Leo Burnett Sydney breaks silence saying it hired all-male creative team because ‘they were the best’ after storm of criticism

simply the best. better then all the rest.

What we’re talking about here is creative departments – plenty of women in other parts of the agency, but the creative department is surely the reason we’re all here. Numbers are way out of whack, particularly at senior levels. There are a few of us, with the emphasis on ‘few’. We can’t be THAT MUCH less talented than the blokes. Half AWARD graduates are women, so what happens to them? As Gallop pointed out, this issue isn’t about tokenism but about improving work – making advertising that’s relevant, real and relatable.

So no-one at Leo Burnett wants to be associated with what they claim is diverse workplace? And rather than provide comment back to the industry through trade or press, they choose to post a series of defensive tweets on a Friday afternoon.

Nameless. Faceless. Shameless.

Carry on then.

So there are more male students at award school, therefore there will be more males available to be hired in creative departments. Maybe all the women had jobs already, given there’s a lot less of them. Or maybe the best skill-set just got hired.

imho it’s not about criticism of the five hires, it’s that Leo Burnett’s PR team was clearly so incredibly unaware of how the story (and the photo) would play.

Albeit unintentionally, you managed to get everyone talking about an issue that has been under reported for quite a while.

what Woolworth’s new chairman Gordon Cairns makes of all this?
He’s chairman of Leo Burnett’s biggest client and is also one of the industry’s staunchest campaigners for gender equality. Maybe if change really does start from the top, he’s the man to get the ball truly rolling.

By no means sweeping the issue under the carpet, but surely this whole story would have been left unattended by Leo’s. Or at least not in the ready-made-response of ‘they were the best’. It continues to bewilder me how bad we are at our own game of communicating.

Just so we can see compare apples with apples and seeing the 2 main protagonist are English.
Is there an equivalent breakdown of English agency male to female ratio?
We will then presumably have a goal to aim for and see how much we must improve

Diverse work place eh Leos? Lets look at ages in your joint.

Merit is not racist,sexist, or ageist

It’s an old article, but it tries to address the topic scientifically:

http://www.creativityland.ca/m.....ifference/

Complete bullshit? Perhaps. But perhaps…and whisper it quietly…men are more creative than women.

Which sex produces more successful authors? Song writers? Painters? Architects? Even cooks?!

I agree that there is currently a significant gender imbalance, but at what point will it cease to be a “requirement” for organisations to hire on gender simply to address this problem, and be able to choose candidates purely on merit as these guys claim to have done?

So although 50% of the office is female, that’s not enough? Since when was being a creative the be all and end all?

@Kate Hunter “but the creative department is surely the reason we’re all here.” I’m sure there are hundreds of creatives who would say it doesn’t feel like it.

Very badly handled by Leo’s. Where is the “captain on the bridge” taking a public stance rather than Friday afternoon sneaky tweets. How about some real figures Leo’s not general rubbery figures:

What is the overall male/female %’s for the creative department?

What are the overall male/female %’s for the client service department?

Is it just as difficult for males to gain positions in client service
as it is for women to gain positions in the creative department?
Do we have a “boys club” and a “girls club” mentality that exists
in many agencies?

Time to give us the full picture.

These graphs are great. I would add that creative advertising courses at university subvert that gender ratio; the RMIT Creative Advertising course is, for example, 60/40 with more women than men.

…. a petition appears on change.org challenging Burnett clients to support gender equality. Comment #6 is right, it makes for a very awkward stance if your strategic partners aren’t aligned.

@Qt3.14 Ideas are what agencies sell. They’re the product. You can have an ad agency without a planner or a receptionist or even an account director. It’s not the be all and end all it’s arguably the most important department in an agency. Saying there are plenty of other jobs for women is like telling girls, ‘don’t worry you can’t be a doctor, plenty of jobs for nurses’

The week they were hired i won 3 Clio’s. A gold, silver and bronze.
Penny and I weren’t even contacted. They hire in their own image.
Always have.
End of boring stale, male, pale story.

The trend of men hiring mates and all making dick jokes will continue until the balance at senior management level changes.

Michael Lynch is tackling the Industry’s big issue with a post on Cindy Gallop’s Facebook asking her opinion on the lack of gender diversity at Mumbrella and whether it’s an issue.

Because trivialising industry issues seems to be standard procedure for CB

Leo Burnett, please tweet the percentage of your Creative team that are female. Reports suggest you have 30 creatives, only one of whom is a woman: ie, 3%.
Is this anywhere close to true?

And really, these guys were the “Best”? Give me a break. What you mean is, your 97% male creative team put the call out to their beer buddies, from which pool you selected the newcomers.

