August 31, 2016 • 55 mins
Women work nearly half of all ad jobs, but the industry remains rife with sexism. Cristen and Caroline spotlight the discrimination, harassment and culture that continue to complicate the ad business' relationship with women and people of color.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stupports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and welcome to part two of our
look at Women in the Advertising agency. In the last episode,
(00:24):
we talked about the history of women, specifically white women
in the industry, and now we're going to hop forward
to look at the landscape today because things aren't all
that great, shall we say. Yeah, Kristen and I were
exchanging research links and sources leading up to today, and
(00:47):
there was a bit of commentary on how depressing all
the headlines were. Well, yeah, so, so many sad headlines.
I know that I hopped into this hoping like, well,
I'm sure you know there's gonna be the typical talk
about like male dominated this and you know, sexism that.
But surely there's like a lot of great stuff to
talk about. Well, uh, for the landscape today, not so much.
(01:10):
I mean I think that there is uh some stuff
to be optimistic about. There's a lot more conversation happening
today about women's exclusion from the higher ranks of the
ad industry. Um, there's a lot of acknowledgement for where
women are shining. Women are outnumbering men in mini sectors
of advertising and marketing. UM. And there's a lot of
(01:33):
conversation around uh changing the industries whole culture in terms
of UH familyly paid, family lyve UM, making the culture
more friendly to people with families. But so many things
are still just so rough. And before we get into
(01:55):
that rough stuff, why don't we break down some ad
agents see departments to give folks an idea of the
type of work that's happening in advertising. UM. Not surprisingly,
going into advertising, you would usually have a business or
communication background. UM, you might have an understanding of psychology, design,
(02:20):
writing in journalism. Changing technology is kind of a no brainer. Yeah.
So here some different departments in areas of advertising include
account management. You're basically the person who works for the agency.
It's your job to get the best work done for
the client but still at a profit for the agency.
You've got account planning, which is the person who make
(02:43):
sure that the consumer's perspective is fully considered when advertising
is being developed. That person probably does a lot of
research into consumer psychology and behavior. So I feel like
Kristen and I would really shine we're pros at research. UH.
And then you've got the creative department. It. So these
are the people who are actually taking the ideas and
(03:04):
imagery and the word parts and stringing them together into
a beautiful pizza of of an ad. I love that
a pizza ad. They make the pizza. It's a stuffed crust,
multi topping thing that gets you to buy stuff. So
(03:24):
in this analogy, Don Draper is a pizza pie maker.
He is Papa John. He's like, imagine pizza on the counter,
cats looking at it. That's all I got. Yeah, I
I got nothing. Um the creative department. I I was
(03:46):
in an in house a company's in house marketing department,
and I was on the creative team as a writer.
And how was it? It was so fun? Was that sarcasm? Maybe? Uh?
What kind of what kind of stuff? Though? Did you do?
Did you do? It? Was? It just sort of a
campaign would come up from creative and you would tippy
(04:08):
type the words. Basically, the marketing representatives in the department
would work with the client, which was really just another
department in the company because again we were in house.
They would figure out what they needed to promote or
drive traffic to and would set up a campaign working
with us as the creative team, so I would write
(04:29):
or edit the copy for something, working closely with my
graphic designer buddies, who would then make everything look really nice.
Although my creative director would kill me if she heard
me sum it up as they make it look real
mass because she frequently complained about people who dismissed creative teams.
Is just making things look pretty? Yeah, because you're also
(04:50):
making pizza, right, because you're also making ad pizza. Yeah,
so you and your job. You would be writing the
pizza menu. Yeah, okay, totally, I might be giving you
the ingredient list. Excellent. Yeah, I love this metaphor A
lot is easier to understand if you just put it
in pizza terms. I'm telling you, well, you also have
in our our pizza parlor the media department, which is
(05:12):
responsible for placing ads where it will reach the right
people at the right time, in the right place in
a cost effective way. So, for instance, you might not
want to buy ad space in g Q for tampons.
And if you are advertising something like the latest smartphone, uh,
(05:34):
maybe it's better to advertise on a website than on
a newspaper page, or maybe just a brochure you kind
of leave out on the sidewalk and hope someone picks up.
I'm gonna send you a postcard about the iPhone. And
finally we have interactive marketing. Um, the opportunities in this
(05:55):
our biggest in areas of design, marketing, and computer programming
agent sees. Of course these days need computer based designers
and programmers as well as strategists who understand how marketers
can use interactive media creatively and effectively. And um, I
actually know some folks who are in really cool interactive
(06:17):
marketing where they are designing experiences and using a lot
of technology and a lot of like virtual reality and
augmented reality to do that. Yeah, so advertising is not
simply designing something or simply just telling people they need
to go by the thing. There is a lot, as
(06:39):
you can see, a lot of strategy and psychology and
technology that's all wrapped up in working in the AD industry.
And there are a lot of women working in the
ad industry. Women make up nearly half of all ad
industry employees, and things are pretty gender balanced if you
look at account manage ment and services, media planning and buying,
(07:03):
and women out number men in media agencies marketing and
strategic planning, so all as well. Right, totally, everything's great,
especially since we're starting to see more women being hired
as CEO s. Like, I'm episode over, what are we
even talking about? Yeah, why are we complaining? We're always
victimizing ourselves, like those men's rights advocates thing. Those men
(07:23):
are right, They were right the whole time. Well, if
it sounds vague to just say more women are coming
into jobs, uh, it's because, frankly, the industry is doing
a pretty poor job at policing itself. There are really
not a lot of solid numbers out there by which
to judge progress. So if you're like, I'm interested in
(07:43):
learning how many women there were in nineteen sixty five
versus ninety five versus two thousand five, will like, sister,
good luck. Um. Now, you do have a few groups
crunching the numbers. Not surprisingly, they are groups focused on diversity.
You have the three percent Conference, which is named for
(08:04):
the estimate of female creative directors in two back when
the group was formed. You've got the Advertising Women of
New York, which should sound familiar to you. It's an
industry group that we talked a lot about in our
first episode, which was founded because the Advertising League didn't
allow women correct a mundo. You have the four A's,
which is a trade association, and the thirty percent Club,
(08:27):
which is not necessarily advertising specific, but it's a group
of business leaders who are trying to increase women's representation
on SMP five hundred boards to thirty percent by the
end of So it took people with a special interest
and that special interest being no longer having advertising being
(08:48):
just like Lily white and doodish, uh to try to
get these numbers in hand to help enhance diversity and
therefore creativity. And we have seen you know, the dial
move for the three percent conference for instance, Uh, you
know three percent in now it's closer to So we're
(09:11):
in double digit, just barely. UM. An ad veteran av Dan,
who is a dude, UH, credits Client Boards with pressuring
Madison Avenue to hire more women in general. Agencies, he writes,
are warming to the idea that maybe it's not a
good idea to always have men only pitch meetings. An
(09:31):
entire team of dudes walking in to pitch something, whether
it is UH something targeted towards men, or whether it
is tampons and agencies have similarly been lobbied to hire
more people of color. Um av Dan also says, quote
advertising continues to discriminate against African Americans. That was something
that we talked about at the end of our last episode,
(09:53):
looking at the history of the industry, which was so
so so white for so so long. UM, and people
of color continue to be very underrepresented and also underpaid
compared to white co workers. Yeah, African Americans make up
just five percent of the professional and management roles in advertising,
(10:14):
and they're only about half as likely as their white
colleagues to work in advertising agencies, creative and clients services functions. Uh.
Not to mention hello that black college grads working in
advertising earned eighty cents for every dollar earned by their
equally qualified white counterparts. But even if people of color
(10:36):
are are paid equitably in agencies, that doesn't guarantee that
the work environment UM is similarly enriching. Maybe that's the
way to put it UM for instance, for instance, I mean,
I can't even believe this is an example. We have
(10:58):
Campbell Ewald CE Jim Palmer, who was fired after a
white creative leader at the agency's San Antonio office sent
an email in October inviting staffers to take part in No,
We're not making this up a ghetto day. Yeah, so
you've got writer Jim Hoke. He's the one who sent
(11:20):
out this awful email. He joined Campbell Ewald san Antonio
as an executive creative director. I just want you to
pin that in your brain that this jerk was a
creative director. So anyway, he sent out this email. I'm
not going to read the whole thing, but he basically
uses a lot of terrible language. He encourages people to
(11:41):
pop a freak with us and says that you could
enjoy ghetto music and malt forty five at lunch. And
he closes it up by saying word my cerebral gangsters,
which is honestly to me, like, yeah, this guy's an
idiot and he's clearly racist. But like, also, he I
think thinks of himself a little highly to call himself cerebral.
(12:04):
And there's also an issue of ages m that comes
up a lot. More than fifty of employees in the
ad industry are under forty five versus of just all
workers um generally in the US, and the median age
of workers in advertising is thirty eight. Versus close to
(12:25):
forty four all workers. Um, So the they tend to
be a little bit younger. Writers and art directors are
usually between twenty five and thirty five. So if you're
older than that, as av Dan says, you've either made
it to the executive floor, or you've been downsized, or
(12:45):
you've just left and started something else. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh,
it's not well. And I feel like it's this way
in a lot of creative or tech fields, Like it's
just not very welcoming to older people in those maybe
like non director positions. Um. Okay, so we've told you
kind of where the women are, but where are they not? Well,
(13:08):
that would generally be the creative department on the whole.
And it's interesting to look at advertising from the same
perspective we normally look at uh, STEM jobs with because
it sounds like creative departments on the whole have a
leaky pipeline. Yeah, because portfolio schools are graduating equal if
(13:28):
not more numbers of women as men. But women are
still just eleven point five percent of ad agency creative directors. Um,
and that actually is still high for a lot of companies.
The three Percent conference reached out to eight women in
both creative and non creative roles, and six of them
(13:51):
said that their current employer falls below that eleven percent mark. Yeah.
So we also have to look at the biggest advertising
bonanza in the United States, which is the Super Bowl.
