Skin colour or genitalia doesn’t make you a good creative, nor does it make you a bad one.
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So true Roseanna! Here’s a few responses you may have heard before:
“You have a great CV but we are looking for someone at a different stage of their career than you”
“Don’t you think its about time you moved on and did something else?”
“Great skills and experience, but as we have a young team, you simply wouldn’t fit in!”
“You’ve done great work but it’s time to give someone else a go!”
After presenting a complex digital campaign: “I doubt at your age that you’d have the skills to have done this”
“You must have a great range of contacts! If you could bring them to us as clients, we pay you when the client appoints us, then we’ll pay you a finders fee!”
“After you’ve landed the client, we’ll pay you a percentage of the revenue for the first project. That’s fair isn’t it?”
“We need your help on this pitch but we can’t pay you unless we win the pitch”
“You really should stop talking about ageism in the industry. Yeah its true but harping on about it just pisses me off and you don’t change a bloody thing!”
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“Overall, 53% of people working within the agencies are women.”
So what’s the issue?
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“And 42% of women aid they had been sexually harassed, including throiugh comments “disguised as jokes”.”
*aid?
*throiugh?
Put the port down.
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What have you done of late Ricki?
Started a company? Given any of your mates a job? Maybe even a couple of men to even out the balance in the workplace?
Oh, you commented on Mumbrella. High Five.
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This survey means nothing. Before you get all fired up, my manager is a female and our CEO is female…
So overall they stated that 53% of staff are female, sounds like a good split. Also, looking at discipline splits is pointless. Of course some are going to be higher than others. It’s the same for all industries, how many women want to be brick layers? How many men want to be beauticians?
I’ve also hired a fair few people and put out a fair few job ads and as far as I’m aware I’ve never had one aboriginal person apply. Not that I put it as a question as I don’t give a cr@p. Don’t care if you’re male, female, aboriginal, german, english, chinese or martian. Getting a job, ANY job comes down to 4 things.
1. Can you do the job better than the other applicants
2. Are you a good cultural fit
3. Are you asking for a reasonable salary
4. Do you have the right attitude.
If a particular gender doesn’t apply or a particular race doesn’t apply then you can’t hire them.
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Man created woman too of course, not just advertising agencies Mr Interestingly.
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The issue is stated in the title of the article – the title. Title. Here it is again….. ‘Australia’s agency bosses are male, white and mainly employ under-40s’
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