Isn't this the same person who created this?

http://creativity-online.com/work/youngguns-hardly-legal/8638

Tiffany, thanks for this great timely post - seeing the challenges of the female in the creative industry (esp. post baby) was one of the main reasons I decided to launch my independent Design practice - for the flexibility it would give me when I decide to have my own family. I'm so glad to see your focus is on finding solutions and I agree with you - women hires at every life stage (single, mom, boomer..) come packed with unique experiences/smarts and i'm completely happy to trade them with flexi-time or other solutions that fit the life phase they are in. I simply see this as smart business for us at PixInk.
Ayesha Mathews, Founder/Creative Director

Tiffany, this is an issue near and dear to my heart. I, too, am part of the elusive 3% of female creative directors. What makes this riddle even more perplexing is that I run an ad agency that specializes in marketing to women. I see firsthand how imperative it is to connect with women in order to capture the $20 trillion worldwide women control annually. Female consumers report high levels of dissatisfaction with the way brands market to them. I submit it's at least partially due to the fact that brands are using work created -- or greenlighted -- almost entirely by men.

I agree with your comments about mentorship, but I think that's only a small part of the solution. I believe brands are the key to creating real change at the agency level. We need to make brands understand the necessity of having women in the creative ranks of their agencies. Brands pay the bill. They are the ones who have the power to demand gender equity on their creative teams, having questioned the effectiveness of male groupthink to motivating an overwhelmingly female marketplace.

I believe so whole-heartedly that this is the way to make long-overdue change that I am building a conference to start the ball rolling. The 3% Conference (www.3percentconf.com) is the first-ever Marketing to Women Conference for Men. Female creative directors and other thought-leaders will showcase campaigns they've created that have helped brands prosper with women consumers. The audience (largely male brand managers, product managers and VPs of Marketing) will see first-hand the business value of women in advertising.

So, yes, I do think that women can change this industry for other women. But I think men -- what I call "Guys Who Get It" -- can help turn the tide, perhaps much faster.

Thanks for continuing this really important dialogue.

Tiffany – a great article, thank you.

As a producer, I know there’s no difference between working with a man or with a woman – the key is getting the right people with the right skills. The result? Without any attempt to hire by gender, we have a balanced, effective team. And, in my experience, that’s been true for a long time.

So why isn’t that equally true in creative departments? Are women less “creative”? That’s an age-old question. You know: “why are there no great female composers?” But I suggest it’s getting dated: a good idea is a good idea, and I’ve seen women come up with them and sell them with ease. Just as well as the boys.

So why is that when I sit in a creative meeting it feels like it’s 90% men and 10% women? I don’t have the answer. But consider the medical profession. A generation ago, the doctors were male and the nurses their little handmaidens. And today? More women than men are qualifying as doctors.

Could it be that, in our industry, we’re still living in the past? I’d really like to know.

Let’s please keep this dialog going.

Victoria Guenier

My post got a bit garbled. Here is it again:


Tiffany – a great article, thank you.

As a producer, I know there’s no difference between working with a man or with a woman – the key is getting the right people with the right skills. The result? Without any attempt to hire by gender, we have a balanced, effective team. And, in my experience, that’s been true for a long time.

So why isn’t that equally true in creative departments? Are women less “creative”? That’s an age-old question. You know: “why are there no great female composers?” But I suggest it’s getting dated: a good idea is a good idea, and I’ve seen women come up with them and sell them with ease. Just as well as the boys.

So why is that when I sit in a creative meeting it feels like it’s 90% men and 10% women? I don’t have the answer. But consider the medical profession. A generation ago, the doctors were male and the nurses their little handmaidens. And today? More women than men are qualifying as doctors.

Could it be that, in our industry, we’re still living in the past? I’d really like to know.

Let’s please keep this dialog going.

Victoria Guenier

Here's a different take: we're a small agency, we do interesting work, we think we understand how the world works these days. We treat our staff well and we spend time on getting the right people to join the family.

Every single time we recruit, 80% of all female applications are relevant, intelligent and interesting. For the guys, the same is true for perhaps 10%. I don't think women have anything to worry about, give it ten years and they'll run the business.

A beautiful, but tough perspective. Just what all of us males and females need to hear.

Thank you for your very thoughtful discussion on this topic. I totally agree that a way for women to get ahead in a male-driven industry is through mentorship and promotion. However, with only 3% of CDs being female, there are very few women pulling female creatives up. It’s going to be a long road to change.

We should also get companies/clients/brands to support change by educating them on the benefits/need of having female CDs overseeing their work. It makes sense to tackle the problem with the people who are paying the agencies, because, well, money talks.

