‘New year, same tone-deaf landscape’: Wieden+Kennedy receives backlash over first local hires
Wieden+Kennedy has revealed its first local creative hires to service the recently-won McDonald’s account, but has quickly received backlash for a lack of diversity in its initial all-male lineup.
As reported by Little Black Book on Monday, the US advertising agency announced Roy Leibowitz and Chris Wilson as its new group creative directors, and Jack Elliot and Lochie Newham as senior creatives.
The appointments come as Wieden+Kennedy sets up a Sydney shop, after winning a chunk of the McDonald’s creative account last month. The agency, which already works with McDonald’s in the US and Canada, will be responsible for the brand’s local Chicken and McCafé advertising, while DDB will remain the main agency of record.
The creatives were described by the agency as having immediately understood the agency’s “fan to fan approach” to advertising, and the importance of having McDonald’s “show up in culture, versus just making ads”.
“Roy, Chris, Jack and Lochie all have an incredibly high level of craft, are great people, and we couldn’t be more excited to have them here,” Eric Helin, global ECD at the agency, said.
But what some critics have been quick to point out, is that Wieden+Kennedy failed to ‘read the room’ of the Australian creative landscape, notably after last year’s Campaign Brief controversy.
W+K’s new local creatives. (L-R): Chris Wilson, Roy Leibowitz, Jack Elliot, Lochie Newham
The industry erupted late last year following Campaign Brief’s The Work 2024 and what it showed about the issue of lacking diversity in the creative world. The double-page spread did not feature any women, and the recent BestAds ranking lists of Top Creatives, ECDs and CDs featured just one, showcasing the enormous issue of the lack of diversity in creative leadership.
Jet Swain, who has worked in the creative and design industries for over 30 years and led the conversations regarding Campaign Brief last year, took to LinkedIn to share her criticism of W+K’s appointments.
“New year, same tone-deaf landscape,” she wrote.
“Either women are not fans of, eat McDonald’s, buy for their families, and do not impact culture OR they were no good women creatives to service the account.
“Is this a misstep or a missed opportunity Wieden+Kennedy?”
While some may think it’s a simple mistake from an agency that perhaps lacks local nuance, Swain told Mumbrella that is a redundant argument.
She said Wieden+Kennedy would “absolutely” be aware of the conversations Australia has had recently, and is disappointed to see this still happen.
Rodd Chant, who has also been vocal on the creative industry’s lacking diversity, wrote: “I’m wondering if anyone looked at this and thought to themselves – What’s wrong with this picture?
“After everything that went down in Australia last year with the [Campaign Brief] list situation, this is really tone-deaf.”
Meanwhile, while Poem’s Alex Sol Watts shared his excitement for having Wieden+Kennedy launch locally, he also expressed concerns over the hires.
“Really excited to have W&K in market – we’re due for a little spice and disruption. Extra excited to see the work they’ll do, and so much respect for these creative people they’ve kicked off with – was no doubt a tough pitch field,” he wrote.
“That said – I reckon I’m not the only one who’s a really disappointed to see them follow the classic Australian trend of filling their creative departments with men from day zero. I hope we see something a little different with the next announcement…”
Mumbrella has contacted Wieden+Kennedy and McDonald’s for comment.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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Where was all this anger when the Innocean CEO recently replaced her male CCO with a male ECD? Given her vocal criticism of how male dominated our agency creative leaders are this was her opportunity to take action and address the inbalance. Not one LinkedIn word commenting on this but plenty of WTF? comments around adland.
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@ummmmm
Hiring “the best applicants” is what a boys club says. Same thing as the classic its all about the work.
That’s laziness and the core of the problem.
I hire diverse people to create modern work so that they compete with your “best applicants”.
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Mumbrella comments section becoming the new CB comments section
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Maybe they were the best applicants?
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I think the comment was a bit unfair….and I have nothing to do with it.
it is still ok to hire men as well as women for creative roles and it’s actually bloody difficult to hire good senior female creatives….because everyone wants them. There’s going to be a delay in a more equal gender split at senior levels in creative because of how few female creatives there were/are in the pipeline. The industry needs to quadruple it’s efforts at increasing female representation at the beginning of the funnel.
but re Wieden specifically, let’s see what the rest of the team looks like before we start being too critical
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Talk to leaders in advertising privately and they’ll tell you it’s very hard to find top, local female talent. Advertising is no longer the top-paying creative industry (hello tech) the conditions are unsustainable (hello profit), America and the UK pay far better than Australia and the really talented ones are very well looked after where they are.
Having worked with all sorts of weird and wonderful people over the years, your portfolio gets you in the door, your personality keeps you there, and gender has very little to do with the decision-making process.
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