By Nishma Patel Robb, President, WACL
What does representation look like to you? When did you last see yourself accurately represented in the world around you, whether that’s on TV, books, billboards or social media?
The representation of women in advertising is still disgracefully inadequate. We, as an industry, are not taking this issue seriously enough.
Because the data is overwhelming, including from IPSOS’s A Woman’s Worth, System 1’s Feeling Seen and the Geena Davis Institute, showing that women still do not feel, and statistically aren’t, accurately represented in advertising.
It’s time we, as an industry, changed this.
This pledge isn’t a tick box exercise. It’s about kick starting progressive change and holding the entire industry to account.
Demand better for all women in advertising
Through WACL’s ongoing RepresentMe initiative, we’re urging the advertising industry to take immediate action when it comes to the representation of all kinds of women in advertising, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.
Our latest iteration of the initiative saw us team up with Snap, YouTube and Pinterest via a creative campaign created in collaboration with the global influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy. The campaign featured four renowned creators in conversation, talking candidly about why representation matters to them and their communities.
Seeing the world through the eyes of these creators, all of whom have amassed a significant following, is proof that audiences want to hear from women like these. As Becky Owen, the Global CMO at Billion Dollar Boy said, “This campaign matters because creators are pushing our industry forward. Through the audiences they’ve built, they’ve realised the need for greater representation and their own power to challenge the status quo and demand better for all women in advertising.”
Because, as we at WACL believe, it is critical that representation is viewed as a progressive and enduring project, one that will flex and adapt to changing behaviours, ambitions and beliefs.
What gets measured, gets done
This is why, at Cannes Lions this year, we announced a new industry-wide RepresentMe pledge calling for more ad testing and reporting of how ads best show positive female role models, reflect a modern and progressive society and challenge gender stereotypes.
The WACL RepresentMe Pledge recommends the industry-wide adoption of three of the Unstereotype Alliance’s proven open testing metrics, developed with Kantar. The pledge’s five key sections were then drawn directly from these metrics, under the Positive, Progressive, Accountable headline.
We’re also working to take the conversation one step further, to call for the industry to measure the societal impact of more, truly representative advertising through the creation of a number of attitudinal metrics with Kantar. These new metrics build on those originally designed by the Unstereotype Alliance and Kantar.
These new metrics will measure how the industry, and advertising overall, is actually perceived and will also be adopted by the AA, IPA and ISBA into their own attitudinal studies. So ensuring the industry as a whole will have consistent industry measures to monitor the societal impact the industry is having. Because, if we don’t measure what we’re doing as an industry, we can’t track progress.
Positive representation matters
We want, and need, advertising to represent the full diversity of women’s experience and lives. This pledge isn’t a tick box exercise. It’s about kick starting progressive change and holding the entire industry to account.
As an industry we shouldn’t just be reflecting; we should be leading and shaping as well. This is what we at WACL are doing through all of our work, including the ongoing Represent Me initiative, continually reminding the industry of the importance of better representing all kinds of women in advertising.
Because this matters. The impact of women seeing themselves truly be themselves, rather than acting under a pre-ordained system, cannot be underestimated.
When the data shows that progress for women is slowing or stagnating, our industry has a role to play to reflect a greater breadth of female role models in order to drive progress.
Because positive representation really does matter. We all know that by now.
For more information, please visit:
WACL (Women in Advertising, Communications and Leadership)
