Hey Kevin Roberts, squeeze this!

An unscientific guide for female creatives – by Helen Morgan (left), freelance copywriter and co-director of scooterack.co.nz

Kevin Roberts’ largely glowing tenure at Saatchis has been felled by one controversial article in Business Insider. Bugger! Tricky territory at the best of times is gender equality, but saying that other sectors are ‘way worse’ when said sectors happen to be some of your company’s biggest clients possibly wasn’t the smartest of moves. He bit the hand that feeds the machine and the machine bit him back.

Say what you like about his comments (and oh my haven’t you just in the media and online, sparking some timely and interesting discussions in the process) it was inevitable the board would make him fall on the sword to keep their clients sweet. That and my guess that this was part of a bigger agenda, a memo reading something along the lines of ‘cut him loose, he’s old anyway’. Ouch – too soon, or too close to the truth? Or maybe I should just be careful about making sweeping generalisations because those things can really bite you on the bum, right Mr Lovemarks?

So, I’m going to try and steer away from speaking on behalf of other groups I know nothing about and instead describe my reality as an older female creative. No, that’s not an oxymoron. Almost though. Why do I feel the need to do this? Well, for a long time I’ve had an inkling that my experience isn’t unique, and recent posts do seem to back my instinct up, so deep breath, here we go:

Actually no, wait, let’s get a little housekeeping out of the way first. The loos are over there. The bit where you get to tell me your story, opinion, or anonymously bag me you’ll find below. Knock yourselves out, I have nothing to lose, but this industry, one that I genuinely adore, has everything to gain from women like me discussing stuff like this.

Okay, back to me and my creative sisters. In the aforementioned article, which ultimately became his professional kryptonite, Kevin stated that roughly half the staff in his agencies were female. Now, with this statistic in mind let’s close our eyes and visualize most agencies. Hi welcoming receptionists, hello planners and account management – my what a somewhat diverse bunch you are. Hey creative services, thanks for all you tolerate. And here we are with the creatives. Suddenly you wake up clammy and confused. That department was way off 50:50! Must be a bad dream. Rolls over, falls back to sleep.

Well no, sorry, I’m not going to let you get off that easy. I’ve just stolen your duvet and you’re going to sit up and listen or you’re not getting it back.

Following on from the 50% call Kevin surmised that most of us women, along with those nouveaux hippie Millennials, are a freestyling bunch, all happy working munchkins with nil desire to progress their careers beyond a certain level. Like or loathe what he said, as with most things somewhere in the middle lies the truth. Yes, there are people who shirk climbing to the top because that is not their life’s ambition. I don’t think that anyone should get shot down for saying this. But, for a smart guy, gee his grasp of maths and biology is decidedly average! You see, one of his comments went along the lines that after ten years many women simply back off.

Do the sums Kevin. A female copywriter or art director enters the industry all fired up in her 20s, she hones her craft, picks up a few awards and really hits her stride, but then she hits her 30s too, and if you’re going to have a family then you best get on with it girl, tick-tock. Yes, children are a choice, but lots of male creatives want a family by now too, problem is only one half of the equation can actually have them.

Now, from what I’ve seen the 30s is also when male creatives bag the most yellow pencils, land more briefs that secure them more accolades, and get promoted to group head or CD. A few of us try and hang in there, cracked nipples and all, but it isn’t easy. Many take a break/freelance (me) and then find their one time peers have charged ahead and now both you and your work are considered too old and your once promising career is up the proverbial creek – and her canoe hasn’t sprung a leak, it’s postpartum LBL. What a bloody shame, because we did and still do harbour ambitions to produce great work. You will never truly understand any of this Kevin Roberts, because you don’t know what you don’t know, right? (But just so you do know, urinary incontinence visits most of us in the end apparently).

Am I bitter that my old co-workers have gone gang-busters? Hell no! These guys are my friends. I’ve had a ball working with many brilliant, witty, open-minded, gracious male creatives, and I would never begrudge any of you your well-earned successes. Just please understand how much it guts your one time female counterparts as it slowly dawns upon us that we’ll probably never play catch-up with all those little statues you’ve amassed. You know, the things that ensure a creative’s career path, Mr Roberts?

The question is, other than being frustratingly disappointing for said female creatives, does this attrition really matter? The work’s getting done, so the clients are happy. Would they be any happier if they saw more female creatives presenting their work to them? I dunno, got a crystal ball? Although, just for the record, if I see another ad featuring a thirty-something white hipster male getting shown up for being a drop-kick in relation to banking/insurance/grocery shopping etc by his smug, usually white, other half again, I’m going to lob my wine at the telly. WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO DO AND YOU’RE NOT DOING EITHER SEX ANY FAVOURS!!!

Besides this is real life, not an episode of Sesame Street. A charter to cover every gender, race, religion and sexual orientation on the creative floor over qualifications and innate talent is silly. However, given that agencies pride themselves on being the masters of change wouldn’t it be on brand to at least attempt to mix things up a bit more by making it easier for female creatives to stay on, or re-enter the department? They were good once, and you never know, their recent life experiences outside of the agency might just result in some great insights, award-winning even.

I guess if the powers that be see any value in this then the answer lies in taking a good look at the current set-up of a creative department to allow for a little more flexibility. I know that a number of you will have just snorted with derision at this lofty ideal, citing it as impractical, but I’m calling bullshit on that. Industries that truly want to evolve can and do. Part of me also wonders if some male creatives would like the ability to have a little more balance in their lives too.

I wonder, I wonder, I wander. You know, when I was in my late 20s working in agencies here and in London I had numerous junior female creatives ask me what they should ‘do’ as a female creative amongst so many males. I’d tell them not to think about it, and concentrate on working their arses off and producing great work instead. Today my older and wiser self would now add that if they wanted to keep doing what they love and have a family, then to start planning now. Push your current agency to help make it work and if they can’t, or won’t, then leave and give your passion and ideas to an agency that will. Trust me, the thrill of a new brief and that blank sheet of paper never goes away, so don’t give it up lightly.

Ok, it’s getting on, time to call it a night. May I just ask that a few of you sleep on this please? And if you, like me, can see the merit of a few more female creatives on the floor then let me whisper one final thought in your ear as I tuck you in, three words that this writer used to step over every day on her way into work: ‘Nothing Is Impossible’.

Helen Morgan is a freelance copywriter and co-director of scooterack.co.nz. She kicked off her advertising career at Ogilvy, Wellington, in the days when the Kevin Roberts of this world made it an industry she wanted in on – and for that she thanks him. Stints at big agencies like Ogilvy and Saatchi’s (and a bunch of smaller ones) in London followed, before she returned to NZ with her family ten years ago. Today she often finds herself working on briefs at the arse-end of negligible, or dubious strategies. This often results in her re-writing them at midnight. But that’s cool, because she still loves this business, even if she and big agencies mostly sleep in separate beds now. Oh, and her headline is a nod to Luke Sullivan’s, ‘Hey Whipple, squeeze this!’ Read it some time. And she nearly didn’t send this off to the media at all by the way, but then she heard the voice of her first CD, a Ducati riding Yorkshireman whisper ‘Go on, fookin’ do it, Helster!’. So she d
id. RIP Andy Firth xx.