It's a great example. It's a great little micro cosm
of who's doing what what. Advertising movers and shakers are
rising to the top. Uh. If you look at the
(14:12):
Super Bowls, of of the creative directors of those ads
air during the Super Bowl were men. And of the
sixty or so ads that aired during the game in particular,
not one was led by a person of color. And
that also translates to awards, which are huge in the industry. Um.
(14:36):
The One Club has a Creative Hall of Fame and
out of its fifty three members, a whopping six are women. Uh.
In two thousand nine, ad Age published an a list
cover featuring one woman and ten men. Yeah. That one
woman was Deutsch Inc. North America CEO Linda Sawyer. She's
(15:00):
now actually moved up to chairman. Uh, and her take
at the time was quote, the C suite remains oddly
absent of women. Yeah, I mean that a Liss cover
reminds me of the Vanity Fair cover with the late
night hosts, but it was all men. They didn't even
have a token, a token Linda. There was no token Linda.
(15:22):
If only we had more Linda's. Although don't get me wrong,
I don't think that Linda Linda Sawyer is token by
any mean. Linda's the bob boss. Lady, Linda, are you listening.
We're not taking it for granted, Linda, Please don't hate us. Um,
but okay, so, so go, let's go back to the pipeline. No,
why are women walking away? Welcome to smenty. It's really
(15:43):
the same. It's the same well refrained that you hear
in so many, so many fields. Yeah, I mean women
are just lazy and would rather be shopping right exactly
exactly the women from our first episode on advertising. We're
just too effective. Uh well, yeah, So basically, let's start
with how few mentors there are. There's generally just low
(16:06):
visibility of women in high ranking roles in the ad industry,
and with so few women up at the tippy top,
there's not a clear path for other women to follow,
women who might have an eye on that creative director position. Um.
There was a sixteen survey by Creative Equals and the
Young Creative Council, and it was a little safe. Of
(16:31):
the female creatives that they surveyed said that they had
never worked with a female creative director or executive creative director.
Eighty eight percent said they lacked role models, and six
said that advertising is a career that does not support families.
Where you do see a really great example is one
(16:54):
displayed by Margaret Johnson as she has climbed up the
ad ladder. In Onson became the executive creative director and
partner at good Be Silverstein and Partners, where six of
department heads are women. That's awesome. Um, And since her promotion, uh,
female staffers agreement with the survey statement that they quote
(17:14):
unquote feel empowered has more than tripled. Because it's great.
It's wonderful that there are so many women department heads
in this agency. That's fabulous. But to have a woman
be in that executive creator creative director position where so
few women are I can imagine that you as a
lower rung employee trying to figure out what you're gonna
(17:37):
do with your career, that that is inspiring. Yeah, I mean,
and it's just a great example of how it doesn't
have to be the other way. You know, there is
a right way to do it. And I'll say that
you know, um, friends of mine who are in advertising,
you know where we're all around about thirty and the
(17:58):
whole marriage and kids usian is huge because everyone pretty
much knows like, Okay, if I if I want to
get my promotion, I need to time it correctly if
I want to have a kid, because otherwise you're not
gonna really be able to do it. And it's the
(18:19):
same issue that came up in our architecture episode where
right around the same time that people are buckling down
to climb on up, it's when our ovaries are like hello,
TikTok um, filling up with cobwebs already so or those
just mine talking? How do you even clean cobwebs out
(18:44):
of your ovaries? That's called yperiod, Carolina. Oh see, I
didn't have proper sex at so I wasn't sure what
to do about the ovarian cobwebs. And the reason why
this is such a crunch is because, especially in creative departments,
you're regularly working until you know, midnight to three am,
(19:07):
I mean, and and the thing is and I'm saying
this as an outsider, but talking to people who are insiders,
the number of hours you work is a badge of honor.
I have a very good friend who works at an agency, UM,
whose boss, who's creative director UM A fellow said that,
(19:32):
you know, the team just wasn't working hard enough, UM,
and you all should be here until two am every night,
and made them that night like stay and redo a
whole project. And she was like, yeah, I went home
at like four am. It's ridiculous. What time does she
have to be at work? Like eight am? Lord, you
(19:56):
know you don't want to hang out with me if
I've only had like two hours of sleep, I assure you, Yeah,
And it is. It's totally a badge of honor. And
it's totally like it's the same kind of thing in journalism,
like the badge of honor of being in the trenches
with your fellow sleep deprived alcoholics. You know, like my
(20:19):
creative director at that marketing in house marketing department, you know,
she had two kids, she wanted a family. She was
a total badass. She's so creative and funny and weird,
like just the right kind of person you want to
be a creative director, but that lifestyle was just not
sustainable and and she missed it. You know, she missed
(20:41):
the fast pace, she missed I think she kind of
liked the boys club. Um, but if you want to
have a life, you know you you can't have it
when you're working until three in the morning. It's just
not uh, it's not doable. And this is something that
add into street veteran Janet Keston has pointed out. Keston
(21:03):
worked for Ogilvie and Mather and she's since gone on
with a partner to form a group called Swim whose
purpose is to really like kind of mentor and guide
young advertising newbies. But Keston says that while we're seeing
more and more industries creating support systems for working moms,
advertising is like way behind. She says, we're so as
(21:27):
an industry, so beholden to timesheets and hours build as
a demonstration of the value provided to me. It's a
wrong headed way to think about it. Now the world
has changed. And this also hammers home how if you
are trying to do this, having a really supportive partner
at home is really helpful, because he ad industry culture
(21:51):
rewards people who are so career focused and also career primary,
not primary caregivers. Yeah, And so ad industry recruiters say that,
you know, frankly, just being honest, it can be really
hard to find women who have stayed long enough to
reach that creative director point. Um. Those who do stick
(22:12):
around tend to have a partner whose career is secondary.
And of course that's talking about people with families, like
we're not even talking about single people or whatever. Um.
But yeah, if you're gonna be part of if you're
going to be a leader in that cutthroat uh industry
um where things are so fast paced and competitive, you
(22:33):
you have to be the career primary partner. And when
you hear about certain gaffs uh happening among executives, it
makes you wonder what is said about women behind closed doors,
because in two thousand five, Neil French, who was the
worldwide creative director for the giant ad holding company w
(22:56):
P p UM, said that there are so few few
all creative directors because women are crap, that's a quote,
crap at the job. And he referred to the time
women spend nursing their newborns and claimed that quote women
don't make it to the top because they don't deserve
to now. Of course he then resigned. Um but and
(23:20):
of course that was also eleven years ago, so we
would hope that things have progressed since then. Unfortunately, we
also have in June six, rap CEO that's wrap acronym
r app. This isn't that horrible creative director in San
Antonio coming back again? Rap CEO Alexei or Law resigned
(23:42):
after being sued for destructive behavior. The suit claimed that
he had referred to multiple women as fat cows. Oh
it doesn't stop there. He told a Jewish employee that
he was miserly with money. He refused to promote a
female executive because she was two pretty uh, And he
once told a meeting of approximately seventy employees in Dallas,
(24:06):
mess with my brand or my direction, and I will
break off your finger and shove it up your deep um.
Which Actually, that last one I think is kind of
funny because I feel like I might have said something
like that as a writer in an in house marketing
department more than once. And and it was a sentiment
(24:30):
supported by my creative director, symons. There you go, stop
messing with our creative decisions. Marketing team yeah, I feel
like that statement of his is the least offensive, just
because just because you use a sort of bad word
and threaten someone, that's I feel like that's the least Yeah,
(24:54):
it's the least problematic of the rest of those things. Well,
and the next thing that we have to tackle is
the elephant in the industry right now that actually inspired
us to take two episodes to look into it is
sexual harassment, because it is still a huge problem. And
before we get into it, I just want to quickly
(25:18):
travel back to our first episode and sort of where
everything left off, where you have women being accepted into
the early industry for their quote unquote female viewpoint to
sell this idealized um and sexualized often portrayal of women,
(25:40):
and it seems like these same kinds of values are
regurgitated and recycled within the industry itself. It's like, you know,
maybe the the ad folks thought they could outsmart the
sexism they were selling, but indeed, no not. So we're
(26:02):
going to talk about that when we come right back
from a quick break and now back to the show. Okay,
So Kristen said that we were going to talk about
the sexual harassment elephant. So it's a big problem. It's
(26:24):
a big elephant. It's a big old elephant. Um, we're
gonna start you off with some stats that seem pretty bad,
and then they're gonna get worse. Okay, So I just
want to prepare you that three percent conference did a study.
They found that of women in advertising said that they
had personally experienced gender discrimination, said that they had personally
(26:47):
experienced or witnessed sexual harassment. Okay, that's a large chunk.
That's a quarter of ad women saying that they had
experienced or witness sexual harassment. But that trade groupe, the
four A's, they've done a more recent survey this year
in sixteen, and they found that more than half of
the women that they surveyed had experienced sexual harassment at
(27:11):
least once. And I would be willing to bet, as
is the case so often, that that number is actually
higher because you've got to keep in mind that there
are people who love that culture, that rough and tumble,
say whatever the f you want, fast paced, competitive, creative culture.
They love it even if a butt grab or a
(27:34):
snide comment comes along with it. Yeah, I mean. And
and also just think about the fact that objectification is
kind of part of the job. You know, I'm not
trying to cast all of advertising is one giant villain.
But um, and I'm sure that it's different from agency
to agency and department to department. Um, but you have
(27:58):
a lot of elements just within the very work that
you're doing that it seems like would would foster that
kind of behavior. Also in sixteen, in March, jw t's
chief communications officer, Aaron Johnson, filed a suit against Gustavo Martinez,
the chief executive, and this lawsuit has kind of sent
ripples across the industry. UM. Johnson alleges that he subjected
(28:22):
employees to quote an unending stream of racist and sexist comments,
as well as unwanted touching and other unlawful conduct, and
that he made numerous comments about rape and on multiple
occasions quote grabbed Johnson by the throat and by the
back of her neck. Yeah. Okay, So that leads me
(28:42):
to a quote that my eyes almost blugged out of
my head because here's the thing. There is that stuff
going on, but a lot of the sexism in the
industry tends to be more insidious, It tends to be
a little more under the surface. Uh, in terms of
excluding women or or whatever, rather than like outright physical
(29:03):
assault basically. And the New York Times did some great
interviews with a bunch of badass boss ladies and advertising
in media, and one of the women literally had the
quote of, yeah, all that rape talk happens, But a
lot of the sexual harassment is just more in attitudes.