In future, do this:
(1) make a real effort to put out the call for Creatives far and wide;
(2) give the applicants a creative brief to fulfil so you’re going off quality of ideas, not just past experience in an industry where sexism is deeply, deeply entrenched, (and ‘experience’ is just sexism perpetuating itself);
(3) have your Human Resources people remove the names of the applicants so your selection team are purely judging on the quality of their pitch.

Then, and only then, will we believe you have selected the “Best”.

Hired the best? Not only they are known to be a boys club, but they seem to want to decide who’s the best or not. Appaling

seriously, this isn’t a Leo Burnett issue, it’s an industry issue.

we have a female problem in creative. accept it and try to change it. don’t just rant and rave on here, create some massive straw man against one of the better agencies in our market and then think you’ve done your piece and open a bottle of something cold.

what are you actually doing about it?

Maybe they look best in t-shirts?

Who the hell is Cindy Gallop anyway?

If women were so good, they’d be getting hired, clearly their portfolios lacked. Now Cindy, since you’re so set on gender equality, why don’t you look into men not being hired in Day care centres. Or does gender equality only work for women?

‘Interviewed a highly awarded female candidate today for a very senior role – a ‘plumb job’ offering equity and everything, including a massive salary and city parking, etc.

My client is an exciting, go-forward and creative company – much like Leo’s – full of an even gender-mix of driven, passionate, savvy and dedicated people – putting in all the hours God sends to make their client’s work and themselves famous.

Five minutes in I was casually told she would only work 3 days max, because she wanted to be with her kids, that she’d need to leave at 5.00pm every night – no exceptions – and that weekends or overseas travel were an absolute no-go for the next three years, at least.

Guess what happened.

Not every senior female creative has kids.
How many others did you talk to. I’ll bet none.
Don’t use the motherhood factor as an excuse.
It doesn’t apply and there are just as many guys who leave early and have family commitments.

You hypocrites will never understand what equality is. It’s not just about gender!

Thank you Kate. Leo’s putting forward the old we have diversity is not cutting it….this is about the creative dept and there are plenty of equally talented women who would give there right arm to be a creative director- but the CEOs will not hire them . The only way things will change is if women are given more than 3% of the power and influence. All the mds CEOs and ECD are currently hiring in their own image…that is why nothing is changing

The only way things will change is if women are given more than 3% of the power and influence.

Is that u FBI?

Leo’s creative department 30 men 1 woman. It’s sickening

@i wonder yes will be very interesting to see what Woolworth’s new chairman Gordon Cairns makes of all this?
He’s chairman of Leo Burnett’s biggest client and is also one of the industry’s staunchest campaigners for gender equality.

@ Recruiter Reality. Do you expect all your candidates to completely hand over their lives by “putting in all the hours God sends…..make themselves famous!?

They are not curing cancer or negotiating world peace…its just ads. Endless hours is a direct result of poor management and time management as well as people who just want to be seen to be working excessive hours. Life experience and interest and families and friends and spending time outside the advertising bubble gives you insights you’ll never find within an agency.

In essence women with families had better keep the rules. Are Dads who just work rather than spend time with their families is also OK?

Is it any wonder that so much work is made up of laughable stereotypes that make consumers cringe? In the real world this issue made it onto the SMH site this morning and simply reinforced the public’s perception of agencies

@recruitreality….I’m going to take a wild shot here…she didnt get the gig, a guy did and that is therefore proof absolute that said company is proving yet again how out of touch, sexist, misogynistic and plain old bastards the whole clearly are*.

(*Facts of case irrelevant to all men suck argument.)

Yes it is 97% men deciding what they think is the best. Thereby keeping themselves in the top jobs by awarding each other then basing their hiring criterio on the awards they gave their mates. Women in this industry do not stand s chance ESP in Australia. I could step into and held top job creative jobs at Saatchis Bbh Ddb lowes in London but as woman I have tried to get a foot in the door at Leo’s, Ddb Saatchis for 12 years they do not want a bar of me or any other woman. In fact Come to think of it I do not know of a single woman who had ever worked at Leos Sydney my 20 year career……

Dear recruit reality I would love to interview for that role. I have plenty of awards, management experience and a record of building several successful creative businesses. I am a woman who will work as many hours as it takes too per week and weekends as needed to do the best job possible. Happy to travel to Timbuktu if needs be. Bring it on. I look forward to you call my mobile 0412642046

as a supplier my experience has been that female creatives are often brilliant to work with…very focused, creative and clear, easily as good if not better than most blokes.

The industry needs to reflect this in 2015

the blokey penis party gets boring as u grow up.

Poke the bear – did you even check the references on the article you posted? Women’s Health and Huffington Post. So credible. Much science.

Recruiter reality – logical fallacy of quoting anecdata. Your example is meaningless.

Who really cares!!!!!???

Cindy Gallop is obviously just after attention. Good on you Leos for hiring the right people for the job and not bending to any stupid and ridiculous socially acceptable hiring of some black south American Asian European African catholic Muslim females.

