Marketers urged to embrace diversity on International Women’s Day

In light of International Women’s Day, brands are being urged to embrace diversity when it comes to their advertising and senior members of staff.

Outdoor campaign posters released today (8 March) by the Diversity in Marketing and Advertising Summit show the shocking statistics around women working in marketing and advertising.

Only 11% of the world’s creative directors are women, with women in marketing director roles paid 17% less than men.

Meanwhile, just 2% of ads portray women as being intelligent, and 1% of ads show women being funny.

The billboard campaign is live in 22 sites across the UK. The ads have been released ahead of the Summit, which is set to take place on 4 and 5 April. Marketing Week is a media partner, while the event is also supported by IAB UK, the IPA and Creative Social.

It aims to bring together the “entire marketing, media and advertising ecosystem” in a bid to encourage greater diversity and inclusion within leadership roles and campaigns.

The event also looks to provide solutions for challenges faced by the sector in today’s fast evolving media landscape, while allowing attendees to enable personal, professional and corporate development.

Speakers include Adrien Koskas, UK general manager of L’Oréal Paris, Jan Gooding, group brand director at Aviva and Jonathan Mildenhall, CMO at Airbnb.

Marketing Week’s editor Russell Parsons will also be chairing a panel on the value of diversity in marketing with Michele Oliver, Mars VP of marketing, which will take place on the second day of the conference.

It will take a closer look at the Maltesers’ Paralympics ad campaign, review the outcome and results and share learnings for other advertisers.

A percentage of all delegate and sponsorship bookings will be donated to the UN Refugee Agency, and presented to the agency on the first day of the summit. For more information and to purchase tickets visit https://dimalync.com/