It's more systemic and under the surface. It's like whoa, whoa,
(29:26):
you just dismissed rape talk. Oh okay, So maybe perhaps
there's a little bit of like a boy's will be
boys attitude going on. And um, the by far and
away the type of of sexism that was discussed loudly
by women in the industry was just the issue of
(29:49):
being ignored and excluded and overlooked. So the women in
this New York Times article cited things like being left
out of business meetings that were couched in social event
so not going to the golf game, the stake din er,
the box seats, the scotch drinking sessh. All of those
dude club activities where it's like, no, this is just
for the boys. Um. In some cases literally being overlooked men,
(30:13):
assuming you're not the partner or the boss or the
director whoever you are, um but also being overlooked for
promotions and decision making roles. Thirty three percent of women
in one of those four a's surveys said that there
have been at least a few times when they haven't
received the assignments of promotions they wanted because of outright discrimination,
(30:34):
and told the survey takers that discrimination had led to
their exclusion from decision making. So, uh, no, big surprise
that more than half of respondents in that for AS
surveys said that their gender made them feel either somewhat
or very vulnerable to discrimination, and almost two thirds either
(30:56):
agreed somewhat or totally that there were times that they
pers only experienced discrimination without even recognizing it only in hindsight.
Are you're like, oh wait what, oh yeah, that's part
of the thing of like if if something, if you
feel that something is just an aspect of the culture
and that you again are just in the trenches at
four am with your co workers, you you might not
(31:19):
think of it necessarily as discrimination or as completely outlandish
and uncalled for. And the thing is, it's not that
women have not tried to call it out, but again,
you have to keep in mind the culture um. Also
in The New York Times, a lot of those women
that they talked to said that when they have tried
(31:40):
to have discussions about sexism in the office, male executives
tend to become very uncomfortable and close the conversation very quickly,
whether we're talking about um, gender discrimination or racial discrimination. Yeah,
and and a lot of those women themselves said that
they had trouble even bringing up the issue of sexism
(32:03):
or gender bias in the industry. And a lot of
the women would not even to The New York Times
provide specifics about gender bias or harassment or anything like
that that they had seen because they were more concerned
about protecting their relationships in the industry. And there just
seems to be a general attitude um among too many
(32:24):
male leaders in the industry that it's just someone else's problem,
which leads us to the ulster of uh SACCI and
SACCI chairman Kevin Roberts, who was also the head coach
at the advertising agency's parent company, Publicist Group, who said
that he just doesn't spend any time on gender issues
(32:47):
as agencies at all. I mean, I don't know if
Roberts was doing conducting this Business Insider interview over some
scotches because he just said so so many mind boggling
and just blind statements about how like, no, you know this,
(33:12):
it really doesn't exist. I mean, he was like this,
he was way worse than sectors like financial services, where
there are problems left right and center. The essentially trying
to claim that sexism within the advertising industry is a
moot point and it's solved. And at one point it
kind of seemed like he was trying to say that we,
(33:36):
since we recognize that there had been a problem, that
that's all the progress we need, but that that the
debate he framed it as the debate over gender discrimination
is over, which I was like, maybe he means that,
like we aren't debating that it's a fact anymore. But
then as he continued talking and completely marginalizing women's experiences
(33:57):
of gender discrimination and sexual harassment, it became very clear
that Mr Roberts is very out of touch. Yeah, I mean,
he basically said that, well, my group doesn't have a
problem because there are so many women in uh, there's
so many women on staff, so we don't we don't
need to worry about it. Um, And he even took
(34:19):
like you could almost read that article and be like, I, okay,
I can see like the people who are defending you
and saying that you're misunderstood, Like I can almost see
where they're coming from. But he takes all of these
pot shots at Cindy Gallup, who is another ad industry
veteran and someone who is a very vocal and active
(34:40):
advocate for diversity um in the industry. And she so
she would not be one of those women in the
New York Times who was unwilling to speak about sexismmer
or gender bias. Uh. And he basically said that, uh,
Cindy just wants to get up on her soapbox and
get attention. Yeah, she's just kind of making it up,
kicking up some dirt um. And he patted himself on
(35:02):
the back because granted, Publicist group does have about gender
split among its staff um, while around sixty of Sacchi
and Sacchi is female, you know, so looking at his
own backyard, he's like, the sexual discrimination does not exist.
(35:23):
But then the point where I was like, oh no,
or I started stopped giving him any benefit of any
doubt was when when he starts spiraling into this whole
idea that millennial women don't want to be creative directors
and executives. They just enjoy doing the work. He said, quote.
(35:44):
Their ambition is not a vertical ambition. It's this intrinsic,
circular ambition to be happy, to which I wanted to
throw my laptop out the window because I have felt
that sentiment directly from male managers before. And oh, it's
making me so mad just to think about right now,
(36:06):
the idea that I derived just pleasure solely from my
work and I don't need to be compensated equitably for that. No,
you are sorely mistaken, bra Women are a flat circle.
Women's ambition is a flat circle. Um. Well, the fallout
is that he was immediately forced to take a leave
(36:26):
about of absence, but rather than being fired, he is
resigning and his last day was set to be September one.
And the plus side of that Business Insider article, which
oh my gosh, I just wonder for that journalists like
as the interview was happening, you know, if they were
thinking like, oh my god, this is well, is this real?
(36:49):
Is this really happening? Like the way it's written, the
journalists keeps saying like and and then we brought up
the issue of this and he said this crazy thing.
And then we we said, well wait, but what about
about this? And he said this crazy thing. Yeah. At
certain points it seems like the journalists trying to kind
of help him out a little bit. But now Kevin Roberts,
you know, he he really knows women, so he should
(37:13):
get like a Cosmo column. Um. But but the the
great thing was to kind of watch it unfold through
Cyndy Gallops Twitter, because you know she she was right. Um,
And this has kicked off this larger conversation that a
(37:33):
lot of people are having a both because of um,
that lawsuit that Aaron Johnson brought also of course, um,
Kevin Roberts leaving, and that for as survey finding so
much sexual harassment. It seems like, you know, the industry
is at this point of like, Okay, what are we
going to do about this? Yeah? Well they I mean
(37:55):
they better be asking themselves that because there are far
broader implications for all of this nastiness than just kind
of a hostile working environment. I mean, if we're looking
inside the agency's like, if you're working in this type
of environment, female creatives or people of color in general
might struggle to get new ideas approved or push through
(38:18):
if the bulk of creative directors are white men, which
the bulk of creative directors are white men. Um, And
you know this ends up creating this inherent bias in
portrayals of women and people of color in the actual
advertisements themselves. Because think about it here, in still a
lot of the ads we see, uh fall back on
(38:39):
stereotypical gender roles, to say nothing of heteronormativity. I mean,
when you see the occasional ad with like a same
sex couple or an interracial couple, I mean there's a
lot of like to me, warm fuzzies. But to the
rest of the Internet, a lot of people are freaking out, Yeah,
oh oh for the day when um, same sex couple
(39:03):
commercial doesn't go viral, you know what I mean, because
it's not it's not such a such an extraordinary thing
to see, right. And then when you are looking outside
of the agency at female consumers, one massive problem that
results from having these inherent biases in the creators is
(39:25):
that female consumers don't end up seeing themselves properly reflected
in the ads they're looking at. Even though women control
about eighty percent of consumer spending. Yeah, there was um
a study conducted by Unilever which found that of women
don't recognize the faces being reflected back at them in advertising. Uh.
(39:46):
In other words, when I'm watching one of those yogurt
commercials where the women treat eating yogurt like winning the
lottery or really more accurately, like having really terrific sex, uh,
I don't know that woman. Like that woman is not me?
And I like yogurt, Caroline yogurt almost every day. Um,
(40:11):
do I want to date yogurt? No? Do I want
to spend a Friday night in with a silk robe
on with my yogurt? Is yogurt a Swedish man yogurt? Maybe?
So then if yogurt were my Swedish missus, then we
can talk perfect But okay, Solver youn Leiver broke it down, like,
(40:36):
why are women not recognizing themselves reflected in these ads?
And it's because, according to their tally, just three percent
of the women in the advertisements were portrayed in leadership roles.
Two percent. We're portrayed as intelligent and one person that
we're portrayed. That's funny. I mean there should be no surprise. Hello,
(40:56):
Just like think of like dish so bad's right where
the wife it's a buzz kill. She's wearing a green
vnux sweater. Uh, she's got to like take care of
the kids. And she's yelling at the husband and the
dad as a du fist, which, by the way, is
something that Cinndey Gallop also takes issue with. It's not
just portraying women as idiots, but it's portraying men as
(41:18):
idiots too, like and and I feel like there's a
greater cultural push against both of those things beyond just
Cindy Gallop's efforts. I feel like more people are waking
up to the fact of, like, hey, not all men
are idiots in the kitchen or idiots with their children,
just the same way as not all women are hanging
out in the kitchen with their kids all day. Yeah.
And and that's a form of sexism as well. Um
(41:41):
he has. And and speaking of those dishwashing detergent commercials,
there was one, um not too long ago, where these
two women, I want to say they were sisters, and
one was really good at getting her dishes really spotless,
and the other one wasn't so good at it. And
they have this whole rivalry because of it. It's just like, again,
(42:05):
who are those women like? Because let me know, so
I can make sure I am never around them unless
they want to talk dishwasher loading, in which case you know,
I enjoy it. You have a lot to say there,
I know. Um, But the whole thing that that Uni
lever figure is that it might actually in reality be worse.
