Has the industry made any progress on diversity in a year?

Rosie Baker
By Rosie Baker | 23 October 2017
 
The Agency Circle

The Agency Circle is launching the second year of the industry diversity benchmarking survey.

All agencies that want to complete it need to do it before 3 November. All the results will be processed and the industry aggregate results released on 20 November.

Media agencies can also take part in the survey's year and can contact Martin Cowie at OMD for more information. 

For the first time it will allow Australian agencies to benchmark their progress against their results in the first survey from 12 months ago and see if they have delivered change. 

The first survey provided a baseline, which agencies can compare their own performance against, as well as their own results.

Here are some of the findings:

  • The industry is 85% caucasian, 15% non-caucasian, 6% Asian and just one Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander completed the survey
  • 53% female, 46% male, 1% other
  • CEO/MD roles were 84% male, 16% female
  • Creative and design roles are 71% male, 29% female
  • Account management roles are 64% female, 36% male
  • 45% of the respondents were under 30, 30% were in their 30s and less than 20% were over 40

The idea is that getting a solid picture of the way things are will allow agencies to make improvements and improve diversity. The knock on effect is that a more diverse industry, will deliver better work, and better results - both for clients and for agencies.

The Agency Circle aims to turn talk about diversity into action, and agencies that are members of the Agency Circle will need to demonstrate positive progress to remain part of the group.

Emily Perrett, Agency Circle Chair says, “I just want the results already. We’ve had a lot of consistent interest from most of the major Agencies in town, and we’ve all been working hard on making real change at our respective agencies. I hope that we see that effort in the numbers”.

Four founding agencies from The Agency Circle revealed to AdNews some of their areas of focus since getting the results from the first survey earlier this year.

Read The results of the first year’s survey
Read Leo Burnett boosts female creatives by 26%
Read Why Hallway is moving beyond gender diversity
Read M&C Saatchi on turning talk into action on diversity
Read: Clemenger Sydney bares all in diversity survey 

There are now 28 member agencies. When it launched there were 16 founding partners. These were 303 Mullen Lowe, BWM Dentsu, CHE Proximity, Clemenger Melbourne, Clemenger Sydney, JWT, Havas Group, TBWA, VCCP, DDB, The Hallway, The Monkeys, Leo Burnett, Marketforce, M&C Saatchi and McCann.

Members include: AnalogFolk, Adrenalin Media, Clemenger Brisbane, Core, Herd Agency, Iris Worldwide, Ogilvy Sydney, OMD, SapientRazorfish / DLBi/Publicis.Sapient, Saatchi & Saatchi, The Royals

There are still some glaring omissions of agencies not signed up to be part of the initiative.

If you’re not currently a Member, and would like to be, then please contact Leo Burnett’s Sarah Palmer, M&C Saatchi’s Nathalie Brady or Perrett.

You can read more about The Agency Circle charter here

Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop me a line at rosiebaker@yaffa.com.au

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