12915: WACL Is Wack.

Campaign reported WACL celebrated its Future Leaders Award, and the accompanying photo underscored the organization’s exclusivity—as well as underscored that WACL President Lindsey Clay is a fucking idiot.

12789: Failing Future, Present & Past.

Campaign published a sponsored piece from Monster featuring a White person roundtable on diversity—although it was mostly inclusiveness via promoting White women. “It’s not just women,” insisted Lindsey Clay. “Colour, race, gender, social background and age are all under-represented.” Of course, Clay doesn’t give a shit about colour, race, social background and age, except when applied to White women. The story was titled, “Failing the Future,” but anyone who has seriously considered diversity knows our industry is failing the present, and has failed the past since the birth of adland. Most pathetic is the photo above depicting the roundtable participants. Leave it to White folks to hold a discussion on diversity that excluded people of colour.

Failing the Future

The next-gen crisis: are we failing to discover, develop and retain the diversity of talent required to be the next marketing leaders?

So hot is the issue of talent development and diversity that Campaign had no trouble luring business leaders out of the Cannes sunshine and into a private dining room at the Carlton Hotel to chew it over during the recent Lions Festival of Creativity.

“The fear is that we are heading towards a homogenous and dwindling talent pool of people equipped to lead in an increasingly global and digital world,” said Andrew Warner of Monster, Campaign’s partner in the debate.

The digital economy was expected to democratise career structures, but, in fact, he suggested, flatter organisations provide less scaffolding for progression. And a high percentage of women fall out of tech careers in their thirties.

“It’s not just women. Colour, race, gender, social background and age are all under-represented,” added Thinkbox’s Lindsey Clay. “Differences make output strong,” said HMG’s Darren Goldie. “I always recruit for attitude and then develop talent.”

Digitalisation brings challenges to more traditional businesses too. “I have people with marketing degrees who are not equipped,” said HSBC’s Amanda Rendle. Agencies also face a huge challenge, said Maxus’s Richard Stokes. “We bring people in to do specific tech jobs but how are they going to develop into the leaders of tomorrow?”

Some businesses, such as Expedia, aim to transfer skills like search optimisation via lunchtime masterclasses. “It’s OK not to know,” said Andrew Cocker. “And it’s OK to learn.” The skill set required these days is incredibly demanding,” said Stephen Maher. “You’ve got to be good at tech and data, as well as conceptual and creative and also a brilliant leader and presenter.”

If such talent is to be attracted to marketing as a career, “we all have a responsibility for it not to be that small thing sat in the corner,” said Clear Channel’s Sarah Speake.”Marketing has lost some of its sizzle,” admitted Chesters. “It’s cobblers’ children going barefoot. How appalling we are at marketing ourselves. “We need to be more intelligent and flexible and interesting in the people that we recruit and where we find them.”

12786: Shut Up, Lindsey Clay.

Campaign published another pathetic perspective from Lindsey Clay, who is continuing her culturally clueless crusade to promote White women. Clay challenged everyone in adland to “Speak Up” and champion the cause—while remaining deafeningly silent about the true dearth of diversity disabling the industry. Ms. Moron declared, “Remind people to include women on shortlists for any senior jobs, speak up when you hear casual sexism.” Regarding casual racism, stay quiet. Clay also whooped, “And to all the men who are trying hard to address the challenges around diversity and gender, I salute you. Thank you for going out of your way to engage with these important topics.” Yes, kudos to all two or three of you actively working on real diversity—but don’t expect Clay to join you anytime soon, as she’s focused on faux equality.

Memo to Lindsey Clay: Shut the fuck up.

It’s time to speak up: Why adland needs to be more vocal

As she takes on the presidency of Wacl, Lindsey Clay discusses her theme for the year and why adland needs to be more vocal.

I recently had the huge honour and privilege of taking over the presidency of Women in Advertising Communications London, or Wacl.

My theme for the coming year is “speak up”. Thankfully, this isn’t an acronym. I did toy with one – “stop politically egregious arseholiness…” – but I couldn’t hurdle that “K” and the “U” was also daunting. So “speak up” is an imperative.

As I was formulating my theme, I had two starkly contrasting experiences that reinforced my focus.

The first was hearing Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer at Facebook, interviewed by our brilliant outgoing president, Lindsay Pattison of Maxus. She was compelling and inspiring about the challenges facing men and women in achieving equality and the opportunities for our industry in doing so. One of the recurring themes was women’s lack of confidence in stepping up.