(42:26):
So Cat Gordon, who's the founder and creative director of
the marketing agency Maternal Instinct, which she started because she
was like, marketing to mother's is the worst, Like people
are terrible at it. Uh. She cited a study in
which of female consumers said brands didn't understand them. So
what irony looking back at our first episode where women
(42:51):
were first hired into the industry at the turn of
the century for the female point of view to get
into women heads, and now today in of female customers,
I think that brands don't understand them. Yeah. Well, but
(43:11):
I guess the silver lining of that is I feel
better about like strangers around me on the street because
that just means like I have more in common with
stranger ladies than I than I thought I did. Because
if those ads are speaking if many, if if the
majority of ads are speaking to a lot of women again,
like who are these yogurt ladies laughing over over dairy
(43:34):
products and salads? And who are the women like in
fields with balloons and birth control ads? I mean, honestly,
I'd go to that field. I wish I identified with
with that care free balloon holding woman, birth control meadow,
contraception cavern, uh, contraception cavern? Is that where yogurt lives.
(44:01):
But of course it's not just female consumers and not
seeing themselves represented well, um, arguably it's even worse for
older people, people of color, of course, same sex couples,
gender nonconforming people. I mean, let's let's get stereotypical here.
I mean you see old older people, are elderly people
(44:22):
in like viagra ads when I am watching CNN in
the late morning hours. I see black people in ads
when it's for like predatory lending stuff and and things
like terrible insurance companies. Um, and same sex couples again,
like I think they had that one sup ad that time,
and or cereal and I've never seen them again. Well
(44:43):
that the Cheerios was the biracial couple Hallmark does it,
you know, Valentine's Day, same sex couple, um commercials. So
maybe you know, diversity is just kind of seasonal for
you know, for different holidays, we trot out like a
different group, like handing out Kenny, like well here here's yours, um,
(45:04):
you know, and people just deserve better. People deserve better.
And it might sound silly to say, because it's like
it's just advertising. Why why should someone who seven d
care if they're not, because they don't stop being a
person with needs and wants. They don't stop being a consumer.
If anything, the older you get, the more established in
your life and your bank account you are. So I mean,
(45:27):
older people are basically like the most important people that
politicians pander too because they're the ones who go out
and vote. But apparently they're not worth like putting in advertising.
And it matters too because advertising influences and reinforces our
stereotypes and our biases about all of these different groups
(45:49):
of people. Obviously, like advertising is not going to bring
us world peace, but good grief, they can definitely do better,
and a lot of people in the industry want it
to do better. Yeah, So Janet Keston, whom we cited earlier,
points out very helpfully that the role of women isn't
a women's issue, it's a human issue. Everybody needs to
(46:13):
be part of it for things to change. Of course,
that sort of echoing Hillary Clinton's speech back in the nineties.
Um and again, you know, I said that she started
swim with her partner, that partners, Nancy vonk And so
they are pushing to get more women included and heard
and hired and advertising and mentoring them as well. Um.
And you know, like I said earlier, there's a lot
(46:35):
of talk now about childcare assistants destigmatizing flex time. So like,
you know, it's great to have a flexible job where
you're not shunned for, like I don't know, going to
the doctor. Um, there's talk around the wage gap obviously
that's a huge conversation, and even implementing bias training, which
(46:55):
I think sounds amazing and should be mandatory for every
human one person. Yeah, because we all have BIOSes, we
all have internal biases, regardless of how you know, perfectly
social justice wiring we might be. Um And finally to
accentuating the positives happening within the industry by spotlighting women's
(47:18):
accomplishments instead of I don't know, like being a couple
of feminist podcasters talking about how terrible it is for
an hour exactly. Well, one person who's definitely been working
to affect positive change is Nancy Hill, who is the
president and CEO for now of of the four as.
I think she's stepping down here pretty soon, but she
(47:40):
says that we need to start at the top and
that every add CEO ad agency CEO needs to make
Hammera herself the company's chief diversity officer. Basically, make it
you are personal business to ensure that there's a diversity
of viewpoints. Uh. Cindy Gallup, who we've sited a couple
of times now, says that there's a raw at the
(48:00):
top of the industry spreading and still spreading in the
most appalling way, and then it needs to be stopped
in its tracks. And Hill says one way to do
that is to encourage young women to pursue leadership positions.
Begin that bias training that we mentioned, and also level
hiring practices she recommends, and some agencies do this implementing
(48:22):
a blind resume process where um any gender or ethnic
identifiers at all are redacted. Basically, but one thing I
want to mention with the tip to encourage young women
to pursue leadership positions is Nancy Hill. That is a
great idea, But remember that mentor gap. I mean we
still women also need those role models too, because to me,
(48:47):
it's just much easier said than done to make that happen.
You can encourage women all day long, but if they
don't actually have the resources to move up, then what
are you gonna do? Right? And one thing I think
that's worth reiterating. We read it in some of the
sources for this episode. We've obviously read it and sources
for many an episode of Sminty. Um. But change doesn't
(49:08):
just happen. Um. We like to think that it will.
Like I'm a woman, I'm here, surely things are getting better.
That's a fallacy. Just because you are a woman in
the room, uh, doesn't mean that other women will somehow
benefit from that just happening. And so it's really on
uh kind of every everybody in the ad industry. These
(49:31):
these women have argued to help lift other women up
and encourage them and service those role models. And we
hope to hear from a lot of you listening. Um,
I know that there are a lot of folks in
the ad industry listening to this podcast right now, guys
who want to hear from you as well, because you know,
we we could really talk about this for hours and hours.
(49:53):
We have just offered a very broad brush um assessment
of the bad things that are how opening. So I mean,
obviously like positive stuff we would love to hear personal
experience we would love to hear. And also, I mean,
is it really on the ground day to day? Is
it as toxic as the headlines would suggest and as
(50:15):
Cindy Gallop would suggest. Um. Also, Cindy Gallop, if you're listening, Hello,
I love your Twitter, um, but we want to hear
from you. Mom Stuff at how Stuff Works dot com
is our email address. You can also tweet us at
Mom's Stuff podcast. You can message us on Facebook, and
we've got a couple of messages to share with you
(50:36):
right now. All right, Well, I have a letter here
from Chiesa in response to our gymnastics episode. Uh So,
Cheesa is one of the gymnastics experts that we asked
to write in. She says that she's a judge, a coach,
and a former gymnast and so she has some some
(50:58):
stints some two cents to throw in for us. So
regarding makeup, one percent not required. It is totally the
preference of the gymnast and not at all an aspect
of the scoring. A better gymnast without makeup will absolutely
beat the dolled up gymnast. As a judge, you're watching
the body, not the hair or the face. Regarding the hair,
(51:18):
saying hair can be worn in any style they choose,
with the main goal of keeping it out of the face,
which is for injury prevention. This only becomes a part
of scoring if the hair indeed does get in the
gymnast's way and impacts her performance. The part about people
talking about Gabby's hair is completely ridiculous and they're awful.
Regarding nail polish, old school rule, it was abolished about
(51:39):
ten years ago. Back in the day, it was considered distracting.
But you'll see in Rio that many of the gymnasts
get cute, patriotic mannies. So yeah for getting rid of
weird old rules. Regarding the sparkly leotards, I heard a
lot in the Olympics broadcast about the shiny and sparkly
leo's that were purchased for thousands of dollars to quote
make the gymnasts stand out. I can get in tea
(52:00):
that the judges, especially at the level the Olympic judges are,
are absolutely not taking leotard's shiny nous sparkliness into consideration
for scoring. To me, it's a silly do whatever it
takes mentality cultivated over long time, weird legends in the
sport because I totally used to play into it as
a gymnast, but as a judge, I never remember a leotard.
(52:21):
I remember the gymnast and the skills she's doing. The
audience should totally appreciate a beautiful leo for what it is.
Though regarding smiling, there is one specific role in the
book regarding this, stating that the routine quote should reflect
the gymnasts personality and personal performance style. As you can
see when watching a gymnast like Laurie Hernandez on the floor,
(52:42):
it is much more appealing to watch for both the
audience and judges alike when they have some showmanship. Therefore,
this very small deduction is input in order to reward
I catching routines like this. No specific roles about actually smiling.
Regarding open ended scoring, I agree with you about how
limiting the ten was. Open ended scoring is used only
(53:04):
in professional level gymnastics as it does encourage difficulty and
separate those who perform it. You can see how much
it has advanced in the time since the change was
implemented see Simone Biles for example. If Mary leu Written
was performing today, her routines are child's play next to
the routines of today. Also due to technology increases, et cetera,
(53:24):
so a solution was needed to reward today's better routines.
Another important note, the execution score, the number from which
the judges take the often referenced deductions, is still out
of a tin and it's just added on to with
difficulty points. Therefore, gymnasts are still technically striving for the
perfect ten execution. She says, sorry for the novel, go dogs,
(53:48):
Thank you, Tisa. Well, I've got a letter here from
Julie about our emotional cheating episode, and she writes, I
won't bore you with the details, but the gist is
that I've had a work spouse for the past few
years and I really cherish his friendship. You hit the
nail on the head in the work spouse episode. We're
both married to other people. Though in your emotional cheating
episode was a swift knock upside the head, it made
(54:11):
me realize that he and I had been in an
emotional danger zone, if not worse, for months, and are
drunken kiss ten days ago can't be solely blamed on
having too much to drink at that work happy hour.
The podcast helped me see that I've become too comfortable
with my work spouse and I need to change my
relationship with him. Thankfully, I changed jobs last week and
(54:33):
now I work more closely with my husband, so I
feel good about my marriage. But if it hadn't been
for your podcast, I probably would have brushed that kiss
under the rug as a drunken mistake and assume that
he and I could still be close friends. So I
wanted to say thanks for helping me to steer my
path back towards my husband. I know we've never met,
but I wanted you to both know that you're making
a meaningful difference in people's lives and we, or at
(54:56):
least I appreciate what you both do. Please keep it up,
Oh Julie, I'm so glad that we could be of
help um, and I'm really glad that you were able
to hop right off your job and hang more with
your husband. So I thought, ladies and gentlemen, it is
time for your emails. Mom. Stuff at how stuff works
(55:18):
dot com is our email address and for links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so you
two can learn even more about women in advertising. Head
on over to stuff mom Never Told You dot com
(55:38):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stupports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and welcome to part two of our
look at Women in the Advertising agency. In the last episode,
(00:24):
we talked about the history of women, specifically white women
in the industry, and now we're going to hop forward
to look at the landscape today because things aren't all
that great, shall we say. Yeah, Kristen and I were
exchanging research links and sources leading up to today, and
(00:47):
there was a bit of commentary on how depressing all
the headlines were. Well, yeah, so, so many sad headlines.
