I take a break from the reservation issue to write on another issue which is related to the under representation of a particular group of people in society - women.No, I am not advocating quotas for women either. But today's Brand Equity Ad Agency Reckoner 2006 begs asking the old question: Where are the women in advertising? Certainly not in senior or influential positions. And this is despite their very visible and large presence at junior and middle levels.
Among the top 20 Creative Directors in the Brand Equity list there are just 3 women. Two of them happen to be owners in their agencies: No 5 Elsie Nanji (Ambience Publicis) and No 11 Preeti Vyas Gianetti (Vyas Giannetti Creative).
The sole standard bearer for the work-your-way-up-as-an-employee route is Preeti Nair of Lowe Lintas. She is the biggest gainer this year and is described as someone who 'came from nowhetre on the strength of a few big campaigns like Surf Excel 'Daag Acche Hain' and Greenply's 'Savitri'.
Good for her.
Meanwhile, the Most Influential People in Advertising List is even more startling. 19 of the 20 people featured are men. Elsie Nanji is the only woman - at no 11.
Come to think of it, since the demise of Tara Sinha Associates, there is no woman professional at the head of an advertising agency in India. I mean a top 20 player (Vyas Giannetti is a creative hotshop).
Ah, so we get back to the same old explanations - women leave after marriage, women slow down after they have babies, women don't want the top job all that badly.
Sure - some truth in all those things. But we've seen, with the finance and banking industry, that women can and have reached extremely senior positions. Why not in advertising and I dare say, even marketing?
The funny part is it has always been believed women don't have a head for numbers and that is the area where they've actually made an impact.
Even in advertising, the one silver lining is that when it comes to Media Buying/ Planning - women are prominently represented.
Among the 15 'movers and shakers of the media biz' Brand Equity lists:
# 2 Anita Nayyar (Starcom)
# 3 Lynn De Souza (Lintas Media Services)
# 4 Meenakshi Madhvani (Spatial Access)
# 5 Jasmin Sohrabji (Mediacom)
# 9 Punitha Armugam (Madison Media)
# 13 Nandini Dias (Lodestar)
# 14 Ambika Srivastava (Zenith Optimedia).
Is there something I'm missing here? Women make it in media buying which requires number crunching and deal-making but not in creative and client servicing which require far softer skillsets. The stuff we're supposed to be good at.
Or is it that the 'numbers' speak for themselves and power the careers of the women who know how to make them sing?
Neil French resigned from WPP last year after his sexist remarks at a dinner in Toronto kicked up a storm. He reportedly said that there weren't more female creative directors "because they're crap" and that motherhood made them "wimp out" and "go suckle something."
In an interview French later clarified that he did use the word "crap" in reference to women but..
" I didn't say all female creative directors are crap. If you can't commit yourself to any job then, by definition, you're crap at it. If you can't commit 100 percent to your job, don't pretend you can. Nobody deserves a job unless they can commit to it."
Fair enough. But are we saying there are no deserving and committed women in creative but lots of them in media buying? Sounds illogical to me.
There has to be some structural or cultural issue at work here...
Bottomline
Has the French episode had any impact on agencies? I doubt the men reading the Brand Equity Reckoner even wondered why there were so few women. That's just the way it is.
But is it the way it should be?
The 'most influential people' on that list - those 19 men - need to think about this carefully. And then, perhaps, use their influence.
Because advertising, of all industries, should reflect changing social norms. There are more women clad in power suits - in the ads you create. But what about more power for the women creating advertising?
Rashmi, vast majority of catwalk models are women.
ReplyDeleteWhats the big deal if there aren't so many women in advertising or marketing? Perhaps women feel a more urgent need to conquer the typecast male bastions of finance and "number-crunching", so they dont move as hard for the creative industry. Perhaps women, if creatively inclined, tend to move more towards the arts per se, instead of marketing/advertising in a business enterprise.
ReplyDeleteAs long as there are more women on top in business now, and there is no one actively stopping them from getting there, what does it matter where exactly these women choose to be? Its commendable how so many women have worked against Indian social norms and male pressures and discouragement to rise in their respective fields, making a name for themselves and winning individual battles in the war against discrimination. Surely, when analysing the upper echelons of business and national economy, we should give allowances for women making conscious decisions to not venture in this direction or in that direction. Such blockwise analysis seems more suited to lower levels of management and employment in business, where the discrimination would be more rampant.