I also think preparing and educating young women about what they'll need to succeed in this industry is really, really important. Aspiring athletes and soldiers, for example, understand the expectations and sacrifices of their lines of work. It should be the same for aspiring creatives. While I love that you see the many benefits to having moms on your staff, we won't be able to go toe-to-toe with male creatives if we try to uphold traditional notions of motherhood. The job demands are not compatible with this role. We'll miss the late-night concepting sessions if we need to run home for dinner. We'll miss important meetings if we're always the ones home with the sick kids. Most of us can't be super-moms and we can't have it all.

The way I'm able to do what I do as Senior Art Director at Colle McVoy is by relying on my husband. A lot. He's the family nurturer, the cook, the parent-teacher conference attendee. I'm a new breed of mother who meets the demands of a demanding job and does her best to love her kids fiercely at every spare moment. In 2009, an Ad Age article revealed that there are no American female ECDs who have both a husband and kids. That speaks volumes to me. It's not our abilities that have gotten in the way of women's aspirations. It's the choice to have a family at all in an industry with precarious work/life balance.

Nina Orezzoli
Mpls, MN

Tiffany, thank you for starting this important discussion.

As a female composer (yes Victoria, we do exist!) with many years of experience in both advertising and films/TV, I can vouch for the dearth of women at all levels of production. 
 


I agree that when it comes to the creative process, gender shouldn’t even be an issue. It’s all about doing great work. Music certainly isn’t gender-specific. I’ve written kick-ass action cues as well as light, rom-com scores. Being a woman does not hinder (or, for that matter, enhance) my ability to create music that supports the emotional needs of the material.



I also agree with your solutions Tiffany. Mentoring and nurturing talented women is a necessity. But given that men still dominate at virtually every hiring level, it’s going to take more than women mentoring other women. We’re going to need open-minded men and, beyond that, forward thinking agencies and, as Katherine mentioned, client brands, all working to realize the benefits of bringing more women into the creative mix.
 


One agency that really gets this is Draftfcb. Through their vendor diversity program, the agency is wholeheartedly committed to partnering with women and minority-owned creative shops. They and their many clients understand that by actively reaching out to new vendors, they get to work with a bigger, more diverse talent pool and the resulting creative solutions branch out into much more exciting directions. Everyone wins. I’m sure there are other agencies that are engaged in similar types of vendor diversity outreach. These organized initiatives coming from the agency level will be a primary driving force behind women gaining more seats at the creative table. The talent and desire is there. We simply need a few more doors opened so we can keep proving it.

Andrea Saparoff
Los Angeles, CA

Tiffany, thanks for bringing this topic to the forefront again. It hasn’t been discussed much since the embers died out from Neil French’s brouhaha. Like the recent Creative UnConference discussion “Where are all the black people in this business?”, it’s been talked about for fifty years without much impact in the industry.

In reality, women HAVE fared better in every other agency department except creative. The most recent statistics recount that the number of women in account services positions has doubled in the last two decades, resulting in equivalent numbers of men and women. More than half of planning and research employees are women. In media, women outnumber men three to two. What factors lie behind the underrepresentation of women in creative, where the ratio of men to women is 2.3 to 1? Christi, sorry, but motherhood IS one of the primary issues, both in terms of workplace prejudices and division of mind and self in an highly competitive industry. It’s a fact that the vast majority of highly successful female creative directors are either childless or have spouses with a less demanding job. But motherhood is not the only factor. The others research suggest are: cultural prejudices (especially relative to female leadership); work and hiring practices (most notably the creative director's drive to hire a "buddy"); the physically and mentally "consuming" nature of creative work; lack of family-friendly policies like flexi-time and flexi-place; the subjectivity in valuing creative work and in promotion and hiring; many women's lack of tolerance for the politics in higher positions, as well as great love for doing the creative craft that is surrendered in managing; the possibility for freelance and consulting that isn’t as prevalent in other positions; and the values and preferences of those who opt out for other pursuits. Further details and citations are available: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/advertising_and_society_review/summary/v010/10.3.mallia.html

The good news is that the changes being wrought in the business by new digital work practices may indeed be positive for creative women. This is just now being explored and preliminary results just published in the Journal of Interactive Advertising are cautiously optimistic: http://jiad.org/article145

Time will tell.

Karen Mallia
Associate Professor/Advertising

So we're not part of that 3%. Although we are female creatives. And while we work our way to expanding that number, we were really inspired by your article. So we wrote about it. We don't have all the answers, certainly, but we're happy you started the dialogue and we're even happier to continue it.

http://laliadverts.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/female-creatives-in-advertising-the-adgirls-ponder-the-endless-debate/

This is a great article. I think it's also a really brave thing to call it out. Good on you, Tiffany!