I know that I hopped into this hoping like, well,
I'm sure you know there's gonna be the typical talk
about like male dominated this and you know, sexism that.
But surely there's like a lot of great stuff to
talk about. Well, uh, for the landscape today, not so much.
(01:10):
I mean I think that there is uh some stuff
to be optimistic about. There's a lot more conversation happening
today about women's exclusion from the higher ranks of the
ad industry. Um, there's a lot of acknowledgement for where
women are shining. Women are outnumbering men in mini sectors
of advertising and marketing. UM. And there's a lot of
(01:33):
conversation around uh changing the industries whole culture in terms
of UH familyly paid, family lyve UM, making the culture
more friendly to people with families. But so many things
are still just so rough. And before we get into
(01:55):
that rough stuff, why don't we break down some ad
agents see departments to give folks an idea of the
type of work that's happening in advertising. UM. Not surprisingly,
going into advertising, you would usually have a business or
communication background. UM, you might have an understanding of psychology, design,
(02:20):
writing in journalism. Changing technology is kind of a no brainer. Yeah.
So here some different departments in areas of advertising include
account management. You're basically the person who works for the agency.
It's your job to get the best work done for
the client but still at a profit for the agency.
You've got account planning, which is the person who make
(02:43):
sure that the consumer's perspective is fully considered when advertising
is being developed. That person probably does a lot of
research into consumer psychology and behavior. So I feel like
Kristen and I would really shine we're pros at research. UH.
And then you've got the creative department. It. So these
are the people who are actually taking the ideas and
(03:04):
imagery and the word parts and stringing them together into
a beautiful pizza of of an ad. I love that
a pizza ad. They make the pizza. It's a stuffed crust,
multi topping thing that gets you to buy stuff. So
(03:24):
in this analogy, Don Draper is a pizza pie maker.
He is Papa John. He's like, imagine pizza on the counter,
cats looking at it. That's all I got. Yeah, I
I got nothing. Um the creative department. I I was
(03:46):
in an in house a company's in house marketing department,
and I was on the creative team as a writer.
And how was it? It was so fun? Was that sarcasm? Maybe? Uh?
What kind of what kind of stuff? Though? Did you do?
Did you do? It? Was? It just sort of a
campaign would come up from creative and you would tippy
(04:08):
type the words. Basically, the marketing representatives in the department
would work with the client, which was really just another
department in the company because again we were in house.
They would figure out what they needed to promote or
drive traffic to and would set up a campaign working
with us as the creative team, so I would write
(04:29):
or edit the copy for something, working closely with my
graphic designer buddies, who would then make everything look really nice.
Although my creative director would kill me if she heard
me sum it up as they make it look real
mass because she frequently complained about people who dismissed creative teams.
Is just making things look pretty? Yeah, because you're also
(04:50):
making pizza, right, because you're also making ad pizza. Yeah,
so you and your job. You would be writing the
pizza menu. Yeah, okay, totally, I might be giving you
the ingredient list. Excellent. Yeah, I love this metaphor A
lot is easier to understand if you just put it
in pizza terms. I'm telling you, well, you also have
in our our pizza parlor the media department, which is
(05:12):
responsible for placing ads where it will reach the right
people at the right time, in the right place in
a cost effective way. So, for instance, you might not
want to buy ad space in g Q for tampons.
And if you are advertising something like the latest smartphone, uh,
(05:34):
maybe it's better to advertise on a website than on
a newspaper page, or maybe just a brochure you kind
of leave out on the sidewalk and hope someone picks up.
I'm gonna send you a postcard about the iPhone. And
finally we have interactive marketing. Um, the opportunities in this
(05:55):
our biggest in areas of design, marketing, and computer programming
agent sees. Of course these days need computer based designers
and programmers as well as strategists who understand how marketers
can use interactive media creatively and effectively. And um, I
actually know some folks who are in really cool interactive
(06:17):
marketing where they are designing experiences and using a lot
of technology and a lot of like virtual reality and
augmented reality to do that. Yeah, so advertising is not
simply designing something or simply just telling people they need
to go by the thing. There is a lot, as
(06:39):
you can see, a lot of strategy and psychology and
technology that's all wrapped up in working in the AD industry.
And there are a lot of women working in the
ad industry. Women make up nearly half of all ad
industry employees, and things are pretty gender balanced if you
look at account manage ment and services, media planning and buying,
(07:03):
and women out number men in media agencies marketing and
strategic planning, so all as well. Right, totally, everything's great,
especially since we're starting to see more women being hired
as CEO s. Like, I'm episode over, what are we
even talking about? Yeah, why are we complaining? We're always
victimizing ourselves, like those men's rights advocates thing. Those men
(07:23):
are right, They were right the whole time. Well, if
it sounds vague to just say more women are coming
into jobs, uh, it's because, frankly, the industry is doing
a pretty poor job at policing itself. There are really
not a lot of solid numbers out there by which
to judge progress. So if you're like, I'm interested in
(07:43):
learning how many women there were in nineteen sixty five
versus ninety five versus two thousand five, will like, sister,
good luck. Um. Now, you do have a few groups
crunching the numbers. Not surprisingly, they are groups focused on diversity.
You have the three percent Conference, which is named for
(08:04):
the estimate of female creative directors in two back when
the group was formed. You've got the Advertising Women of
New York, which should sound familiar to you. It's an
industry group that we talked a lot about in our
first episode, which was founded because the Advertising League didn't
allow women correct a mundo. You have the four A's,
which is a trade association, and the thirty percent Club,
(08:27):
which is not necessarily advertising specific, but it's a group
of business leaders who are trying to increase women's representation
on SMP five hundred boards to thirty percent by the
end of So it took people with a special interest
and that special interest being no longer having advertising being
(08:48):
just like Lily white and doodish, uh to try to
get these numbers in hand to help enhance diversity and
therefore creativity. And we have seen you know, the dial
move for the three percent conference for instance, Uh, you
know three percent in now it's closer to So we're
(09:11):
in double digit, just barely. UM. An ad veteran av Dan,
who is a dude, UH, credits Client Boards with pressuring
Madison Avenue to hire more women in general. Agencies, he writes,
are warming to the idea that maybe it's not a
good idea to always have men only pitch meetings. An
(09:31):
entire team of dudes walking in to pitch something, whether
it is UH something targeted towards men, or whether it
is tampons and agencies have similarly been lobbied to hire
more people of color. Um av Dan also says, quote
advertising continues to discriminate against African Americans. That was something
that we talked about at the end of our last episode,
(09:53):
looking at the history of the industry, which was so
so so white for so so long. UM, and people
of color continue to be very underrepresented and also underpaid
compared to white co workers. Yeah, African Americans make up
just five percent of the professional and management roles in advertising,
(10:14):
and they're only about half as likely as their white
colleagues to work in advertising agencies, creative and clients services functions. Uh.
Not to mention hello that black college grads working in
advertising earned eighty cents for every dollar earned by their
equally qualified white counterparts. But even if people of color
(10:36):
are are paid equitably in agencies, that doesn't guarantee that
the work environment UM is similarly enriching. Maybe that's the
way to put it UM for instance, for instance, I mean,
I can't even believe this is an example. We have
(10:58):
Campbell Ewald CE Jim Palmer, who was fired after a
white creative leader at the agency's San Antonio office sent
an email in October inviting staffers to take part in No,
We're not making this up a ghetto day. Yeah, so
you've got writer Jim Hoke. He's the one who sent
(11:20):
out this awful email. He joined Campbell Ewald san Antonio
as an executive creative director. I just want you to
pin that in your brain that this jerk was a
creative director. So anyway, he sent out this email. I'm
not going to read the whole thing, but he basically
uses a lot of terrible language. He encourages people to
(11:41):
pop a freak with us and says that you could
enjoy ghetto music and malt forty five at lunch. And
he closes it up by saying word my cerebral gangsters,
which is honestly to me, like, yeah, this guy's an
idiot and he's clearly racist. But like, also, he I
think thinks of himself a little highly to call himself cerebral.
(12:04):
And there's also an issue of ages m that comes
up a lot. More than fifty of employees in the
ad industry are under forty five versus of just all
workers um generally in the US, and the median age
of workers in advertising is thirty eight. Versus close to
(12:25):
forty four all workers. Um, So the they tend to
be a little bit younger. Writers and art directors are
usually between twenty five and thirty five. So if you're
older than that, as av Dan says, you've either made
it to the executive floor, or you've been downsized, or
(12:45):
you've just left and started something else. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh,
it's not well. And I feel like it's this way
in a lot of creative or tech fields, Like it's
just not very welcoming to older people in those maybe
like non director positions. Um. Okay, so we've told you
kind of where the women are, but where are they not? Well,
(13:08):
that would generally be the creative department on the whole.
And it's interesting to look at advertising from the same
perspective we normally look at uh, STEM jobs with because
it sounds like creative departments on the whole have a
leaky pipeline. Yeah, because portfolio schools are graduating equal if
(13:28):
not more numbers of women as men. But women are
still just eleven point five percent of ad agency creative directors. Um,
and that actually is still high for a lot of companies.
The three Percent conference reached out to eight women in
both creative and non creative roles, and six of them
(13:51):
said that their current employer falls below that eleven percent mark. Yeah.
So we also have to look at the biggest advertising
bonanza in the United States, which is the Super Bowl.
It's a great example. It's a great little micro cosm
of who's doing what what. Advertising movers and shakers are
rising to the top. Uh. If you look at the
(14:12):
Super Bowls, of of the creative directors of those ads
air during the Super Bowl were men. And of the
sixty or so ads that aired during the game in particular,
not one was led by a person of color. And
that also translates to awards, which are huge in the industry. Um.
