At last we’re getting somewhere in the Kevin Roberts sexism farrago. Former BBH New York chairman (or should that be..) Cindy Gallop (below), who seems to have garnered about as much publicity out of this as Roberts, has tweeted: “My services are available for @wwsaatchi @publicisgroupe leadership coach vacancy – at the same salary, obviously.”
Well why not? Cindy is an expert on many things, including the relationship between love and porn which may or may not be relevant, so she’s just the person to knock neanderthal ad execs, of whatever sex, into shape (we’re trying really hard to be fair here). And she knows Publicis Groupe of course (now the owner of BBH, a minority shareholder in Cindy’s day).
Mad Men era copywriter Jane Maas, whose memoirs of the period make diverting reading, has also added her two dollars’ worth to the debate. She told the Guardian:
“I do think that women are not getting to the top of advertising agencies because to a large extent we are opting out. There was a big conference in San Francisco called the 3% Conference that was all upset because of all the thousands of advertising agencies in the US, only 3% of the creative directors are women. I don’t think there is some plot to keep women out of these top jobs. Women are saying: ‘We can’t be everything. I don’t want to be a creative director who has to be there until midnight every night and has to be there all weekend and has to fire the creative department if we lose the big account.’”
Which is more or less what Roberts said, albeit less elegantly.
Here’s a view from Mad Men’s Roger Sterling.
Deplorable chap, always letting the side down.
Meanwhile sales of Kevin’s new book may or may not (oh, shut up) be going through the roof…
