GLOBAL – NEW YORK, USA, JUNE 1, 2011 – Interpublic Group and the Interpublic Women’s Leadership Network (WLN) have announced their groundbreaking seminar at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The seminar, part of the official Cannes program, will bring together key marketing leaders to discuss women in creative roles and will mark the first time in the Cannes Festival’s 58-year history that this topic has been formally addressed.
IPG’s seminar, “Beyond Mad Men: Toward Gender Diversity in Creative Roles” will be held on Tuesday, June 21st and hosted by Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO of IPG, and Kitty Lun, Chairman and CEO of Lowe and Partners China. Panelists include businesswoman Martha Stewart; Kimberly Kadlec, Worldwide Vice President, Global Marketing Group at Johnson & Johnson; Carol Lam, McCann Erickson Shanghai’s Chief Creative Officer and Gail Heimann, Vice Chair of Innovation at Weber Shandwick.
CNN Anchor and Special Correspondent, Soledad O’Brien will moderate the panel, which will focus on the dearth of women in the most senior creative roles and what can be learned from women who have made inroads as creative leaders in the advertising, marketing and media sectors.
“When you look at the U.S. and European markets, women make up about 50% of the advertising industry workforce,” commented Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO of Interpublic Group. “But recent studies in those markets show that in the U.S. only 38% of the executive ranks in our industry are women, and in the UK, management is only 22% female, confirming a gender gap. And if you look within creative departments, you see an even greater imbalance. Industry-wide, we see an opportunity to be more competitive with recruiting and promoting talented woman into the most senior roles in our creative disciplines.
“Globally, women make up the fastest growing demographic in emerging markets, so it makes business sense that the people who are asked to develop ‘the big idea’ to reach these consumers are also representative of those consumers.
“We hope this first-of-its-kind program at Cannes can help begin a dialogue with a goal of identifying ways for the industry to improve. The importance of increasing gender diversity in the most senior ranks at IPG is a priority for me personally and all our employees who participate in the Women’s Leadership Network at IPG,” he continued.
The seminar is the first program of The IPG Diversity + Inclusion Summit series, an initiative to build a more diverse and creative industry for all through events, dialogue and thought-leadership.
Other Interpublic Group-sponsored events include:
June 19: UM with clients BMW and L’Oreal will host a discussion on how technology is reinventing creativity.
June 20: Initiative’s Global Chief Strategy Officer will examine how clients can find the best returns from paid, earned and owned media; Draftfcb will discuss the “science of creativity.”
June 21: IPG will host its seminar on women in creative roles in marketing.
June 22: R/GA will explore how agencies can grow and thrive amid the chaotic future of the agency business.
June 23: MRM Worldwide will look at five technologies that they expect will transform marketing creativity in the coming years.
