Opening Caution: This blog post is an admittedly winding and rambling discourse.
Adweek published a fluttering fluff piece that probed the 3% Conference shuttering and Kat Gordon muttering—a cluttering stuttering of the recent Advertising Age report buttering the same White-bread topics.
According to Adweek, “…Gordon stated that she wants to ultimately create a curriculum for the modern creative leader that takes into account all of the recent world and work changes, and centers on diversity, new work processes, neurodiversity, mental health, stress and wellness.” Huh? How did Gordon evolve from divertsity defender to pseudo industrial organizational psychologist?
Then again, it’s pretty common for advertising executives to transition to consultant roles—leveraging their huckster skills to position themselves as gurus with wondrously insightful theories for improving situations that they failed to solve or even affect as insiders.
Yet this blog post examination, believe it or not, ain’t about Gordon—but rather, what the moment may represent. It all appears to be another example of the abandonment of true diversity. True diversity, for the purposes of this discussion, is defined as fair and equal representation of historically marginalized groups.
Fostering true diversity takes deliberate effort—which requires doing more than the norm (in Adland, incidentally, doing the norm is doing nothing). Showing part-time concern is not good enough. What’s more, a true diversity defender must constantly develop themselves, while envisioning, setting and achieving progressive goals.
True diversity defenders do not have the luxury of retiring from the cause. Only the privileged and entitled enjoy self-imposed parameters and self-interested schedules. Moving onto more pressing concerns is a typical diversionary stunt—as well as a demonstration of lackadaisical commitment and limited courage. Deciding ‘mission accomplished’ is as outrageous as declaring the attainment of a post-racial society.
Net Conclusion: Adland fails to realize true diversity because too many leaders—and thought leaders—lack true dedication.
Okay, that’s enough muddled musing for this blog post.
The 3% Conference Is Ending but Kat Gordon Continues Her Work to Improve the Industry
The conference’s founder talks about what’s next for the movement
By Kyle O’Brien
Kat Gordon founded the 3% Conference in 2012 to raise the profile of women in the advertising industry. The longtime copywriter and creative director started the conference and the 3% Movement to address the fact that only 3% of creative directors were women. Now, after 10 years and 28 events, the 3% Conference has come to an end.
Gordon cited several reasons for ending the 3% Conference, including the logistics involved in planning a large symposium and a pandemic that wasn’t kind to in-person events. After a decade of wrangling sponsors, coordinating big events and having one conference become totally virtual because of Covid-19 concerns, Gordon decided it was time to wrap it up. That doesn’t mean that the efforts of 3% will go away, however. Gordon said they will continue, as will her work in the industry concentrating on work/life balance and mental health issues.
“It took so much of my time to negotiate sponsorships and to work out programming. And I really enjoyed elements of it, but I felt like it was stymieing me from doing other kinds of impact work around our issues that use higher order thinking,” Gordon told Adweek.
Gordon said that what was great about the conference was that it built an energized community that had a shared understanding of the issues it put out to the world. Ten years of events were necessary to earn the trust of the industry and build that community. Moving forward, the people that were inspired by the events are now deployed and hopefully implementing gender and racial equality in the workplace outside just a few days at a conference.
“There was almost a beautiful, circular notion to it—10 years, a nice round number. It feels good. There’s always loss in change, but I’ve been really bowled over by the amount of outreach that we’ve gotten since [it was originally announced]. Lots of people just saying how incredibly important this movement was to their personal career, to their deciding to stay in the industry, to their ability to lead in this industry,” said Gordon.
To that end, the 3% Movement will still have smaller virtual gatherings for the community, like a recent expert roundtable about the future of freelance, along with other curated and smaller events and series. 3% will also be continuing its Next Creative Leaders partnership with The One Club.
Diving back into the agency world
Gordon has newfound energy thanks to a new gig with San Francisco agency Eleven, a “creative entrepreneur in residence” role that focuses on inclusion, belonging and corporate social responsibility.
“It aligns with what’s happening in this moment with remote work. And that to me, that’s a bigger gift I can give to the creative industry, a kind of roadmap forward for creative leadership in this new world of work.”
Gordon linked up with Eleven the very first year of the 3% Conference, as it was the only agency to sponsor the event. She credits Eleven’s CEO Courtney Buechert, with whom she had worked at Anderson & Lembke years before, with helping get 3% on the map, along with founding sponsors Adobe and the 4A’s.
“I had just described to him what I was building, and he really wanted to support it. So it’s a very similar thing that 10 years in, I start describing to him another new thing, which is, I just don’t feel like creative leaders are being trained to meet this moment, and all these other factors around wellness and stress and burnout, and corporate social responsibility on behalf of clients. And I just didn’t really feel like anyone was having that conversation,” said Gordon.
Buechert asked Gordon to write up a job description for what she envisioned, which turned into Gordon’s current position. In her role, she writes about issues ranging from corporate social responsibility to managing remote work, returning to the office, team dynamics and pretty much whatever else she wants to write about, using LinkedIn and Substack as home base.
“It’s been the corporate social responsibility piece I’m really excited about. The future of our industry is more about what our clients represent, who they are as corporate citizens…than just what they sell,” Gordon stated, adding that creative leaders need to be driving those conversations and changing briefs to reflect a new strategy based on more than just features and benefits.
A space for mental health
Another venture the multi-hyphenate Gordon is excited about is her role on the board of the Representation Project, California first partner and filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s non-profit that uses film and media to challenge harmful gender norms and stereotypes. It’s the organization behind the films Miss Representation and The Mask You Live In.
“They have a brand new film that just debuted at the Sonoma Film Festival called Fair Play. It’s about the invisible labor that women do at home and how it is impacting their ability to contribute at the highest levels at work,” said Gordon, adding that the organization is working with Reese Witherspoon’s production agency, Hello Sunshine, on doing a series of screenings on the film, accompanied by virtual events, including a mentor matchmaking event.
Aside from all that, Gordon stated that she wants to ultimately create a curriculum for the modern creative leader that takes into account all of the recent world and work changes, and centers on diversity, new work processes, neurodiversity, mental health, stress and wellness. To that end, Gordon recently bought a home in Napa with a big four-car garage that she would like to convert into a place to host creative retreats, for groups of creative leaders to come together around wellness and creative goal setting.
Gordon hopes that her 10 years leading the 3% Conference has set her up to be able to grab the sponsors and players that can fund these gatherings and keep pushing the industry ahead in the right direction.
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