“We’ve made progress, but there’s still so much to do for the next generation of female leaders,” states Melanie Huggins, chief strategy officer, Ogilvy Paris.
Sadly, the creative department in agencies is one area that is resisting progress. An astute strategist, Huggins analyses both the situation – let’s call it a business problem of gender inequality in agencies – and solutions. This five-minute read is a valuable insight, helping International Women’s Day to do its job well.
I’ve been working in the industry for over 25 years, so of course I’ve seen a lot of positive change
throughout this time for women.
Why is important?
Firstly, as we continue to move things forward, we need to keep reminding ourselves why getting to
gender equality in agencies is important. It’s not just about being ethical, ticking a diversity quota
box or enabling the next #girlpower hashtag, it’s about recognising it as business imperative.
It’s a business imperative because women account for 51% of the global population, make up around
80% of purchasing decisions and account for 31.8 trillion dollars of global spending. It’s therefore
common sense that we need to have more women at all levels of our industry, and in every
department, who can create work that resonates with women and can drive them to purchase the
brands we look after.
And it’s a business imperative because, many of our clients are ahead of us in creating diverse,
inclusive cultures that represent the consumers of the brands they own, and they are expecting us to
do the same.Diversity in Planning departments is essential.
One of our greatest constraints, as planners operating in a Parisian ad agency, is breaking away from
being too ‘Parisian’. If we are the voice of the people, how can we ensure day by day that we reflect
everyone, including those who are not us?
So, more women, yes – but It’s not just about being more female. In my department right now we
are 90% female, but we are also French, English, Mexican, LGBTQ, Black, White, Gen Z-ers, 50+,
Mums and happily childless… and it won’t stop there. I truly want a team that represents French
society, but that is also multi-cultural and embraces people from the rest of the world too.
We need this diversity to truly understand all the different audiences we are trying to reach. On
every brief we’re working on, beyond looking at data, I’m constantly asking myself: ‘are we sure
we’re truly under the skin of the people we want to talk to? Who can we recruit and talk to, to really
understand our audience better?’ For me, it’s the only way to make great work.
Of course, this type of team make-up is a leap forward, because back in the day, planning
departments were typically teams of people of privilege, coming from the same schools and
universities with similar values and views of the world. I’m proud of this team, and how much better
we are getting as an industry at embracing people from all walks of life.
We are still struggling in creative departments
But we don’t necessarily see this diversity everywhere. For some reason it’s been harder to get to the
same level of diversity within creative departments around the globe. While women make up
roughly half of the advertising industry’s workforce, only about 12.6%* of creative director
positions are held by women.
We need to get better at understanding what the barriers are for women – long working hours,
maternity leave, gender bias, toxic work cultures and misogynistic leadership are, I believe some of
the things that prevent women from making their way up the creative ladder or even into creative
departments.
It’s time to fix tough objectives to get to 50:50 parity in every agency department, and we need to
make sure that we are looking through an inclusive lens at our supplier diversity too.
Not just more women – more senior women
Companies that promote women tend to show higher returns** but still there is a persistent glass
ceiling for women.
We need to keep making sure that women are represented right at the top of our agencies, that we
are nurturing, growing, and promoting women into the most senior positions, and that we keep
addressing the gender pay gap, which is still prevalent.
At Ogilvy, 50% of our global leadership team is female and our EMEA CEO is a woman too. At Ogilvy
Paris, six of the board-members are women. We’re also the second-best agency in France regarding
the gender pay gap index.
We can be proud of how far we’ve come at Ogilvy – it’s time to make it happen elsewhere too.
Addressing the pregnancy penalty
To get more women into top positions, we must recognize that the ‘pregnancy penalty’ is still real.
There’s so much data that shows that the decision for women to have children is the point at which
their career starts to take a backward slide. We need to put support into place that makes being a
parent compatible with agency life.
France has the highest number of women in Europe who return to work after having a child because
childcare is more accessible and costs less than in countries such as the UK and the US. But the three-month statutory maternity leave takes a huge toll, at least from my own experience, on
the mental and physical health of women returning to work. Companies that invest in extended
maternity leave for their employees are far more likely to sweep up the very best female talent.
There are many positive steps happening to address this at Ogilvy, but we need to go much further.
The parental mental burn-out
We also need more mums and dads in the most senior positions not to hide their kids but to talk
openly about the struggles of balancing parenting and working. Recent data in France and the UK
shows that around half of mums are struggling with their mental health*** including depression,
anxiety and burn-out.
We now need to find ways to support mums when they start to feel dragged down by their daily
mental load which, as research shows, is often heavier than men’s. We are currently working on a charter to restrict the scheduling of meetings before 9.30am and after 6pm, which will, of course, help mums and dads to work around childcare, but I’d love us to extend this to make full flexible working possible too. I work a 4.5-day week (kids don’t go to school on Wednesday afternoons in France) and I hope this shows other women that is possible to try and make your job work around you.
The impact of women’s health issues
There is an increasing awareness, too, around the various physical and mental health factors that
can affect women in the workplace, such as endometriosis and the menopause. WPP is not only
creating awareness around these issues but is also, through the Stella programme, giving women who have a doctor’s note 5 extra days per month of remote working when they don’t feel physically up to working or getting into the office.
There are more nuanced barriers to address
Beyond being female, being a mum and the health issues, we also need to address the additional
barriers some women face. I come from a ‘working-class’ background, so I do feel aware of the additional challenges that exist in even getting into the industry, let alone thriving in it. When I started out in the UK, if you didn’t have the right accent, you probably wouldn’t get a job in the industry. Thankfully, things have changed since then.
At Ogilvy Paris we have put into place two programmes – ‘Bet on Us’, which aims to recruit young
people from lower socio-economic and under-privileged social and cultural backgrounds, and ‘Hors
circuit’, which helps artists and creatives who are ‘off the circuit’ become visible and develop their
network. Both are brilliant ways of getting people into the industry who would otherwise be stuck
outside the system.
There are other sub-groups of women to think about too.
Research shows, too****, that 53% of lesbian women declared to have been the victim of a harassment
or discrimination at work in France, 43% of transgender and non-binary individuals report being
victims of sexual harassment, and 47% experience rejection from their colleagues.
We need to get better at making sure that we are addressing the issues faced by all individuals who
are part of the LGBTQ+ community, regardless of their gender expression or sexual orientation.
Age is the biggest form of discrimination in the workplace*****, and we need to be mindful that we work
in an industry where, even though both Boomers and Generation X outspend Millennials, we
celebrate youth, position older people as being ‘out of touch’ and actively shift them out of the
industry.
So many of our client briefs ask us to recruit new younger consumers without alienating an old
consumer base’. It’s just common sense, therefore, that we need age diversity across all departments
to ensure we create work that’s relevant to the demographic of the people we’re talking to, young
and old.
*CreativeEquals : “The 30 women trailblazing in creative right now”
** Blackrock study : ” Lifting financial performance by investing in women” November 2023
*** Baromètre de santé au travail Malakoff Humanis 2023
**** Radiofrance : “”Être femme et lesbienne au travail, c’est la double peine” : une enquête dévoile l’ampleur de la lesbophobie” 05/2022
***** Radiofrance : “”Être femme et lesbienne au travail, c’est la double peine” : une enquête dévoile l’ampleur de la lesbophobie” 05/2022a