(14:36):
The One Club has a Creative Hall of Fame and
out of its fifty three members, a whopping six are women. Uh.
In two thousand nine, ad Age published an a list
cover featuring one woman and ten men. Yeah. That one
woman was Deutsch Inc. North America CEO Linda Sawyer. She's
(15:00):
now actually moved up to chairman. Uh, and her take
at the time was quote, the C suite remains oddly
absent of women. Yeah, I mean that a Liss cover
reminds me of the Vanity Fair cover with the late
night hosts, but it was all men. They didn't even
have a token, a token Linda. There was no token Linda.
(15:22):
If only we had more Linda's. Although don't get me wrong,
I don't think that Linda Linda Sawyer is token by
any mean. Linda's the bob boss. Lady, Linda, are you listening.
We're not taking it for granted, Linda, Please don't hate us. Um,
but okay, so, so go, let's go back to the pipeline. No,
why are women walking away? Welcome to smenty. It's really
(15:43):
the same. It's the same well refrained that you hear
in so many, so many fields. Yeah, I mean women
are just lazy and would rather be shopping right exactly
exactly the women from our first episode on advertising. We're
just too effective. Uh well, yeah, So basically, let's start
with how few mentors there are. There's generally just low
(16:06):
visibility of women in high ranking roles in the ad industry,
and with so few women up at the tippy top,
there's not a clear path for other women to follow,
women who might have an eye on that creative director position. Um.
There was a sixteen survey by Creative Equals and the
Young Creative Council, and it was a little safe. Of
(16:31):
the female creatives that they surveyed said that they had
never worked with a female creative director or executive creative director.
Eighty eight percent said they lacked role models, and six
said that advertising is a career that does not support families.
Where you do see a really great example is one
(16:54):
displayed by Margaret Johnson as she has climbed up the
ad ladder. In Onson became the executive creative director and
partner at good Be Silverstein and Partners, where six of
department heads are women. That's awesome. Um, And since her promotion, uh,
female staffers agreement with the survey statement that they quote
(17:14):
unquote feel empowered has more than tripled. Because it's great.
It's wonderful that there are so many women department heads
in this agency. That's fabulous. But to have a woman
be in that executive creator creative director position where so
few women are I can imagine that you as a
lower rung employee trying to figure out what you're gonna
(17:37):
do with your career, that that is inspiring. Yeah, I mean,
and it's just a great example of how it doesn't
have to be the other way. You know, there is
a right way to do it. And I'll say that
you know, um, friends of mine who are in advertising,
you know where we're all around about thirty and the
(17:58):
whole marriage and kids usian is huge because everyone pretty
much knows like, Okay, if I if I want to
get my promotion, I need to time it correctly if
I want to have a kid, because otherwise you're not
gonna really be able to do it. And it's the
(18:19):
same issue that came up in our architecture episode where
right around the same time that people are buckling down
to climb on up, it's when our ovaries are like hello,
TikTok um, filling up with cobwebs already so or those
just mine talking? How do you even clean cobwebs out
(18:44):
of your ovaries? That's called yperiod, Carolina. Oh see, I
didn't have proper sex at so I wasn't sure what
to do about the ovarian cobwebs. And the reason why
this is such a crunch is because, especially in creative departments,
you're regularly working until you know, midnight to three am,
(19:07):
I mean, and and the thing is and I'm saying
this as an outsider, but talking to people who are insiders,
the number of hours you work is a badge of honor.
I have a very good friend who works at an agency, UM,
whose boss, who's creative director UM A fellow said that,
(19:32):
you know, the team just wasn't working hard enough, UM,
and you all should be here until two am every night,
and made them that night like stay and redo a
whole project. And she was like, yeah, I went home
at like four am. It's ridiculous. What time does she
have to be at work? Like eight am? Lord, you
(19:56):
know you don't want to hang out with me if
I've only had like two hours of sleep, I assure you, Yeah,
And it is. It's totally a badge of honor. And
it's totally like it's the same kind of thing in journalism,
like the badge of honor of being in the trenches
with your fellow sleep deprived alcoholics. You know, like my
(20:19):
creative director at that marketing in house marketing department, you know,
she had two kids, she wanted a family. She was
a total badass. She's so creative and funny and weird,
like just the right kind of person you want to
be a creative director, but that lifestyle was just not
sustainable and and she missed it. You know, she missed
(20:41):
the fast pace, she missed I think she kind of
liked the boys club. Um, but if you want to
have a life, you know you you can't have it
when you're working until three in the morning. It's just
not uh, it's not doable. And this is something that
add into street veteran Janet Keston has pointed out. Keston
(21:03):
worked for Ogilvie and Mather and she's since gone on
with a partner to form a group called Swim whose
purpose is to really like kind of mentor and guide
young advertising newbies. But Keston says that while we're seeing
more and more industries creating support systems for working moms,
advertising is like way behind. She says, we're so as
(21:27):
an industry, so beholden to timesheets and hours build as
a demonstration of the value provided to me. It's a
wrong headed way to think about it. Now the world
has changed. And this also hammers home how if you
are trying to do this, having a really supportive partner
at home is really helpful, because he ad industry culture
(21:51):
rewards people who are so career focused and also career primary,
not primary caregivers. Yeah, And so ad industry recruiters say that,
you know, frankly, just being honest, it can be really
hard to find women who have stayed long enough to
reach that creative director point. Um. Those who do stick
(22:12):
around tend to have a partner whose career is secondary.
And of course that's talking about people with families, like
we're not even talking about single people or whatever. Um.
But yeah, if you're gonna be part of if you're
going to be a leader in that cutthroat uh industry
um where things are so fast paced and competitive, you
(22:33):
you have to be the career primary partner. And when
you hear about certain gaffs uh happening among executives, it
makes you wonder what is said about women behind closed doors,
because in two thousand five, Neil French, who was the
worldwide creative director for the giant ad holding company w
(22:56):
P p UM, said that there are so few few
all creative directors because women are crap, that's a quote,
crap at the job. And he referred to the time
women spend nursing their newborns and claimed that quote women
don't make it to the top because they don't deserve
to now. Of course he then resigned. Um but and
(23:20):
of course that was also eleven years ago, so we
would hope that things have progressed since then. Unfortunately, we
also have in June six, rap CEO that's wrap acronym
r app. This isn't that horrible creative director in San
Antonio coming back again? Rap CEO Alexei or Law resigned
(23:42):
after being sued for destructive behavior. The suit claimed that
he had referred to multiple women as fat cows. Oh
it doesn't stop there. He told a Jewish employee that
he was miserly with money. He refused to promote a
female executive because she was two pretty uh, And he
once told a meeting of approximately seventy employees in Dallas,
(24:06):
mess with my brand or my direction, and I will
break off your finger and shove it up your deep um.
Which Actually, that last one I think is kind of
funny because I feel like I might have said something
like that as a writer in an in house marketing
department more than once. And and it was a sentiment
(24:30):
supported by my creative director, symons. There you go, stop
messing with our creative decisions. Marketing team yeah, I feel
like that statement of his is the least offensive, just
because just because you use a sort of bad word
and threaten someone, that's I feel like that's the least Yeah,
(24:54):
it's the least problematic of the rest of those things. Well,
and the next thing that we have to tackle is
the elephant in the industry right now that actually inspired
us to take two episodes to look into it is
sexual harassment, because it is still a huge problem. And
before we get into it, I just want to quickly
(25:18):
travel back to our first episode and sort of where
everything left off, where you have women being accepted into
the early industry for their quote unquote female viewpoint to
sell this idealized um and sexualized often portrayal of women,
(25:40):
and it seems like these same kinds of values are
regurgitated and recycled within the industry itself. It's like, you know,
maybe the the ad folks thought they could outsmart the
sexism they were selling, but indeed, no not. So we're
(26:02):
going to talk about that when we come right back
from a quick break and now back to the show. Okay,
So Kristen said that we were going to talk about
the sexual harassment elephant. So it's a big problem. It's
(26:24):
a big elephant. It's a big old elephant. Um, we're
gonna start you off with some stats that seem pretty bad,
and then they're gonna get worse. Okay, So I just
want to prepare you that three percent conference did a study.
They found that of women in advertising said that they
had personally experienced gender discrimination, said that they had personally
(26:47):
experienced or witnessed sexual harassment. Okay, that's a large chunk.
That's a quarter of ad women saying that they had
experienced or witness sexual harassment. But that trade groupe, the
four A's, they've done a more recent survey this year
in sixteen, and they found that more than half of
the women that they surveyed had experienced sexual harassment at
(27:11):
least once. And I would be willing to bet, as
is the case so often, that that number is actually
higher because you've got to keep in mind that there
are people who love that culture, that rough and tumble,
say whatever the f you want, fast paced, competitive, creative culture.
They love it even if a butt grab or a
(27:34):
snide comment comes along with it. Yeah, I mean. And
and also just think about the fact that objectification is
kind of part of the job. You know, I'm not
trying to cast all of advertising is one giant villain.
But um, and I'm sure that it's different from agency
to agency and department to department. Um, but you have
(27:58):
a lot of elements just within the very work that
you're doing that it seems like would would foster that
kind of behavior. Also in sixteen, in March, jw t's
chief communications officer, Aaron Johnson, filed a suit against Gustavo Martinez,
the chief executive, and this lawsuit has kind of sent
ripples across the industry. UM. Johnson alleges that he subjected
(28:22):
employees to quote an unending stream of racist and sexist comments,
as well as unwanted touching and other unlawful conduct, and
that he made numerous comments about rape and on multiple
occasions quote grabbed Johnson by the throat and by the
back of her neck. Yeah. Okay, So that leads me
(28:42):
to a quote that my eyes almost blugged out of
my head because here's the thing. There is that stuff
going on, but a lot of the sexism in the
industry tends to be more insidious, It tends to be
a little more under the surface. Uh, in terms of
excluding women or or whatever, rather than like outright physical
(29:03):
assault basically. And the New York Times did some great
interviews with a bunch of badass boss ladies and advertising
in media, and one of the women literally had the
quote of, yeah, all that rape talk happens, But a
lot of the sexual harassment is just more in attitudes.
