IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v63y2020i5p597-606.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Something in Adland doesn’t add up: It’s time to make female creatives count

Author

Listed:
  • Thompson-Whiteside, Helen

Abstract

The increased visibility of gender issues in society has inspired a trend among marketing companies: female empowerment. Marketers are working with clients and developing advertising that advocates equality for female consumers. Yet, despite this trend for femvertising, little progress has been made toward gender equality for the women working inside the creative advertising industry. This article looks at the inequality problem and considers whether it stems from women’s thwarted attempts to establish a leadership identity within the strongly-gendered cultures in which they are subject to established practices. Thirty female creatives from the U.S., U.K., and mainland Europe were interviewed and, based on these findings, I present three overarching themes: vision, voice, and visibility. Together, they represent the challenges women experience in developing a leadership identity but also inspire opportunities for agencies to increase the influence of female creatives. If the advertising industry’s claims to represent society are to be taken seriously, it must move beyond empowering female consumers to also empowering its female creatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Thompson-Whiteside, Helen, 2020. "Something in Adland doesn’t add up: It’s time to make female creatives count," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 597-606.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:63:y:2020:i:5:p:597-606
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2020.05.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681320300707
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2020.05.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Helena Isidro & Márcia Sobral, 2015. "The Effects of Women on Corporate Boards on Firm Value, Financial Performance, and Ethical and Social Compliance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 1-19, November.
    2. Robson, Karen & Plangger, Kirk & Kietzmann, Jan H. & McCarthy, Ian & Pitt, Leyland, 2016. "Game on: Engaging customers and employees through gamification," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 29-36.
    3. Haseeb Ahmed Shabbir & Hala Maalouf & Michele Griessmair & Nazan Colmekcioglu & Pervaiz Akhtar, 2019. "Exploring Perceptions of Advertising Ethics: An Informant-Derived Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 727-744, October.
    4. Neva Štumberger & Urša Golob, 2016. "On the Discursive Construction of Corporate Social Responsibility in Advertising Agencies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 521-536, September.
    5. Jill Rubery, 2019. "The founding of the Gender, Work and Organization journal: Reflections 25 years on," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 9-17, January.
    6. Spencer, Signe M. & Blazek, E. Susanne & Orr, J. Evelyn, 2019. "Bolstering the female CEO pipeline: Equalizing the playing field and igniting women’s potential as top-level leaders," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 62(5), pages 567-577.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benkraiem, Ramzi & Boubaker, Sabri & Brinette, Souad & Khemiri, Sabrina, 2021. "Board feminization and innovation through corporate venture capital investments: The moderating effects of independence and management skills," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. María José Ibáñez & Felipe Vásquez Lavin & Roberto D. Ponce Oliva, 2023. "Female Underperformance Hypothesis Revisited: Methodological Review and Empirical Testing," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    3. Anna Maaranen & Janne Tienari, 2020. "Social media and hyper‐masculine work cultures," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1127-1144, November.
    4. Xi, Nannan & Hamari, Juho, 2019. "Does gamification satisfy needs? A study on the relationship between gamification features and intrinsic need satisfaction," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 210-221.
    5. Jasmine Yur‐Austin & Ran Zhao & Lu Zhu, 2024. "Unraveling the impact of female CEOs on corporate bond markets," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 391-423, June.
    6. Won-Kyu Lim & Cheong-Kyu Park, 2022. "Mandating Gender Diversity and the Value Relevance of Sustainable Development Disclosure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-12, June.
    7. Jaroslaw Grobelny & Joanna Smierzchalska & Krzysztof Czapkowski, 2018. "Narrative Gamification as a Method of Increasing Sales Performance: A Field Experimental Study," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 8(3), pages 430-447, March.
    8. Faisal Hameed & Mohammad Alfaraj & Khizar Hameed, 2023. "The Association of Board Characteristics and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Quality: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-24, December.
    9. Al-Shaer, Habiba & Zaman, Mahbub, 2016. "Board gender diversity and sustainability reporting quality," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 210-222.
    10. Hussein A. Abdou & Nouran N. Ellelly & Ahmed A. Elamer & Khaled Hussainey & Hassan Yazdifar, 2021. "Corporate governance and earnings management nexus: Evidence from the UK and Egypt using neural networks," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 6281-6311, October.
    11. Eppmann, René & Bekk, Magdalena & Klein, Kristina, 2018. "Gameful Experience in Gamification: Construction and Validation of a Gameful Experience Scale [GAMEX]," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 98-115.
    12. Pereira, Vijay & Laker, Benjamin & Bamel, Umesh & Sharma, Gagan Deep & Paul, Happy, 2024. "Customer engagement strategies within family businesses in emerging economies: A multi-method study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    13. Raheel Mumtaz & Muhammad Farooq Rehan & Quaisar Ijaz Khan & Rubab Zaidi, 2021. "Board Gender Diversity, Firm Performance and Risk-Taking: The Case of Non-Financial Firms of Pakistan," iRASD Journal of Economics, International Research Alliance for Sustainable Development (iRASD), vol. 3(3), pages 354-367, December.
    14. Chang Seop Rhee & Sohee Woo & Hyunjung Rhee, 2023. "Effect of gender diversity on corporate soundness and social contribution," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 419-430, January.
    15. Felipe Arenas-Torres & Miguel Bustamante-Ubilla & Roberto Campos-Troncoso, 2021. "The Incidence of Social Responsibility in the Adoption of Business Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-14, March.
    16. Getchell, Kristen M. & Beitelspacher, Lauren Skinner, 2020. "Better marketing for female marketers: Gendered language in the Forbes CMO list," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 607-617.
    17. Qi, Ji (Miracle) & Wang, Sijun & Lindsey Hall, Kristina K., 2023. "Bridging employee engagement and customer engagement in a service context," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    18. Zhuoyao Cui & Haochen Yang, 2023. "From Game Elements to Active Learning Intentions: Exploring the Driving Factors in Digital Learning Platforms," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, November.
    19. Aggarwal, Raj & Jindal, Varun & Seth, Rama, 2019. "Board diversity and firm performance: The role of business group affiliation," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1-1.
    20. Shaista Wasiuzzaman & Vasanthan Subramaniam, 2023. "Board gender diversity and environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure: Is it different for developed and developing nations?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), pages 2145-2165, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:63:y:2020:i:5:p:597-606. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.