Episode #2: DEI in the industry: truth or myth?

DEI in the industry: truth or myth?

The most important asset within one marketing company is indeed its people. The second episode of Advertising Europe is dedicated to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) within the industry.

On this occasion, our President Paul O’Donnell’s guests were Will Gilroy (WFA), Faye Raincock (Havas UK) and Johan Vandepoel (ACC Belgium). The three of them discussed the results of the Global DEI Census, the gender pay gap and moving beyond the workplace when it comes to local measures.

Global DEI Census results

The world’s first-ever diversity and inclusion census for global marketing was led in 2021 by WFA and supported by the biggest organisations in the industry as well as more than 160 organisations at a local level. With a total of 10.000 respondents from 27 countries, it generated useful insights and shed light on the areas that need improvement. WFA has put all the useful data into a Top 10 findings video which helps the market to develop local action plans to address their challenges.

Gender pay gap uncover 

According to Faye Raincock, Global Head of Communications at Havas UK, the pay gap is an issue that still needs a lot of work to be done on. There are more senior men in the industry than there are women thus men are paid collectively more on average. Even if the survey also shows that in some places there is quite a success in the workplace on this matter, at the same time, there are cases in which a female CEO is being paid 13 less than a male CEO that does the exact job. Raincock explained that there should be more conversations about this matter if the business field wants to develop and make a real change.

Diversity and representation guide of DEI

Johan Vandepoel, CEO of ACC Belgium, highlighted the importance of a diversity and representation guide for the creative process which could easily be put into 12 steps starting from brand positioning and moving to the evaluation of the campaign. The guide could be used by agencies to reassure themselves how far they are in terms of DEI and use the guidelines to get where they want to be and become better.

A look into the future 

A new census is scheduled to be conducted in the following 2023 year, as for now there have been topic suggestions like mental health, wellness and neurodiversity within the businesses. The participants of the second episode of Advertising Europe are reaching out to more agencies, companies, organisations and associations from different countries to participate in the next edition. In that way, the industry and its people will feel integrated, but most importantly, it will start a conversation which will lead to actions that could help improve the work environment and set examples for others dealing with the same challenges.

Hear more about it in the second episode of Advertising Europe:

Photo by John Schaidler on Unsplash