It's more systemic and under the surface. It's like whoa, whoa,
(29:26):
you just dismissed rape talk. Oh okay, So maybe perhaps
there's a little bit of like a boy's will be
boys attitude going on. And um, the by far and
away the type of of sexism that was discussed loudly
by women in the industry was just the issue of
(29:49):
being ignored and excluded and overlooked. So the women in
this New York Times article cited things like being left
out of business meetings that were couched in social event
so not going to the golf game, the stake din er,
the box seats, the scotch drinking sessh. All of those
dude club activities where it's like, no, this is just
for the boys. Um. In some cases literally being overlooked men,
(30:13):
assuming you're not the partner or the boss or the
director whoever you are, um but also being overlooked for
promotions and decision making roles. Thirty three percent of women
in one of those four a's surveys said that there
have been at least a few times when they haven't
received the assignments of promotions they wanted because of outright discrimination,
(30:34):
and told the survey takers that discrimination had led to
their exclusion from decision making. So, uh, no, big surprise
that more than half of respondents in that for AS
surveys said that their gender made them feel either somewhat
or very vulnerable to discrimination, and almost two thirds either
(30:56):
agreed somewhat or totally that there were times that they
pers only experienced discrimination without even recognizing it only in hindsight.
Are you're like, oh wait what, oh yeah, that's part
of the thing of like if if something, if you
feel that something is just an aspect of the culture
and that you again are just in the trenches at
four am with your co workers, you you might not
(31:19):
think of it necessarily as discrimination or as completely outlandish
and uncalled for. And the thing is, it's not that
women have not tried to call it out, but again,
you have to keep in mind the culture um. Also
in The New York Times, a lot of those women
that they talked to said that when they have tried
(31:40):
to have discussions about sexism in the office, male executives
tend to become very uncomfortable and close the conversation very quickly,
whether we're talking about um, gender discrimination or racial discrimination. Yeah,
and and a lot of those women themselves said that
they had trouble even bringing up the issue of sexism
(32:03):
or gender bias in the industry. And a lot of
the women would not even to The New York Times
provide specifics about gender bias or harassment or anything like
that that they had seen because they were more concerned
about protecting their relationships in the industry. And there just
seems to be a general attitude um among too many
(32:24):
male leaders in the industry that it's just someone else's problem,
which leads us to the ulster of uh SACCI and
SACCI chairman Kevin Roberts, who was also the head coach
at the advertising agency's parent company, Publicist Group, who said
that he just doesn't spend any time on gender issues
(32:47):
as agencies at all. I mean, I don't know if
Roberts was doing conducting this Business Insider interview over some
scotches because he just said so so many mind boggling
and just blind statements about how like, no, you know this,
(33:12):
it really doesn't exist. I mean, he was like this,
he was way worse than sectors like financial services, where
there are problems left right and center. The essentially trying
to claim that sexism within the advertising industry is a
moot point and it's solved. And at one point it
kind of seemed like he was trying to say that we,
(33:36):
since we recognize that there had been a problem, that
that's all the progress we need, but that that the
debate he framed it as the debate over gender discrimination
is over, which I was like, maybe he means that,
like we aren't debating that it's a fact anymore. But
then as he continued talking and completely marginalizing women's experiences
(33:57):
of gender discrimination and sexual harassment, it became very clear
that Mr Roberts is very out of touch. Yeah, I mean,
he basically said that, well, my group doesn't have a
problem because there are so many women in uh, there's
so many women on staff, so we don't we don't
need to worry about it. Um, And he even took
(34:19):
like you could almost read that article and be like, I, okay,
I can see like the people who are defending you
and saying that you're misunderstood, Like I can almost see
where they're coming from. But he takes all of these
pot shots at Cindy Gallup, who is another ad industry
veteran and someone who is a very vocal and active
(34:40):
advocate for diversity um in the industry. And she so
she would not be one of those women in the
New York Times who was unwilling to speak about sexismmer
or gender bias. Uh. And he basically said that, uh,
Cindy just wants to get up on her soapbox and
get attention. Yeah, she's just kind of making it up,
kicking up some dirt um. And he patted himself on
(35:02):
the back because granted, Publicist group does have about gender
split among its staff um, while around sixty of Sacchi
and Sacchi is female, you know, so looking at his
own backyard, he's like, the sexual discrimination does not exist.
(35:23):
But then the point where I was like, oh no,
or I started stopped giving him any benefit of any
doubt was when when he starts spiraling into this whole
idea that millennial women don't want to be creative directors
and executives. They just enjoy doing the work. He said, quote.
(35:44):
Their ambition is not a vertical ambition. It's this intrinsic,
circular ambition to be happy, to which I wanted to
throw my laptop out the window because I have felt
that sentiment directly from male managers before. And oh, it's
making me so mad just to think about right now,
(36:06):
the idea that I derived just pleasure solely from my
work and I don't need to be compensated equitably for that. No,
you are sorely mistaken, bra Women are a flat circle.
Women's ambition is a flat circle. Um. Well, the fallout
is that he was immediately forced to take a leave
(36:26):
about of absence, but rather than being fired, he is
resigning and his last day was set to be September one.
And the plus side of that Business Insider article, which
oh my gosh, I just wonder for that journalists like
as the interview was happening, you know, if they were
thinking like, oh my god, this is well, is this real?
(36:49):
Is this really happening? Like the way it's written, the
journalists keeps saying like and and then we brought up
the issue of this and he said this crazy thing.
And then we we said, well wait, but what about
about this? And he said this crazy thing. Yeah. At
certain points it seems like the journalists trying to kind
of help him out a little bit. But now Kevin Roberts,
you know, he he really knows women, so he should
(37:13):
get like a Cosmo column. Um. But but the the
great thing was to kind of watch it unfold through
Cyndy Gallops Twitter, because you know she she was right. Um,
And this has kicked off this larger conversation that a
(37:33):
lot of people are having a both because of um,
that lawsuit that Aaron Johnson brought also of course, um,
Kevin Roberts leaving, and that for as survey finding so
much sexual harassment. It seems like, you know, the industry
is at this point of like, Okay, what are we
going to do about this? Yeah? Well they I mean
(37:55):
they better be asking themselves that because there are far
broader implications for all of this nastiness than just kind
of a hostile working environment. I mean, if we're looking
inside the agency's like, if you're working in this type
of environment, female creatives or people of color in general
might struggle to get new ideas approved or push through
(38:18):
if the bulk of creative directors are white men, which
the bulk of creative directors are white men. Um, And
you know this ends up creating this inherent bias in
portrayals of women and people of color in the actual
advertisements themselves. Because think about it here, in still a
lot of the ads we see, uh fall back on
(38:39):
stereotypical gender roles, to say nothing of heteronormativity. I mean,
when you see the occasional ad with like a same
sex couple or an interracial couple, I mean there's a
lot of like to me, warm fuzzies. But to the
rest of the Internet, a lot of people are freaking out, Yeah,
oh oh for the day when um, same sex couple
(39:03):
commercial doesn't go viral, you know what I mean, because
it's not it's not such a such an extraordinary thing
to see, right. And then when you are looking outside
of the agency at female consumers, one massive problem that
results from having these inherent biases in the creators is
(39:25):
that female consumers don't end up seeing themselves properly reflected
in the ads they're looking at. Even though women control
about eighty percent of consumer spending. Yeah, there was um
a study conducted by Unilever which found that of women
don't recognize the faces being reflected back at them in advertising. Uh.
(39:46):
In other words, when I'm watching one of those yogurt
commercials where the women treat eating yogurt like winning the
lottery or really more accurately, like having really terrific sex, uh,
I don't know that woman. Like that woman is not me?
And I like yogurt, Caroline yogurt almost every day. Um,
(40:11):
do I want to date yogurt? No? Do I want
to spend a Friday night in with a silk robe
on with my yogurt? Is yogurt a Swedish man yogurt? Maybe?
So then if yogurt were my Swedish missus, then we
can talk perfect But okay, Solver youn Leiver broke it down, like,
(40:36):
why are women not recognizing themselves reflected in these ads?
And it's because, according to their tally, just three percent
of the women in the advertisements were portrayed in leadership roles.
Two percent. We're portrayed as intelligent and one person that
we're portrayed. That's funny. I mean there should be no surprise. Hello,
(40:56):
Just like think of like dish so bad's right where
the wife it's a buzz kill. She's wearing a green
vnux sweater. Uh, she's got to like take care of
the kids. And she's yelling at the husband and the
dad as a du fist, which, by the way, is
something that Cinndey Gallop also takes issue with. It's not
just portraying women as idiots, but it's portraying men as
(41:18):
idiots too, like and and I feel like there's a
greater cultural push against both of those things beyond just
Cindy Gallop's efforts. I feel like more people are waking
up to the fact of, like, hey, not all men
are idiots in the kitchen or idiots with their children,
just the same way as not all women are hanging
out in the kitchen with their kids all day. Yeah.
And and that's a form of sexism as well. Um
(41:41):
he has. And and speaking of those dishwashing detergent commercials,
there was one, um not too long ago, where these
two women, I want to say they were sisters, and
one was really good at getting her dishes really spotless,
and the other one wasn't so good at it. And
they have this whole rivalry because of it. It's just like, again,
(42:05):
who are those women like? Because let me know, so
I can make sure I am never around them unless
they want to talk dishwasher loading, in which case you know,
I enjoy it. You have a lot to say there,
I know. Um, But the whole thing that that Uni
lever figure is that it might actually in reality be worse.
