Why female creatives matter, now more than ever

I’ll be upfront: I didn’t come from a traditional advertising background, nor did I know much about the industry five years ago. Like every other Malaysian, I knew and celebrated Yasmin Ahmad’s work, but I always had the perception that advertising was otherwise still a Mad Men’s world at large. 

Of course, between the craft and connected brand experiences, I would quickly realise that there was much for me to learn and fall in love with – but that’s a story for another day. 

Being late to the game meant studying on the job, and with that came books and online courses. Coming from women’s publishing, with so many female legends to respect and admire, I couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t many women included in the OG lineups of “Greatest Copywriters of All Time”. 

Why that matters is because while there were the “Lemon”s of the world that spoke to everyone, there were also the “Sooner or Later”s that spoke directly to the men buying cars for their wives, instead of the women who would drive them. This wasn’t an anomaly. In fact, there were quite a few of these going around, not just in the ‘50s, but all the way up to the ‘70s. 

 Come to think of it, wasn’t it only in 2014 when Always redefined what it meant to run, throw, or do anything like a girl? 

It was the first time a feminine care product was advertised during the Super Bowl, with an empowering, more realistic portrayal of its target audience, marking a prominent shift in how brands sold products to women.

It’s no coincidence that the campaign resonated with women around the world. Not only was a woman, Fama Francisco, overseeing the Always brand; Lauren Greenfield was behind the camera for the "Like a Girl" spots, and the CCO who led the team of Leo Burnett creatives? You guessed it, a woman, Judy John.

And in a world where women are now shaping the changes in the consumer marketplace; where according to Inc, women drive 70-80% of consumer spending, you’d imagine that gender equality within the creative leadership would be good for the bottom line. 

Yet in 2013, it was revealed that only three percent of creative directors in the US were women. Today, with initiatives such as the 3% Movement, She Says and Kerning The Gap, it’s estimated that women now represent 11% of creative directors in the US, and 12-16% in the UK. And while the numbers appear to be on the rise, that also means that the advertising aimed at the consumer superset was (and still is) being crafted from an almost entirely male perspective. 

So while we might’ve come a long way from that Mad Men era of advertising, the boardroom is still undeniably a boy’s club, despite the fact that it could use a woman (or three) sitting at that table. 

Because the more the scales are tipped towards more agency diversity and championing different points of view, the more we’re able to make work that stands for something, with the power to change or at the very least, start conversations; the more we’re able to “make room for the voices yet to be heard, and for stories yet to be told,” as Netflix’s campaign so succinctly put it. 

As a creatively-driven agency that is made to impact, we are always looking for new ways to make the industry a more innovative and inclusive space.

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