More than 50 percent of women in the advertising industry have experienced sexual harassment at least once, according to a study from trade association the 4As.
Disclosing preliminary results of a survey in the publication Campaign, Nancy Hill, CEO of the organization, urged advertising leaders to tackle sexism aggressively.
“There are industry leaders out there who brush off gender and diversity issues; too many C-suite execs believe this issue is an isolated problem, one that doesn’t exist in ‘my house’ or, remarkably, one that doesn’t exist at all,” she wrote, adding, “We must start at the top, with each CEO appointing himself or herself the Chief Diversity Officer. Until there’s better representation of gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation in an organization’s upper echelon, awareness and change are going to be harder to come by.”
The survey, which polled 375 women in the advertising field in June in the United States, reported that 42 percent of respondents were not included in making decisions that they should have been included in because of discrimination, while 33 percent said they were passed over for a promotion because of discrimination.
Disturbingly, 54 percent of women in advertising said they also feel potentially vulnerable to discrimination at work, and almost 60 percent said they faced discrimination without realizing it until later.
Issues of gender discrimination in the ad industry have made headlines recently. Last week, Kevin Roberts, the exec chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, resigned after making controversial remarks about gender to Business Insider. Roberts denied that gender discrimination was an issue in the ad industry, telling Business Insider that the “fucking debate is all over” and he spent “no time” thinking about gender diversity.
Following his remarks, Roberts was immediately placed on leave by Publicis Groupe, the parent company of Saatchi and Saatchi. Earlier this year, the company shelled out almost $3 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit at its MSLGroup unit in New York.
“There have been several discriminatory incidents in the industry in the past six months alone, and it’s time for us to do better,” Hill wrote. “Discrimination in any form is not okay. And I urge any employees, female, diverse or otherwise, to raise a flag if they see or hear discrimination like this. It is never acceptable, and it must change if we want to change the face of our industry going forward.”
The 4As said the full report, which will be released in the fall, examines discrimination and harassment based on gender, age and race.
