Why a lack of women in senior creative roles cuts brands short
Women make 86% of purchasing decisions, but research shows 91% feel disconnected from advertising and 81% don’t trust brands at all. APN Outdoor’s Charlotte Valente explores how brands can help turn this around.
The notion of marketing channels becoming increasingly saturated at an exponential rate is nothing new. Neither is the argument that as a result of this, advertising
fatigue is rife, consumers are better educated about advertising, and driving cut-through is more difficult than ever before. So, how do we ensure our marketing is relevant to the “new” consumer?
Phil Norris, head of content at Return on Digital, echoed the thoughts of many in Digital Marketing Magazine, when he suggested the phrase “audience first” has become the biggest buzzword among digital marketers in the current age as they look to combat the issue.
However, the audience first approach is often blocked by typical methods of demographic profiling. Norris states: “We can give a pretty accurate assessment of the readership of Vogue, for instance, but who’s to say that a 20-year-old woman from Bristol and a 50-year-old man from Brisbane wouldn’t enjoy streaming similar content on Netflix? The outcome of demographic profiling is typically a narrow group.”
In order to truly put the audience first – and therefore increasing relevancy to the consumer and in effect, influence consumer behaviour – we need to reconfigure our current understanding of audience profiling. Norris suggests we do this by looking at more micro interactions surrounding moments and behaviours. I tend to agree.
All I can say is that four of the five best creatives I’ve worked with have been female, and two of the three smartest planners I’ve ever worked with were female.
It’s insane not to have more even representation, especially in senior roles.
All I can say is that eight out eight of the best creatives I have worked with have been – men!
All this proves nothing about why gender is important to Advertising creative.
10 out of 10 of the best creatives I’ve worked with were humans which proves cats are useless as creatives.
An interesting read, but I wonder if the writer has considered the large number of females who are the custodians of these brands as CMO’s, account directors and other marketing roles. I do not recall the exact numbers, but I believe the weighting of marketing managers is somewhere in the realm of 55 – 45% weighted in favour of females.
These are the people approving the strategy and ultimately approving the work that goes out. Where do they figure in this discussion? Or is only about the creatives who, to be honest, are just one cog in a very large marketing machine?
Agree. The creative process is all about collaboration. Creatives don’t dictate what gets made. Whether you’re a male or female creative, you work closely with male and female suits, planners and clients to get the right solution.
actually quite true
Has there been some mighty economic improvement where creative roles are scattered in abundance to allow these shifts to happen because they “must?”
200 applicants per graphic designer position is a reasonable scenario. There’s no luxury of gender choice – it has to be about who will bring the best bucks in? It’s folio driven. All the way.
I guess with Baby Boomers making up [insert stat here] of today’s buying audience, we’ll now see more of them in creative departments too, yes?? And make more of them women because at [insert stat here] of that demographic they’re the greater proportion of that audience…
Why don’t we all just wave the diversity flag, not the gender flag??
I guess with cats and perhaps the odd student consuming most of the tinned cat food we’ll see more of them in creative departments soon. They’ll be cheaper to hire too.
This issue is across all industries – and something I am so passionate about. The lack of senior women in my eyes is due to the amount of mums who simply drop out of work and their careers due to the cost of care. I still have 2 young children in day care 4 days a week and this cost would push most to not return to work. That’s the simple but sad reality.
Everyone is somewhere on the spectrum of enlightenment about this valuable and viable discussion. On one end there are those who have a vested interest in the status quo. And on the other end there are those who want to understand the male and female lenses available for both genders to leverage @Charlotte Valente – plaudits for keeping the conversation on the industry agenda.
There was less than 10% of women in the Sydney Creative dept when left to join EURO RSCG. I had to pinch myself when I got to HK because over 50% of the creative department were women.
The Creative Director was a (pregnant) women.
The Chief Creative Executive Officer and MD was a women.
Not only did we win a stack of international awards for our creative excellence, but all the internal awards for best performance in the agency (creative, accounts service, media and admin) also went to women.
By the time I returned home I thought Sydney I thought we had caught up with the rest of the world, but here we are decades later, still having the same conversation.
Maybe brands need to start insisting for more women to be involved with their brand’s communication.
The HK and Asia women in Advertising situation has been astounding Australian workers for years. Even in the 70s and 80s, rumours of a mythical diversity splendour drifted back to the sparsely populated Australian Agency scene. That’s the point – clients not having to produce in Australia, mega-million brands all off-shore and shrinking agency budgets means the scene cannot be compared to Asia. Maybe it’s fallen to a more male balance, but there’s not much room for fast change. The job field is shrinking.