Cindy Gallop: I am so tired of talking about all this, but there’s still no change at the top
Adland provocateur and diversity champion Cindy Gallop, talks to Mumbrella’s Dean Carroll on topics ranging from affirmative action, reaction to last year’s Mumbrella360 keynote, to why she’ll never take another agency job.
You studied English literature and renaissance theatre – and worked previously as a publicist and marketer. How on earth did you end up in advertising?
“I read English lit at Oxford and I fell madly in love with theatre there because of the thriving student drama scene. I did everything in theatre at the drama society. I wrote, directed, stage-managed and I decided while at Oxford that all I wanted to do was work in theatre for the rest of my life.
“But I knew wasn’t good enough to be an actress or a director. I went on to a one-year MA at Warwick in theatre of the European renaissance. But one of the things I did a lot when I was younger was draw, so I designed theatre posters for friends’ productions and from there I was pulled into promoting and marketing their productions.
“I really enjoyed that so I thought I better it’s easier to get a job doing this in theatre rather than acting or directing. So when I finished my course at Warwick, I worked as a publicity and marketing officer in Cardiff, Guildford and then Liverpool.
“If you want a vision of the future, imagine the heel of Cindy Gallop’s Manolo Blahnik stamping on your face – forever.” Orge Gorwell
Cindy Gallop is the personification of the latest Pepsi ad. She isn’t a radical, she is the establishment. Hiding behind the kind of racist and sexist rhetoric that’s all the rage at the moment, and celebrated by media acolytes like Mumbrella, she cynically cashes in on feminist conspiracy theories.
Look at her presentation. Does she come across as a compassionate person? I dare you: take out all mentions of ‘white men’ and insert ‘black women’ and tell me how compassionate that sounds.
I mean, look at these statements:
““By the way, this is where the issue of women being bitchy towards other women comes from. That is a syndrome driven entirely by men. When women know there is only ever room for one token woman, then that forces them to compete with each other.”
“We have to change the numbers as quickly as possible and the way to do that is to bulk buy. To hire groups, not individuals”
“That’s why I make the point that when we have as many female as male executive creative directors not only will we see better depictions of women in advertising, but also better depictions of men”
“When there are three or more women on a board or leadership team, they feel surrounded by their own kind. That emboldens them and makes them feel confident enough to (…) debate against the dominant white male quota”
If these aren’t the ravings of a sexist and racist I don’t know what is. And shame on Mumbrella for not challenging her on any of this.
Imagine if this woman had actual power…