This is a ridiculous first world problem.

Get off your high horse Cindy and stick you head in Europe where some of the real issues are with refugees.

What The Fuck Are You thinking Cindy??????????????????????????????????????

Who really cares!!!!!???

Cindy Gallop is obviously just after attention. Good on you Leos for hiring the right people for the job and not bending to any stupid and ridiculous socially acceptable hiring of some black south American Asian European African catholic Muslim females.

This is a ridiculous first world problem.

Get off your high horse Cindy and stick you head in Europe where some of the real issues are with refugees.

What The F@#* Are You thinking Cindy??????????????????????????????????????

@REACEUITER REALITY if a particular male candidate stipulated he could work just three days a week with no travel because of family commitments, would that make you hesitant to interview other males for senior roles?

The headhunters placing people in these roles and agencies are largely silent in this debate. Few will dare bite the hands that feeds them. They know the process intimately, the brief, and whether women were ever considered as candidates. They’re equally accountable for perpetuating the problem. There’s very much an inner circle mentality going on here, jobs for the boys and all that.

On a perhaps unrelated (or not) note, there’s a corner of the industry actively attempting to subvert the issue. Couldn’t imagine why.

Now, about that lunch…

“Grey London’s creative head Nils Leonard today said (hiring 5 males) sent the wrong signals to the industry.”

Who died and named her judge and jury?

When will Leo Burnett give up and hire Cindy Gallop to run their business the way she wants it to be run? She obviously knows more about the business than the folk at Burnett’s.And she seems to know for sure that over all these years the only reasons they ever won pitches was because of their ratio of penises o vaginas…that is what makes a company great and a campaign even greater isn’t it Cindy?.

@becauseits2015 last time I was in at Leo’s there were at least 4 females in creative. It’s not great but it’s the most I’ve seen in an agency in Sydney in the past 3 years. Why do you think all the other agencies are remaking silent?

#43, by ‘she’, do you mean Nils Leonard, proud penis owner?

While we’re at it, should we redress the disgusting fact that account service is a staggering 68% female, operations a terrible 76% female and finance a horrific 69%?

In seriousness tho, senior management is the area that needs to be balanced first, not the creative department. More women in management will mean more balanced hires.

My old Creative Director at a large Sydney agency told our biggest client that guys are better creatives than girls. Everyone found out. And it made us feel like total shit. I never felt quite as comfortable presenting work to him ever again, knowing I’d always be on the back foot.

Ok, now for the other big agencies….

Man, I think Peggy Olsen would have had a tough time in Sydney ad land, these attitudes go back to the stone age, not just the 1960s.

@Kate.

[quote] “Saying there are plenty of other jobs for women is like telling girls, ‘don’t worry you can’t be a doctor, plenty of jobs for nurses” [unquote]

Probably works well at dinner parties, and almost certain to get a round of nodding and agreement if the company is mainly female, however it is unfair argument, since you don’t identify which girls or to what classification you are referring.

Not all who could qualify for nursing (which covers a range of levels) could also qualify for doctor of medicine. Boys or Girls, there are only a few who can qualify for MD stratus. The Medical schools in most countries today have a near 50/50 graduation rate, and women in general, have been qualifying for MD since 1850.

Good on you Leo’s. What an absolute gee up. If a company starts hiring people based on fulfilling quotas of gender, race, sexuality, height, hair colour, sporting team of preference, etc – they’ll start going backwards quick. Hire the best for the job, it’s pretty simple.

And anyone that has come in to the media industry within the last say 5-8 years will tell you that the next generation of ad people is very much female skewed, so in a few years time you’ll see that reflected at the top. A natural progression, as it should be.

The mere mention of ‘diversity’ and ‘gender’ in the same sentence makes me believe we have a long way to go in this industry.

As custodians of brands and culture I believe it should be bestowed on all of us, creative and media agencies alike, to think of diversity well beyond gender to include different races, religious backgrounds and physical abilities. Surely this would ultimately deliver us greater insights and better communication ideas for our clients.

I’m a headhunter in Melbourne, and virtually all of my ECD clients have expressed a desire to hire more women in the creative department. And it’s not rare for it to be specified. In creative departments – generally speaking – the problem is not brought about by preference. It’s the numbers that make it difficult for gender balance. In percentage terms, across my database, the ratio is about 70/30 in favour of men. That’s a sample size of over 400 people. Refining the search into juniors versus seniors, produces virtually identical figures. I’m not offering opinion here, just some pertinent information.

What bout all the black/brown people not represented?

Or the muslims?

Or the homosexuals?

Surely they all deserve a voice at Leo Burnett management team meetings..

What about bubbles the cat, he sat out front of the Leo offices for 3 hours last week and wasn’t even thrown any scraps – Equal rights for Cats!!! I bet if he was a Dog he wouild have been fed!!!

Mad Men anyone?