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A year ago the UN Women convened the Unstereotype Alliance to rally the global advertising industry to eradicate harmful stereotypes and use advertising as a force to impact social norms. A Monday morning Advertising New York session provided an Alliance progress report.
Unstereotyping is challenging norms like having a panel full of men talking about the future of women, says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director, UN Women, adding that she won't sit on an all-male panel. (This panel, fortunately, was split equally between genders.)
Unconscious bias is a key reason Interpublic Group is making sure everyone has a voice and contributes their views and insights to the work the company presents to clients, says company CEO Michael Roth. As he points out, if 80% of the women are buying the product, it makes sense to have a female on the creative team.
While the first phase of the Alliance project focused on inclusion, IPG's Roth says addressing tokenism is the most important next step. Creative imagery had diverse representatives without assimilating diverse voices into the creative conversation, he says. "They checked the box," says Roth. "It is more than that."
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It isn't just that women have been misrepresented, say panelists. There are stereotypes of religion and color. Women in hijabs don't exist in advertising, says Aline Santos Farhat EVP, global marketing, Unilever.
Panelists agree that this issue starts internally and then these members are able to influence the creative execution. If you aren't associated with an organization that isn't aligned with your issues, then go find one that is. "Life is too short," jokes Roth.
Still, Roth points out that it is hard to boil the ocean, alluding to the fact that change must start somewhere but it doesn't happen all at once. IPG, for instance, began in the U.S., but this is a global issue and you have to bring it to a global platform, he added.
The panel ended by announcing new partners joining the #Unstereotype Alliance that include Ogilvy, Anomaly, HP and GlaxoSmithKline.
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October 1, 2018 at 12:09PM
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