Rachel Pashley — Head, Female Tribes Consulting
Rachel talks to TheNextGag about heading a global consultancy, what you should avoid doing when communicating towards women and why we have enough talks about gender issues.
Rachel Pashley is the Head of Female Tribes Consulting in the UK.
J. Walter Thompson London is launching an industry first business consultancy called Female Tribes Consulting, out of its leading global Female Tribes Initiative.
Female Tribes Consulting takes the insights and understanding from the global Female Tribes Women’s Index study (8,000 Women in 19 countries) and helps clients re-design their businesses through a female lens by delivering a full set of bespoke consultancy products and services.
It has already completed a consultancy project for Forevermark, consulting on the redesign of the rings in its Tribute ring collection and is working on projects with a number of other clients.
THENEXTGAG: HOW DO YOU HOPE TO GROW FEMALE TRIBES CONSULTING ?
RACHEL PASHLEY: Our vision is to build it organically through a mix of projects and longer term assignments. We work alongside the main agency so we draw in expertise as necessary. It’s really important to create a bespoke team based upon the project scope.
There are some industries that are more traditionally male, where we think there’s still a lot of opportunity for brands to stand out through being faster and smarter in recognising the needs of a female audience.
TNG: WHAT INDUSTRIES DO YOU BELIEVE WOULD BENEFIT THE MOST FROM WORKING WITH FEMALE TRIBES CONSULTING ?
RP: That’s a really difficult question to answer, there are some industries that are more traditionally male — say automotive or financial services where we think there’s still a lot of opportunity for brands to stand out through being faster and smarter in recognising the needs of a female audience and we think there’s still lots of scope as yet. But equally we also work with more traditionally ‘female’ categories, looking to expand their offering or tune into a different audience or create a more authentic relationship. So we’ve been approached by clients from a wide variety of industries, which is what makes life really interesting and rewarding … It’s constantly stimulating.
TNG: WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG ?
RP: Building a global study of this scale and depth takes time: the worst thing we could do would be to launch with something superficial. We’ve been at pains to dig deep and develop diversity of insight across geographies, cultures and ages. It’s something we’ll constantly be adding to, equally we had to test the market, to understand if our perception of the need and opportunity matched those of our clients.
TNG: WILL YOU BE WORKING WITH CURRENT J. WALTER THOMPSON CLIENTS ?
RP: Yes, we already have, and given women make up to two thirds of consumer purchases, many of our clients regard women as their primary audience.
TNG: WHO WILL BE STAFFING THE CONSULTANCY ?
RP: We have a core team who work within the consultancy and we draw in expertise as necessary from the main agency — we want to be able to offer a bespoke service depending on the needs of the client.
TNG: WE JUST HAD OUR FIRST REAL-BLOOD ADVERT, WHAT ARE THE NEXT BARRIERS TO OVERCOME ?
RP: This year in collaboration with the Geena Davis Institute we analysed over 10 years worth of Cannes entries. The results demonstrate women don’t get much screen time, we don’t see a diverse representation and we don’t see women in positions of power, or intelligence: those are just a few of the barriers we need to address! We’re still much more likely to present women either in the kitchen or the bedroom and that’s a problem given how advertising shapes our view of the world, after all it’s designed to be persuasive.
TNG: CAN YOU TALK TO US ABOUT THE UPCOMING FEMALE TRIBES REPORT ?
RP: We have a new report coming out shortly on The New Femininity which explores the dimensions of contemporary femininity, and our intent is that the findings will help challenge our current presentation of femininity. We’re also gearing up for Women’s Index 2018
TNG: WHAT WAS THE REASON WHY FOREVERMARK APPROACHED YOU ?
RP: Forevermark are incredibly astute and recognised the opportunity for diamonds outside of the traditional codes of ‘love gifting’, and that’s a pretty exciting brief to work on. It’s fantastic to work in partnership with clients upstream, not just on communication and it’s incredibly creative and rewarding.
TNG: WHAT IS THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION WHEN MARKETING TO WOMEN ?
RP: That we’re all the same. We all want the same things. We all want children and once we have them we all behave in the same way.
TNG: SHOULD WE TRY TO GET MORE MEN ON STAGE AND IN THE AUDIENCE AT GENDER-EQUALITY PANELS ?
RP: Of course. And it’s changing already, audiences are much more mixed. But to be honest, whilst I want to see more men on gender equality panels, I’d like to see way more women in board rooms on the creative floors, in the science labs, behind the camera, on the podium, and to feel that it was normal. Panels are one thing, but the real world is another, we need to stop talking about it and start doing it. So I should probably sign off!
Rachel Pashley
Group Planning Head
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