The onus on gender stereotyping should fall on everyone – advertisers, creative teams and agencies – to create authentic content that is personal and reflects modern day society. From Josh Krichefski, CEO – MediaCom.
This is a hugely positive move and one we completely support. Advertising, and to be honest, much of the media including film and TV, has been playing catch up with the rest of culture for far too long.
Women make up 70 percent to 80 percent of worldwide purchases – in short women are a hugely important, powerful audience which it’s vital brands appeal to and represent with no prejudice, stereotype or sexism of any kind.
According to our research, the top 5 career aspirations for women are: teacher, vet & animal care, medicine, science/psychology and emergency services. It’s vital that the media content the advertising industry serves reflects that diversity and ambition.
Outdated and misrepresented advertisements have plagued the industry for far too long, and so the onus now is very much on the advertiser, creative teams and agencies to create engaging and thoughtful content that smashes the stereotypes of old and reflects the gender-equal society we must strive for.
Alongside approach to content, the representation of women in the media is also an organisational issue that should be top of the agenda for all businesses within our sector. Internally, we must create a culture that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion of all kinds. If you ensure gender diversity is part of internal culture, then the campaigns and content created by those business should match that.
At MediaCom, we are proud to have a 50:50 gender ratio across senior management, while we’ve also set ourselves a challenge of improving our diversity stats by ten percent this year. Simply put, equality and diversity must be an overall business goal, not a supplementary task.