Women do form a large part of the workforce in every sphere of today's atmosphere.. Ven it comes 2 advertizing, the fairer sex seems 2 b more interested in the glam part than the content part and thus the difference...
ReplyDelete"Where are the women in advertising? Certainly not in senior or influential positions. And this is despite their very visible and large presence at junior and middle levels."
ReplyDeleteIn finance & banking, the proportion of women at the top will be higher than their proportion in junior or middle mgmt in many cos. Best case in point: ICICI Bank. Does that mean men are being discriminated against? No
I don't think there's anything called a glass ceiling in our ad industry today - its just that those people at the top are all brilliant and you can't predict the gender (or caste or religion) break-up when you talk of ppl of that calibre. In due course I'm sure more women will rise to the top in advertising.
Of course in marketing it might be a different story - I for one know quite a few ppl...mostly women... who have sacrificed career growth by choosing to not slog it out in sales (which is supposed to 'prove if you've got what it takes').
Aside: read a book called 'piece of cake' sometime back, written by a woman who had slogged in mktg and sales in a fmcg major...hilarious book, but brings out some issues women face in a fmcg set-up quite well.
As a woman and as an industry veteran, I can confidently say that irrespective of gender, both men and women do the tasks they are assigned, as part of their job. Assuming they are serious about a long term career in the business.
ReplyDeleteLikewise members of either sex can be goofing around and partying or whatever else.
I have seen enough of both types . To say that only women do it and its only they who are taken in by glamour is grossly incorrect.
The only disadvantage women could face and I say this from personal experience, is if they want a fast track career post motherhood.
If there is lack of a support system for the kid, women do give up work. I did for about 4 years despite having one. After all a child’s formative years don’t give us second chances.
As a result, my age and designation are a tad (!) mismatched. But that was my choice.
Am sure others have made it as well. And others may not have made the choice.
Again one can’t generalise and assume that women made it to the top since they were single or did not choose motherhood.
While I cannot pin point a reason for the lack of women in suits, ( there are many in senior creative positions ) is it perhaps a bias of sorts by the men on top who prevent the upward movement ? Or the lack of pushiness needed ? Or is it simply only a matter of time before this bastion is breached ?
Amen to that !!
I think amazingly, we are all missing the point. The point is that while women have done well in 'male'bastions like finance and accounting and even media, that was because they became 'manly'and not in a pejorative sense. They took it on them to cope with the stresses a woman encounters and still do a great job, and proved they could do it, as the numbers show.
ReplyDeleteAdvertising, on the other hand, is by it's very nature a playground for the metrosexual male, who has done to women in the profession what women did to his counterparts in banking and finance. Become more 'female' than the real mccoy. Which is why you find it to be a profession with the most latitude for aberrants like gays(sorry for being Politically incorrect), wimps, and assorted other 'sensitive' souls. Dealing with these assorted characters who admittedly deliver the goods at the end of the day is no easy job, and best left to a relatively harder, but male colleague, who might even grow a large moustache at times to appear tough. Which is why it leaves women shut out of the process altogether.
I work in advertising and I can vouch that some of the best advertising brains, in the creative field are women. Brand Equity may only spot the people who make the most noise or draw the biggest salaries, but in every agency there are women who are quietly doing a fair share of the best work.
ReplyDeleteProbably the reason why we have fewer women 'role models' from advertising is because it is now an old economy industry. The best creative minds are in the new economy jobs. Meanwhile in advertising, old greying men fight it out for the moolah ...
I read - and I did wonder why there were so few women.
ReplyDeleteever wonder tht the most celebrated chefs are males ,even though cooking is essentialy a female domain..heading a agency reqires a balance of talent, commitment,vision and ability the fact is ( at the risk of sounding sexist ) ..the females more or less can't figure out of these qualities.
ReplyDeleteI dont know why u have written all these, if u r a regural reader of ET then u must have read that 40% of MNC's have woman in commanding position.
ReplyDeletewomen as we all know have been deprived of social leadership since ages, n this practice is deeply embedded more in minds than practices...!!
ReplyDeletethere is no research or theory which proves women geneticaly impaired of leadership n other "manly" jobs.. its just the paradigm in which most of the women themselves are stuck right from their early ages..(needless to say due to societal behaviours..
..This paradigm will break with reforms affecting the perception of general society n women themselves gradually.....