A simple equation: equality equals better business

Michael Darragh
Aug 26, 2017 · 3 min read

For more than 40 years, pioneer and activist Jean Kilbourne has travelled the world delivering her message about the impact of advertising on women. An important connection exists between advertising and public health issues, such as violence against women and eating disorders. Jean launched a movement to promote media literacy as a way to prevent these problems, using her Killing Me Softly documentaries and college campuses as a key delivery method.

Jean’s message is prophetic:

“We all grow up in a culture where women’s bodies are constantly turned into things or objects. Turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step toward justifying violence against that person. We see this with racism and homophobia. It is almost always the same process — The person is dehumanised and the violence becomes inevitable. That step is constantly taken with women. Women’s bodies are dismembered in ads. Hacked apart and just one part of the body is focused on, which of course, is the most dehumanising thing you can do to someone.”

Jean’s work has been lauded by everyone from Harvard Business School to AdWeek to Mayo Clinic to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. And, all signs point to her movement becoming mainstream. However, many agencies have been slow to pick up on this.

A 2014 study from the New York shop The Terri & Sandi Solution found that women control 85 percent of purchasing choices, but 91 percent of them still feel that advertisers do not understand them. How can advertising agencies continue to get this all so wrong? Well, the industry’s leaders are largely male. Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and founder of Leanin.org, has said “I’m a deep believer that we need more women in leadership roles.”

Leanin.org — Sheryl’s nonprofit dedicated to empowering women — has taken its campaign to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the annual love-in and expense-account frenzy event for the global creative communications and advertising community. Sheryl created the Glass Lion award to celebrate advertising that is free from gender stereotypes. As a result, Cannes has seen an increase in campaigns created consciously with gender equality in mind.

Facebook, in partnership with Badger & Winters, the New York advertising agency led by CEO Madonna Badger, also evaluated six million boosted posts and ads. They found that marketing toward gender equality results in eight-to-10 percent higher brand favorability than those that do not. A great example of this is Microsoft’s Make What’s Next ad, which increased brand favourability by 19 percent.

Those who are taking notice and responsibility for the importance of gender equality, both in the actual ads and in the teams that create them, are reaping the rewards. Brands are standing up and demanding it. General Mills, HP, Inc. and Verizon have all stated that marketers are expected to have deep understanding and insight into their markets, decision makers and customers, and this depends on a team that represents the communities they serve. All of these brands have stated that failure to diversify could mean their business would go elsewhere.

Agencies like Badger & Winters are wasting no time. Their team has taken a pledge to stop objectifying women. The agency, which serves beauty and fashion brands like Avon and Vera Wang, will also limit the airbrushing of women in its ads. They announced their new-found morality with Women Not Objects, an instantly viral ad that launched in January 2016, but owes a great debt to Jean Kilbourne.

Morality aside, women overwhelmingly control purchasing power. If agencies want to reach and influence women and their dollars, they need to acknowledge that women are human and have value in front of the camera and are vital members of their leadership and creative teams.

In hiring agencies that are not paying attention to holistic gender equality, brands are risking alienating their bottom line.


Originally published at elephant.md.

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