Adweek reported on a study revealing the
obvious: women in Adland continue to make less money than male counterparts.
While Adweek
did not indicate if the study broke down racial and ethnic data, here’s another
obvious revelation: underpaid White women in Adland continue to make waaaaay
more money than underpaid—and underrepresented—women of color peers.
Bet cash
money on it.
Women in
Advertising Are Closing Every Gap They Can. The Pay Gap Persists Anyway
A new study
finds a stubborn 5% pay gap and points to managerial gatekeeping and workplace
social dynamics as key culprits
By Audrey Kemp
A new study
examining pay in the U.S. advertising industry finds that women are still
earning less than their male peers, even after accounting for nearly every
variable commonly cited to explain the disparity.
The research,
conducted by strategist Jess Watts in partnership with Dr. Nancy Wayne of UCLA
and data scientist Ryan Crone, analyzed survey responses from more than 900
advertising professionals across agency types, roles, and seniority levels.
DNA&Stone,
the independent agency where Watts joined as chief strategy officer in December
(and an ADWEEK Small Agency of the Year 2025 finalist), is publishing the
study.
After
controlling for factors such as education, experience, hours worked, geography,
and agency type, the researchers found that women earn about 5% less than men
in advertising on average. For mothers, that figure climbs to 8%.
Both numbers
are smaller than the broader U.S. gender wage gap but still statistically
significant and, according to Watts, impossible to explain away through the
usual structural arguments.
“We wanted to
test the arguments that are often made about why the pay gap exists,” she said.
“Things like education level, job choice, performance, negotiation, or hours
worked. What we found is that women are aggressively mitigating all of those
factors, and the gap still exists.”
The study began
as a personal project for Watts, a notable hire for DNA&Stone who
previously served as director of integrated marketing strategy and brand
planning at Expedia Group since 2022. She spent roughly two and a half years
researching pay disparities independently, motivated by years of anecdotal
accounts from colleagues across the industry.
“As soon as you
start working in advertising, you hear stories,” Watts said. “Women comparing
salaries with co-workers or realizing a male hire at the same level is earning
more. It’s something many people felt in their bones, but there wasn’t enough
rigorous data validating it.”
Watts developed
the survey in partnership with academic researchers and distributed it across
professional networks including the American Advertising Federation, alumni
groups, and industry communities. She ultimately collected more than 1,000
responses, with 926 included in the final analysis.
The
perception problem
Beyond
measuring the pay gap itself, the research also examined how industry
professionals perceive pay equity, and how those perceptions compare to
reality.
Nearly all
women surveyed (96%) said they believe a gender pay gap exists in advertising.
Yet only about one-third believed they personally were being underpaid because
of their gender.
Watts said that
disconnect may reflect a psychological tension between acknowledging systemic
inequity and wanting to believe one’s own workplace is fair.
“So much of our
identity is tied to our work and our salary,” she said. “It can be easier to
believe the industry has a problem in general than to accept that your own
company might be treating you unfairly.”
The study also
found that pay transparency remains limited across agencies. Nearly half of
women surveyed said they do not understand how salary decisions are made at
their organization, and more than two-thirds said they had worked at a company
where employees were discouraged from discussing pay with colleagues, a
practice that is illegal under federal labor law.
Where the
gap gets made
Structural
opacity, however, is only part of the picture.
One of the
clearest patterns emerged when women attempted to address perceived pay
inequities with their managers. Women who raised pay concerns with supervisors,
who were predominantly male in the sample, were significantly more likely to
encounter indifference or stalled conversations than male employees making
similar requests.
“Women were
going to their managers and asking about pay disparities, but the conversation
often stopped there,” Watts said. “Managers would say they’d look into it or
push it off, and nothing would happen.”
By contrast,
male employees were more likely to receive direct answers about promotions or
pay decisions, even when the outcome was negative.
“That
gatekeeping point, where the conversation stops at the manager level, is one of
the biggest places agencies could intervene,” Watts said.
Another
striking finding involved workplace dynamics between male and female
colleagues. The study found that men who reported being uncomfortable working
closely with women tended to earn more than women overall, a pattern Watts
attributes to homosocial reproduction: the tendency for leaders to reward and
promote people who resemble themselves.
“If
decision-makers feel more comfortable with people who remind them of themselves,
those employees may get more opportunities, bigger projects, and promotions,”
Watts said. “Over time, those advantages compound financially.”
UCLA’s Wayne
said the insights into social dynamics were among the most significant to
emerge from the study. “Too often, men default to comfort and familiarity, even
when it quietly reinforces inequity,” she said. “Closing the gender pay gap
means encouraging men to choose fairness over comfort, and there is still a ton
of work to be done to get men on board and fix this continuing problem.”
For Watts, the
findings underscore how seemingly modest pay gaps produce substantial long-term
consequences. Over a 25-year career, the study estimates the gap could
translate into more than $167,000 in lost earnings for women who have never
been pregnant, and more than $271,000 for mothers.
“That’s not
small potatoes,” Watts said. “That’s student loan debt, that’s buying a home,
that’s building generational wealth.”
Samantha Choi
Cadley, founder and CEO/CCO of independent agency Manual Labor, said the
dynamic is familiar. A friend of hers at a larger agency discovered she had
been underpaid only when an acquisition forced the agency’s books open.
“She found out
she was absolutely getting paid less, even as she was doing more work,” Choi
Cadley said. “Not even peer-to-peer.”
Now running her
own shop, Choi Cadley said the solution starts with who is making compensation
decisions. “It’s about who you’re putting at the table,” she said. “If you have
the same group of people that have come up through the same organization or model,
you’re still playing the same habits, the same structure, whether intentionally
or not.”
Watts hopes the
research will prompt agencies to take concrete action, recommending pay band
transparency, regular compensation audits and escalation processes so pay
equity concerns do not stop at the direct manager level. Though the research
predates her appointment, DNA&Stone has already begun implementing those
measures internally, revising promotion guidelines to clarify how employees
advance.
“Transparency
is important,” Watts said. “But accountability is what ultimately closes the
gap.”
Without those
changes, she warns, the industry risks losing the very talent it depends on:
“When nearly half of women say gender discrimination is affecting their career,
eventually some of them are going to leave. And that’s not the kind of industry
any of us want to be building.”