Later that same day, I had a conversation with a senior man in the industry. He congratulated me on my upcoming presidency but advised me to be careful as he felt Wacl had “gone too far” – women were now dominating the industry, and he and a lot of his friends were worried about it.

After handing him a hankie to mop his tears and then checking which century we were in, I tried to reassure him that his concern was misplaced. He and his friends were in no immediate danger of being dominated, given that women make up only 25 per cent of the most senior positions in the industry and, in any case, there is no anti-men agenda. Pro-women is not the same as anti-men. But he remained unconvinced and was at pains to warn me against the dangers of being too vocal. Given the choice, I suspect he’d prefer the theme to be “shut up”. I fear I’m going to disappoint him.

So what do I mean by “speak up”? I mean it in three different ways.

Speak up to inspire others

I find it frustrating that, although women are famously brilliant communicators, for some reason, when it comes to the public sphere, they are often eerily silent. Simply not enough women’s voices are heard in public. I want to change this.

This is so important because young women find it very hard to speak up and female leaders are doing them a huge disservice if we don’t lead the way in showing them how. As Cindy Gallop says: “You can’t be it if you can’t see it.” Not every senior woman is confident about speaking in public, but confidence is a product of our experience – so the more you do it, the easier you’ll find it.

Speak up to challenge and change

To adapt a famous quote for our purposes: “All that is required for evil to flourish is for good men and women to remain silent.” Wacl aims to be a critical friend to our industry on issues around gender and diversity, pointing out what needs to change and offering help to make it happen.

Speak up to point out the gender imbalance at the conference you’re attending. If you’re a man, refuse to accept any speaking engagement until you have been reassured that there is some balance among the speakers and you won’t be appearing on yet another “manel”. Challenge your board to investigate the status on equal pay, remind people to include women on shortlists for any senior jobs, speak up when you hear casual sexism, encourage women in your organisation to accept speaking engagements.

Remind people to include women on shortlists for any senior jobs, speak up when you hear casual sexism.

Various studies have shown that women are more likely to be interrupted in a meeting, so speak up when you see it happening. And then, for the brave, speak up about these issues publicly when you have the opportunity.

Speak up to celebrate

Public celebration and praise is a very powerful tool. We should use that tool to celebrate the successes of women as well as those companies and individuals that are leading the way in making positive change happen.

Let’s give praise in the industry where praise is due: Tom Knox for the courageous decision to choose “advertising for good” as the theme of his IPA presidency; conference organisers who make an improvement in their gender balance; the companies that come top of the diversity league tables; Campaign for being a leading voice on the issue of equality.

I know that the man who was worried about Wacl is not representative of men in our industry. And to all the men who are trying hard to address the challenges around diversity and gender, I salute you. Thank you for going out of your way to engage with these important topics.

My Wacl theme for the year is a call to action for everyone who likes the idea of having a more interesting, more creative, more commercially successful industry and a much nicer, balanced working environment.

Within Wacl, we will be developing a diverse programme of activity on the “speak up” theme over the next year or so, from encouraging and inspiring women to celebrating the best of what is happening. If you have a great idea on this topic, speak up – I’d love to hear it.

Lindsey Clay is the chief executive of Thinkbox

12560: Womanaging Partners.

Campaign reported OgilvyOne promoted one White man and three White women to managing partners. Idiots like Lindsey Clay and Kat Gordon will hail the elevations as revolutionary progress—but it’s really just routine perpetuation.

OgilvyOne boosts leadership team with four promotions

By Maisie McCabe

OgilvyOne has expanded its leadership team by appointing four new managing partners, including Aaron Goldring, the worldwide creative director on the British Airways digital business.

Goldring, who has been at OgilvyOne since September 2013, becomes the managing partner, creative director. He began his career in New Zealand in 2001 as an interactive designer and has also worked at Proximity and DDB New Zealand.

The other promotions are: Mel Stanley, who takes on the role of managing partner, customer engagement planning; Anya King, who moved up to managing partner, BT; and Tracey Barber, who becomes the managing partner, marketing and new business.

The four will report to Sam Williams-Thomas, the chief executive of OgilvyOne UK.

Stanley has been OgilvyOne’s customer engagement planning director since 2013. She joined the agency as a planning partner and strategic lead on the British Gas account in 2010.