(42:26):
So Cat Gordon, who's the founder and creative director of
the marketing agency Maternal Instinct, which she started because she
was like, marketing to mother's is the worst, Like people
are terrible at it. Uh. She cited a study in
which of female consumers said brands didn't understand them. So
what irony looking back at our first episode where women
(42:51):
were first hired into the industry at the turn of
the century for the female point of view to get
into women heads, and now today in of female customers,
I think that brands don't understand them. Yeah. Well, but
(43:11):
I guess the silver lining of that is I feel
better about like strangers around me on the street because
that just means like I have more in common with
stranger ladies than I than I thought I did. Because
if those ads are speaking if many, if if the
majority of ads are speaking to a lot of women again,
like who are these yogurt ladies laughing over over dairy
(43:34):
products and salads? And who are the women like in
fields with balloons and birth control ads? I mean, honestly,
I'd go to that field. I wish I identified with
with that care free balloon holding woman, birth control meadow,
contraception cavern, uh, contraception cavern? Is that where yogurt lives.
(44:01):
But of course it's not just female consumers and not
seeing themselves represented well, um, arguably it's even worse for
older people, people of color, of course, same sex couples,
gender nonconforming people. I mean, let's let's get stereotypical here.
I mean you see old older people, are elderly people
(44:22):
in like viagra ads when I am watching CNN in
the late morning hours. I see black people in ads
when it's for like predatory lending stuff and and things
like terrible insurance companies. Um, and same sex couples again,
like I think they had that one sup ad that time,
and or cereal and I've never seen them again. Well
(44:43):
that the Cheerios was the biracial couple Hallmark does it,
you know, Valentine's Day, same sex couple, um commercials. So
maybe you know, diversity is just kind of seasonal for
you know, for different holidays, we trot out like a
different group, like handing out Kenny, like well here here's yours, um,
(45:04):
you know, and people just deserve better. People deserve better.
And it might sound silly to say, because it's like
it's just advertising. Why why should someone who seven d
care if they're not, because they don't stop being a
person with needs and wants. They don't stop being a consumer.
If anything, the older you get, the more established in
your life and your bank account you are. So I mean,
(45:27):
older people are basically like the most important people that
politicians pander too because they're the ones who go out
and vote. But apparently they're not worth like putting in advertising.
And it matters too because advertising influences and reinforces our
stereotypes and our biases about all of these different groups
(45:49):
of people. Obviously, like advertising is not going to bring
us world peace, but good grief, they can definitely do better,
and a lot of people in the industry want it
to do better. Yeah, So Janet Keston, whom we cited earlier,
points out very helpfully that the role of women isn't
a women's issue, it's a human issue. Everybody needs to
(46:13):
be part of it for things to change. Of course,
that sort of echoing Hillary Clinton's speech back in the nineties.
Um and again, you know, I said that she started
swim with her partner, that partners, Nancy vonk And so
they are pushing to get more women included and heard
and hired and advertising and mentoring them as well. Um.
And you know, like I said earlier, there's a lot
(46:35):
of talk now about childcare assistants destigmatizing flex time. So like,
you know, it's great to have a flexible job where
you're not shunned for, like I don't know, going to
the doctor. Um, there's talk around the wage gap obviously
that's a huge conversation, and even implementing bias training, which
(46:55):
I think sounds amazing and should be mandatory for every
human one person. Yeah, because we all have BIOSes, we
all have internal biases, regardless of how you know, perfectly
social justice wiring we might be. Um And finally to
accentuating the positives happening within the industry by spotlighting women's
(47:18):
accomplishments instead of I don't know, like being a couple
of feminist podcasters talking about how terrible it is for
an hour exactly. Well, one person who's definitely been working
to affect positive change is Nancy Hill, who is the
president and CEO for now of of the four as.
I think she's stepping down here pretty soon, but she
(47:40):
says that we need to start at the top and
that every add CEO ad agency CEO needs to make
Hammera herself the company's chief diversity officer. Basically, make it
you are personal business to ensure that there's a diversity
of viewpoints. Uh. Cindy Gallup, who we've sited a couple
of times now, says that there's a raw at the
(48:00):
top of the industry spreading and still spreading in the
most appalling way, and then it needs to be stopped
in its tracks. And Hill says one way to do
that is to encourage young women to pursue leadership positions.
Begin that bias training that we mentioned, and also level
hiring practices she recommends, and some agencies do this implementing
(48:22):
a blind resume process where um any gender or ethnic
identifiers at all are redacted. Basically, but one thing I
want to mention with the tip to encourage young women
to pursue leadership positions is Nancy Hill. That is a
great idea, But remember that mentor gap. I mean we
still women also need those role models too, because to me,
(48:47):
it's just much easier said than done to make that happen.
You can encourage women all day long, but if they
don't actually have the resources to move up, then what
are you gonna do? Right? And one thing I think
that's worth reiterating. We read it in some of the
sources for this episode. We've obviously read it and sources
for many an episode of Sminty. Um. But change doesn't
(49:08):
just happen. Um. We like to think that it will.
Like I'm a woman, I'm here, surely things are getting better.
That's a fallacy. Just because you are a woman in
the room, uh, doesn't mean that other women will somehow
benefit from that just happening. And so it's really on
uh kind of every everybody in the ad industry. These
(49:31):
these women have argued to help lift other women up
and encourage them and service those role models. And we
hope to hear from a lot of you listening. Um,
I know that there are a lot of folks in
the ad industry listening to this podcast right now, guys
who want to hear from you as well, because you know,
we we could really talk about this for hours and hours.
(49:53):
We have just offered a very broad brush um assessment
of the bad things that are how opening. So I mean,
obviously like positive stuff we would love to hear personal
experience we would love to hear. And also, I mean,
is it really on the ground day to day? Is
it as toxic as the headlines would suggest and as
(50:15):
Cindy Gallop would suggest. Um. Also, Cindy Gallop, if you're listening, Hello,
I love your Twitter, um, but we want to hear
from you. Mom Stuff at how Stuff Works dot com
is our email address. You can also tweet us at
Mom's Stuff podcast. You can message us on Facebook, and
we've got a couple of messages to share with you
(50:36):
right now. All right, Well, I have a letter here
from Chiesa in response to our gymnastics episode. Uh So,
Cheesa is one of the gymnastics experts that we asked
to write in. She says that she's a judge, a coach,
and a former gymnast and so she has some some
(50:58):
stints some two cents to throw in for us. So
regarding makeup, one percent not required. It is totally the
preference of the gymnast and not at all an aspect
of the scoring. A better gymnast without makeup will absolutely
beat the dolled up gymnast. As a judge, you're watching
the body, not the hair or the face. Regarding the hair,
(51:18):
saying hair can be worn in any style they choose,
with the main goal of keeping it out of the face,
which is for injury prevention. This only becomes a part
of scoring if the hair indeed does get in the
gymnast's way and impacts her performance. The part about people
talking about Gabby's hair is completely ridiculous and they're awful.
Regarding nail polish, old school rule, it was abolished about
(51:39):
ten years ago. Back in the day, it was considered distracting.
But you'll see in Rio that many of the gymnasts
get cute, patriotic mannies. So yeah for getting rid of
weird old rules. Regarding the sparkly leotards, I heard a
lot in the Olympics broadcast about the shiny and sparkly
leo's that were purchased for thousands of dollars to quote
make the gymnasts stand out. I can get in tea
(52:00):
that the judges, especially at the level the Olympic judges are,
are absolutely not taking leotard's shiny nous sparkliness into consideration
for scoring. To me, it's a silly do whatever it
takes mentality cultivated over long time, weird legends in the
sport because I totally used to play into it as
a gymnast, but as a judge, I never remember a leotard.
(52:21):
I remember the gymnast and the skills she's doing. The
audience should totally appreciate a beautiful leo for what it is.
Though regarding smiling, there is one specific role in the
book regarding this, stating that the routine quote should reflect
the gymnasts personality and personal performance style. As you can
see when watching a gymnast like Laurie Hernandez on the floor,
(52:42):
it is much more appealing to watch for both the
audience and judges alike when they have some showmanship. Therefore,
this very small deduction is input in order to reward
I catching routines like this. No specific roles about actually smiling.
Regarding open ended scoring, I agree with you about how
limiting the ten was. Open ended scoring is used only
(53:04):
in professional level gymnastics as it does encourage difficulty and
separate those who perform it. You can see how much
it has advanced in the time since the change was
implemented see Simone Biles for example. If Mary leu Written
was performing today, her routines are child's play next to
the routines of today. Also due to technology increases, et cetera,
(53:24):
so a solution was needed to reward today's better routines.
Another important note, the execution score, the number from which
the judges take the often referenced deductions, is still out
of a tin and it's just added on to with
difficulty points. Therefore, gymnasts are still technically striving for the
perfect ten execution. She says, sorry for the novel, go dogs,
(53:48):
Thank you, Tisa. Well, I've got a letter here from
Julie about our emotional cheating episode, and she writes, I
won't bore you with the details, but the gist is
that I've had a work spouse for the past few
years and I really cherish his friendship. You hit the
nail on the head in the work spouse episode. We're
both married to other people. Though in your emotional cheating
episode was a swift knock upside the head, it made
(54:11):
me realize that he and I had been in an
emotional danger zone, if not worse, for months, and are
drunken kiss ten days ago can't be solely blamed on
having too much to drink at that work happy hour.
The podcast helped me see that I've become too comfortable
with my work spouse and I need to change my
relationship with him. Thankfully, I changed jobs last week and
(54:33):
now I work more closely with my husband, so I
feel good about my marriage. But if it hadn't been
for your podcast, I probably would have brushed that kiss
under the rug as a drunken mistake and assume that
he and I could still be close friends. So I
wanted to say thanks for helping me to steer my
path back towards my husband. I know we've never met,
but I wanted you to both know that you're making
a meaningful difference in people's lives and we, or at
(54:56):
least I appreciate what you both do. Please keep it up,
Oh Julie, I'm so glad that we could be of
help um, and I'm really glad that you were able
to hop right off your job and hang more with
your husband. So I thought, ladies and gentlemen, it is
time for your emails. Mom. Stuff at how stuff works
(55:18):
dot com is our email address and for links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so you
two can learn even more about women in advertising. Head
on over to stuff mom Never Told You dot com
(55:38):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how stuff works dot com
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