Women make 70% of all consumer purchases. Look inside any purchasing department, and you’ll see they are responsible for a substantial amount of corporate purchases as well. Look at the top 10 TV programs, and in almost all cases the majority of viewers are women.
Yet go to many advertising or related events. Inevitably, you will see the stage dominated by men, even if the audience may be predominantly women. Peer into the power suites of larger agencies, and you’ll see more ties than skirts. Talk to women inside marketing departments about their corporate brands, and they’ll tell you that the decision will have to be made by a male superior. Such disparity extends to paychecks as well.
The situation is not unique to the branding industry. In the US, for example, women have more than 45% of all jobs and account for more than half of master's degrees being awarded. Yet 95% of senior managers were men, and female managers earn, on average, about 72% of what their male counterparts take home. Fewer than 1% of the top CEOs are women, and more than 90 companies of the Fortune 500 don’t have any female corporate officers.
It’s the same sad story in Europe. In France, fewer than 5% of top executives are women. There are only 17 female executive directors of the FTSE100, compared to about 400 men. Out of all publicly listed companies, 65% have no women on the board at all. No woman has yet headed a big British company, although 44% of the UK workforce is female.
This glass ceiling has unfortunate repercussions. A study by the University of Bath of female workers between 1992 and 2003 showed a 6% decline in job satisfaction among female workers between 1992 and 2003, while men’s job satisfaction increased during the same period. One out of every three women with an MBA in the US, a remarkable loss of potential talent. Among men, the figure is one in 20.
Specific examples are painful. Procter & Gamble, the manufacturer of Pampers nappies, Max Factor make-up and Tampax, only has two women on its 16-person board. Only three of its top 45 corporate officers are women. Out of the world’s major agencies, only Ogilvy & Mather is headed by a woman, the very savvy Shelly Lazarus.
The usual suspects emerge as reasons. Unforgiving workloads and hours. Career interruptions for children. Travel demands that complicate family-work balance. Exclusion from old-boy networks. But as the accounting, legal and consulting professions have shown, those issues can be dealt with. Recognizing the impact on businesses and even profitability, these profession have taken substantial steps to advance the career track of women include job-sharing, relaxed “up-or-out” standards, flextime and other policies.
Fairness or even diversity are important. But they are not the issues here. It is a question of branding and business effectiveness. Researchers have known for decades that mixed groups are more creative and better at solving problems. Catalyst, a US organization that studies the role of women in business, found a strong correlation between strong financial performance and the number of women in top positions among Fortune 500 companies between 1996 and 2000. And men can’t really justify their continued dominance of the branding profession, since it is estimated that up to 90% of all products fail to become brands.
So it is time to start handing the branding reins over to more women, especially since the bulk of purchasing power is in the hands of women. Women are better at collaboration and team-building, a skills that are perfectly suited for the requirements of the customer economy, when brands get their power from customers. Let women develop and tell your brand story. Women excel at telling stories about relationships, which, ultimately, is what branding is all about.
Start by beginning a mentoring program at your agency that focuses on showing younger women the ropes. Give greater responsibilities to the women in your organization. The industry as a whole needs to promote successful female executives as role models. Finally, companies must implement female-friendly work and personnel policies that take into account how many women do the heavy lifting when it comes to taking care of families and homes.
Comments