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Women: Consumers vs. Creative Directors
I just saw a statistic that bears some conversation. 85% of brand purchases are made by women, yet only 3% of advertising agency creative directors are women. Is there any logic or business purpose behind this statistic? Has it been established that men know more about women than women do? Maybe its just that women are incapable of creating strategic advertising messages to each other?
If general market companies go to multi-cultural agencies because they believe those firms can best deliver work targeted for those consumers, then should the vast majority of general market agencies, actually, be led by women - since, apparently, the vast majority of general market brand purchases are made by women? (Note: this is not an opening for rants against multi-cultural agencies!) :-)
Advertisers are constantly (and justifiably) bemoaning the effectiveness of work by their agencies. Could the lack of women in leadership roles in ad agencies bear some part of the problem? Is patriarchy standing in the way of better advertising?
What do you think?
If general market companies go to multi-cultural agencies because they believe those firms can best deliver work targeted for those consumers, then should the vast majority of general market agencies, actually, be led by women - since, apparently, the vast majority of general market brand purchases are made by women? (Note: this is not an opening for rants against multi-cultural agencies!) :-)
Advertisers are constantly (and justifiably) bemoaning the effectiveness of work by their agencies. Could the lack of women in leadership roles in ad agencies bear some part of the problem? Is patriarchy standing in the way of better advertising?
What do you think?
Tags: advertising, agencies, creative-directors, women
Views: 28
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael B. Moore on -
Is there any logic or business purpose behind this statistic?
Could this be an instance where traditional sexism in the advertising industry trumps quality, revenue, and profitability on both the agency and client side?
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Permalink Reply by Preston Samuels on -
I'm not sure why the numbers are as reported, but just because I don't have the answer doesn't mean that sexism is the answer. It seems to me that the profit motive is such that if goats as creative directors produced the best work, then advertising agencies would have goats in those jobs. Clients are looking for great work that moves the needle. I don't think they care how they get it, do they?
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Permalink Reply by Gunnar Branson on -
What a ghastly statistic! It seems that we have made little progress from the day of Don Draper. I would be curious, however, to see a slightly different statistic to find out if it would hold up to the same analysis. How many of the CMO's and advertising purchasers are women? I wonder if the numbers are similar.
In any case - this is wrong on several different counts. We definitely need more women creative directors, more women as CMO's and while we are at it, more women as CEO's. Too much talent is overlooked every day - and companies that make full use of women as leaders will reap all sorts of rewards...it's so obvious that I feel foolish even writing it here.
It occurs to me that there might be a case to be made that women creative directors could be more effective selling male focused products than men are. Soren Kierkegaard once wrote, "in order to save men's souls, one must first seduce them." I've long thought the process of persuading, of educating and of selling had far more to do with seduction than anything else. If historically, men have had some success selling to women consumers, (perhaps due to dumb luck...but may be due to other reasons as well), then perhaps CMO's should insist on Women to help sell products such as razors, muscle cars, and beer.
Forgive me for rambling off point here - Alexandra thank you for bringing this statistic to light. There is no rational business reason for it to be true - and therefore it must change.
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Permalink Reply by Sean Duffy on -
Interesting premise Alexandra. I received some strange advice in this regard once. We were pitching a tampon account. I was creative director for my pitch team but knew nothing about the segment. I called on two other creative directors I knew who had a lot of experience with feminine hygiene products, one in London, one in New York. They did not know each other. But they both gave me the exact same advice: "Whatever you do, don't put women on the creative team - it never works." They felt women were too close to the product so they don't pay enough attention to the brief (esp if it was written by a man). Plus once their work is done it didn't receive the same critical evaluation as most work in the agency received. That was because when the work was challenged (esp by men) the female creatives would dismiss it on the grounds that the critic was a man and couldn't possibly relate to menstruation. Not wanting to go there even the more aggressive male creatives would back down.
This sounded like a lot of BS to me. The advice was ignored. A female creative team was put on the case. From that point on it unfolded exactly as my two friends had predicted. We lost the pitch in spectacular fashion. Tampons aside, one of the best creative directors I've worked for was a woman, so I'm not sure why they are so under-represented (why are so many professional chefs men?)
I can tell you where woman seem to be catching up - social media. I was at the MarketingProfs digital mixer in Chicago a few weeks back and was astounded at the lopsided ratio of women to men. I'd be interested to see some stats on that.
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Permalink Reply by Larry Taman on -
Very interesting topic and conversation. For me in looking at this from 30,000 feet, it just illustrates to me that in marketing/advertising, diversity of thought, culture, gender, race, everything, is the best way to go for teams to work at an optimal level.
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Permalink Reply by Michael B. Moore on
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I read that there are a number (perhaps 5- 6) creative director jobs at BIG agencies currently. It will be quite interesting to see the degree to which these shops avail themselves of diversity in that leadership position - either gender or racial/cultural. Do you think they will?
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