King joined OgilvyOne in 2013 to run BT Business, IBM, Sage and BP’s business-to-business account.

Her remit now also includes BT’s consumer unit.

OgilvyOne hired Barber as a new-business manager in 2010. She has since risen through the ranks to become the marketing and new-business director in March 2014. Barber has previously worked at Meteorite and the IPA.

Williams-Thomas said: “As we continue to grow our business and remain the world’s leading customer engagement agency, we look to our latest generation of leaders to demonstrate the passion to drive the business forward.”

12546: UK Bitch Session.

At Campaign, “Portraits of a lady” presents more White women whining. Now the UK Mad Women are arguing that they’re not just underrepresented, but unfairly represented too—despite enjoying roughly 50 percent representation in the field. The clueless complainers include Lindsey Clay, and the 3 percenters are joining the revolution too. It’s only a matter of time before somebody invites Patricia Arquette to the bitch session. Of course, no one is mentioning that while White women are allegedly underrepresented and unfairly represented, minorities aren’t represented at all.

Portraits of a lady

As Kate Magee heard at last week’s Wacl event, advertising continues to represent women unfairly.

I want you to get it out. I want to see it. I want to feel it, hold it, put it in my mouth,” the young woman says in a close-up to camera.

No, this isn’t a scene from 50 Shades Of Grey but from an ad shown on daytime TV last year for the e-cigarette brand VIP.

It was an example highlighted at last week’s Wacl event in the House of Commons, where the audience agreed conclusively – after fierce debate – that the depiction of women in advertising today still lags behind the reality.

Yes, there has been huge progress over the past 25 years – just look at the brilliant Sport England campaign “this girl can” by FCB Inferno – but there is still much more to be done.

The lazy use of outdated stereotypes and unnecessary sexualisation aside, what’s often most damaging is unconscious bias.

The chair of the Account Planning Group, Tracey Follows, highlighted a recent Apple ad for Siri in which men asked work-related questions while women requested a reminder about grocery shopping.

It’s this type of bias that is powerfully exposed in the “#LikeAGirl” ad for Always by Leo Burnett. And also why the Thinkbox chair, Tess Alps, argued that Mother’s “epic strut” ad for Moneysupermarket.com is a feminist statement. The spot shows a man flouncing down the street in hotpants and high heels.

“By making a man behave like women are expected to behave all the time, it shows how ridiculous it is,” Alps said. “We might not always be able to change the culture, but we don’t have to adopt the worst aspects of it.”

Partly, the bias is a result of the “male gaze”. If the majority of creative directors in charge of depicting a woman are men, can they – however well-intentioned – ever truly reflect a woman’s experience?

The problem is not usually an individual ad but the accumulative effect of what advertising says about the role of women in society.

One of the most interesting ways to redress the balance came from Thinkbox’s chief executive, Lindsey Clay, who suggested the creation of a Bechdel test for advertising.

The Bechdel test, originally used on movies, asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many films fail the test.

Clay suggested judging whether an ad showed a woman who was not in a domestic setting, not playing a nurturing role and not defined through a sexual relationship with a man.

It’s a thought-provoking concept but, as the debate showed, things are not always clear-cut. Procter & Gamble’s brand director of northern Europe, Roisin Donnelly, said that businesses cannot afford to offend women in their ads because they won’t be effective if they don’t engage with the consumer. She then cited research revealing that UK women still handle 75 per cent of the housework and 88 per cent of the childcare.

Frightening statistics, but if 70 per cent of females say they feel alienated by most ads (research pointed out by Follows), then perhaps women don’t recognise, or want to recognise, the reality.

Advertising is aspirational and has the power to change behaviour. So it is also within the industry’s power to show a more equal society in ads.

As the equalities minister Jo Swinson put it: “Does advertising want to reflect what reality is, or lead us to a new reality?”

Wacl’s House of Commons debate: Why now, what next?

Lindsay Pattison, president, Wacl; worldwide chief executive, Maxus

I’m loving the current zeitgeist for more empowered, diverse images of women in ads. Always’ “#LikeAGirl” and Sport England’s “this girl can” both sassily and really effectively invert damaging stereotypes. Meanwhile, L’Oréal (a client) recently appointed Helen Mirren as a UK ambassador.

