March 18, 2015 — If DDB Group New Zealand’s award winning campaign for YWCA is to be believed, this Friday – until the end of the year – most women in New Zealand will be working for free. At the time the campaign was developed, women earned 10% less for doing exactly the same job as their Kiwi male.
If we took this same campaign and we applied it to the United States or Australia: a woman would have stopped working as early as October 11th in the US and if you worked in the insurance industry in Australia you would have stopped working around August 17th — because they earn 31.6% less than their male equivalents, according to Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) report issued yesterday.
Aware of the significant gap in Australia, our Sydney agency also launched a campaign this September. Called “Daughter Water”, it was developed for WGEA based on the premise that when CEOs actually had a daughter the pay gap in that company shrinks. A pretty wacky campaign, but who would have thought in 2014 we would be living with such a huge imbalance in equality?
But wait there’s more.
Women actually pay more for exactly the same product. The Huffington Post article claims there’s gender discrimination in shavers, dry cleaning and shampoos. And you know who is to blame for this? Marketers and advertising agencies. Who’d have thought?
The very impactful and enduring campaign, Loreal’s “Because I’m worth it” has a lot to answer for! Created in 1973 by a young female creative at McCann Erickson, Malcolm Gladwell says it “…is a strange moment in American social history when hair dye somehow got tangled up in the politics of assimilation and feminism and self-esteem”
I have to admit, I’ve mumbled those four words many a time when I’ve justified that new pair of shoes… handbag… dress…
Today’s Wacky Wednesday is dedicated to all my fellow women who work tirelessly every day of the year in order to feel empowered, independent and oh so, very worth it.
Karen See is the Chief Communications Officer of DDB Asia Pacific. This blog was first published on LinkedIn in 2014 and is being published in adobomagazine.com in celebration of the International Women’s Month.
