Leo Burnett’s all male announcement sends all the wrong signals warns Grey creative leader
One of the world’s most respected creative leaders has said Leo Burnett has damaged its brand by sending the wrong signals to the industry with its announcement about hiring an all white male creative team.
After fierce criticism for the announcement from equality campaigner Cindy Gallop stirred fierce debate in the Australian industry, Nils Leonard, chief creative officer of Grey London, warned agencies are as accountable for their actions as the clients they are advising.
“Whatever we thought, we used to be dark arts advisers and the hirings and moves and changes we made mattered to very few people and were seen by very few people and we are now very public,” Leonard told Mumbrella.
Last year Leonard created a firestorm in the US when he said that the perfect creative leader was “fierce, fearless and female” and is in Australia to deliver the D&AD President’s Lecture.
And he said Leo Burnett had badly misplayed the importance of its announcement and what it said about the industry as a whole.
He added: “So we have to think like we advise our clients which is what’s your purpose? What do you want to be known for as an agency – never mind the clients that you work for – as an agency?
“If that is your approach, you then ask yourself, we are making a statement about our future and in that statement we have got these people, you have to question it, you don’t have a choice anymore.”
He said that agencies needed to change the debate from who they were hiring to what it said about their business.
“Do we hire men? Yes. It’s the wrong debate. The right debate to be having is what signals are you sending to the industry, which is clearly in a very sensitive place, about your role in it.”
Leonard said he had also been taken to task by Gallop about an all-male hiring announcement in the UK, and had learned something important in dealing with the criticism.
While tackling the issue head on, noting that his agency had a female CEO and women in high level executive positions, it had also helped to shift his thinking.
“I’m proud of our diversity, I’m proud of our lineup, and I’ll take anyone to task on it. But what I did realise in that moment was that the mistake we had made was the signals that we want to send to the industry.
“You have a choice there as an agency. If they (Leo Burnett) could rewind and make a slightly different statement, would they? They definitely would.
“The hires we make signal to people the sort of company we want to be in the future. I wouldn’t demonise them for it though.”
However, he also had advice for people who jumped on the bandwagon through social and comment threads, questioning how much thought they were giving to the issues before sounding off.
“We totally need to have the debate. But a lot of people jump into massive support or massive criticism of these issues.
“Cindy wants to take people on. She’s a firestarter and I lover her for it. But the people that jump on the bandwagon need to think a bit harder about their point of view.”
Simon Canning
I’m getting REALLY sick of this sort of thing. It’s like when some people watch a movie and, instead of enjoying it, you just know they’re counting how many women are in a scene and if it’s not ridiculously high, they go and cry on social. It’s become a sort of sport, where if there’s even just a slight imbalance of men and women IN ANYTHING, there’s a self-righteous fury which is just ridiculous to behold. Sometimes a hire is what it is. Sometimes there’ll be blokes. Sometimes there’ll be women. All this, “I’m going to count the men: women ratio in everything and if I see an imbalance I’m betting that no one will call me out for complaining so I’m going to complain like a total peanut because I know I can get away with it…” is getting SO OLD.
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I’m so glad the suffragettes didn’t get bored of the whole equality thing, or we wouldn’t be able to vote.
The rights we have fought for can be easily stripped away if we just ignore tough debates because they frustrate us.
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Lynda, completely agree. Social media outrage is the current trend showing outrage at everything and anything. They need to get a life and focus on their own lives.
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First things first…
I am not at Burnett’s, I am a white male – and I have a daughter (who I love very much and wish all the success in the world to).
However, I would never in my wildest dreams suggest to her that she has some God-given right to get a job, win an award or get promoted based on her gender.
Rather I hope I have instilled in her the need for determination, self belief and pride in everything she aims for – and a real world understanding that things don’t just arrive on a platter.
I have employed, promoted, fired and retrenched lots of people over the years – and every single decision has been made on the SKILL LEVEL of the person in question.
Never have I worried about gender, sexual preferences or race quotas.
Nor will I.
Ever.
As it turns out, the place I work at has more women than men – and no doubt some are straight, some are gay, some are Christian, some are Muslim and some are Jewish.
But you know what, I really couldn’t care less.
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Nanny State, there’s some next-level stupid in your comment.
Next time don’t bother, we couldn’t care less either.
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I think that’s very sensible, Nanny State. After all, true equality IS being measured on your ability, and that alone. However, somewhere along the line — and I think it’s especially in the past five years — it’s morphed into a really weird gender-based thing. As women we can have anything we like and, if we don’t get it, it’s only because men hate us… or something. I try to ignore it and just get on with what’s happening in reality.
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Hello @ Gordon
Please let me know what you see as ‘next-level stupid’.
Hard for me to consider your POV without an explanation.
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Anyone fancy a brew?
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Nobody is suggesting that agencies employ quotas – I’m not even sure where that ‘argument’ is coming from, because I have not seen a single commenter so much as suggest it. Unless you have been a creative woman in this industry you have no idea how much or how little we are discriminated against. And most (not all), but most creative women have experienced sexism in this industry. For me, I’ve always been lucky – I’ve always had wonderful, supportive ECDs who treat me simply as human being. BUT I know, as many other creative women do that there are some ECDs who run a boy’s club in their departments and who rarely or indeed NEVER hire women. I could name 3 or 4 agencies that I would never bother applying to because they are renowned for being boys clubs. That is simply something I’ve come to accept. But is it acceptable, really?
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@Lynda
I get your frustration. But I think once wrongs are made right, one day, it will hopefully settle down. My point can be found within your point, when you wrote:
‘Sometimes a hire is what it is. Sometimes there’ll be blokes. Sometimes there’ll be women.’
Here’s the thing, Lynda. It never is women. It never is. This whole ‘sometimes we’ll be mixed, sometimes we’ll be all men and sometimes we’ll be all women. So settle down, mate’ doesn’t ring true, because it never is all women.
I think that’s what is frustrating those who are crying unfair.
And once this is fixed, we will settle down. And by us settling down, it sounds like your frustrations will be over too, having to listen to all this noise.
So it’s in everyone’s interests to get hiring levels to where it is sometimes men, and sometimes women. Not ‘sometimes men and the other times men too.’
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@Sarah
How is it “never” women? I have a job. A couple of dozen women at my place of employment have jobs; probably about a 55-45 men-women ratio.
If it’s “never” women, how on Earth are we employed? Magic?!? Fluke?!?
And suggesting people won’t calm down until the possibility of it being “all” women is wrong on two levels. For one, equality means there’s just as many of us as the guys. It doesn’t mean we should take over to prove a point. And for two, look around, there are plenty of agencies (especially in PR land) which are all women, or pretty close to it. I find it odd that such workplaces always seem to be overlooked in these kind of debates. Guys don’t get so much as a whiff of working at them.
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How’s you age diversity Nils?
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