Our debate highlighted that, while we’ve come far, it is, as Tess Alps summed up so eloquently, “not job done”.

Examining our own business is a helpful lens and one that shows the need for Wacl, aged 92, to still exist. As our vice-president, Lindsey Clay, pointed out: while we start out in advertising with a 50/50 gender split, as we “progress” only 25 per cent of senior management roles are held by women. Not a great start.

And it’s far, far worse when we delve into disciplines; the lack of senior female creatives is a massive issue worldwide. On 12 June, the 3% Club (reflecting the percentage of executive creative directors stateside who are female) will come here to help raise awareness and inspire more creative talent, so that the people conceiving ads bring a realistic, empathetic view and also reflect the market.

We’re making a big effort to attract and support female chief strategy officers too; as an organisation, we will try to encourage more super senior female planners to help us deliver true insights and thus effective comms. Misunderstanding female consumers from a business perspective is lunacy; two-thirds of the world’s purchase power is wielded by females – that’s $12 trillion!

What else can we do? We can call out any lazy, unhelpful hangovers of casual sexism and gender stereotyping as a priority – we can all raise our hands and our voices. It’s our industry and we should all take responsibility.

Wacl’s goal isn’t to create an undue advantage, but we do want a level playing field. Let’s reflect reality – or, better yet, an achievable improvement on a society where only 23 per cent of our MPs and five of our FTSE 100 chief executives are women.

12509: White Women Rule In UK.

Campaign reported Grey London promoted Lucy Jameson to Chief Executive, while Wunderman promoted Mel Edwards to Chief Executive EMEA—further confirming that White women are thriving in UK White advertising agencies. Such remarkable progress would never have happened without the tireless activism of revolutionaries like Cilla Snowball, Lindsey Clay and Nils Leonard. Bravo, White ladies and gentleman. Mission accomplished.

12487: Female Avengers Assemble.

The Associated Press reported Marvel will present an all-female Avengers team. Look for Kat Gordon and Lindsey Clay to take credit.

Marvel Comics debuts all-female Avengers team, ‘A-Force’

She-Hulk, Dazzler and Medusa among the heroines teaming up for the publisher’s new title, which will debut in May.

By The Associated Press

The ladies are taking the lead in one of Marvel Comics’ top comic book properties, with an all-female Avengers team called “A-Force” debuting as the company intensifies efforts to bring more girls and women into its male-dominated fan base.

Not only will the book feature some of Marvel’s well-known female heroes, it will be written by two of Marvel’s female comic book writers, Marguerite K. Bennett and Willow Wilson.

Wilson, a Seattle comic book writer who helped break ground in 2013 with her “Ms. Marvel,” the story of a Muslim female superhero, said women were rarely the focus of comic book superhero teams, usually in the role of a girlfriend or damsel in distress.

This book will challenge that script, Wilson said.

“I think that we’re kind of asking some implicit questions with this lineup and one of them is: Do we respond to female superhero teams in the same way that we respond to superhero teams composed primarily or entirely of men?” Wilson said. “So it is a bit of a risk, but it’s a risk that’s been shown to work.”

A-Force won’t be Marvel’s first all-female team, with successful runs of an all-female mutant team in “X-Men.” When it debuts in May, it will join Marvel’s 14 other female-led books, like Ms. Marvel and “Captain Marvel,” which is scheduled to become a Marvel movie. DC Comics also has several female leads, including Batgirl, Catwoman, Batwoman and Wonder Woman, the longest-running comic book with a female hero.

A-Force — which will feature characters like She-Hulk, Dazzler and Medusa, as well as a new hero called Singularity — will hopefully get more women and girls to transition from successful superhero movies like “Marvel’s The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight” to reading comic books, Wilson said. Part of the way forward is to have female characters take the same kind of journeys taken by superheroes like Batman and Spider-Man and told from a female point of view, she said.

“There’s a big push … to have that same kind of recognizable, really enduring storytelling that appeals — not just to women readers but to men as well — and that reflects that same journey, that same coming of age, that same struggle that we all identify with through the eyes of female characters,” Wilson said.

And while the majority of comic book buyers are male, millennials and Generation Xers are becoming more accepting of stories told from different points of view, she said. “In the past, when you had teams that were composed entirely of men and with maybe one woman, that was considered something very usual but to do the reverse was somehow unthinkable,” she said. “We’re at a time now where we can ask why that is.”