Advertising, media and marketing still misses the mark on diversity, report finds

A new report from the World Federation of Advertisers found that the ad industry has stalled in progress towards workplace inclusion since 2021. Sunita Gloster AM explains it is incumbent on the media and marketing industry to drive change.

Sunita Gloster AM is a non-executive director and has championed DE&I in the marketing industry throughout her career

A report from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), released Thursday, found that the ad industry has made little meaningful progress on workplace inclusion since 2021.

According to the WFA Global DEI Census, the most pronounced forms of discrimination are based on age, gender and care-giving status. However, the picture is particularly dire among certain groups including women, LGBQ+ and ethnic minorities, while disabled respondents report the worst lived experiences in the industry.

Non-executive director Sunita Gloster, who was conferred as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the King’s Birthday honours for significant service to the media and marketing industries and to gender equality last week, told The Growth Agenda: “Has there been progress? Absolutely. Has it been enough? No. And it‘s incumbent on the media and marketing industry to make change.

“We need to have diversity and equality in our ranks, because they are commercial imperatives to being able to represent and speak to the community that we sell to,” Ms Gloster said.

Recessionary fears may loom ahead, but Ms Gloster thinks that AI, sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion are the headwinds that will shape the agenda in the media and marketing sector.

“They’ll impact business resilience on every level; how we ethically and responsibly serve experiences to our customers and communities, how we build trust and how we respect our social licence to operate and safeguard and protect evolving community expectations and standards,” Ms Gloster said.

“Marketing is inextricably linked to the metric of growth and the pathway to driving that growth is now what needs to be reframed within circular principles that prioritise and safeguard both people and planet. We need to fundamentally reframe how we look at sustainable value creation.”

This will require a new form of “creativity”, according to Ms Gloster, which she said marketing, media and advertising is uniquely placed to drive.

“Brands have the ability to create changes in consumption at mass scale, to embed a new set of sustainable behaviours. The tool to do that is marketing.”

Of her King’s Birthday honour, she said: “Professionally, awards matter. Because they shine a light on conversations that need to be heard about change.”

Throughout her career, Ms Gloster has used her voice to shine a bright spotlight on the need for greater gender diversity within the industry.

She said her AM honour marks a proud moment on a personal and professional level.

It is a milestone that punctuates a career in the industry that spans more than 30 years in Australia and abroad.

Ms Gloster is a non-executive director at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers and UN Global Compact Network Australia, a senior adviser at Accenture and co-chair of the media and marketing committee of the Tech Council of Australia.

Service to others runs in the family. Her father, John Francis D’Souza was the recipient of a Queen’s Birthday Honour in 2017 with a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM). Ms Gloster migrated to Australia from Mumbai, India, in 1974 with her parents, settling at Mt Gambier, South Australia.

“My father has spent a lifetime giving back to the community we lived in because he felt so grateful for how the town had embraced us. And he raised all of his children to be like that.”

Gender inequality still pervades media and marketing in Australia despite progress in recent decades.

A Shequal report, which investigated the perceptions of gender equality in Australian advertising from nearly 600 male and female respondents, found that experiences of sexism and gender discrimination remain common.

“Representation matters, who is telling and creating our content matters and we know that women are still vastly under-represented in media.”

Only 30 per cent of sources and experts quoted in the media are women, according to a recent iSentia and Women in Media survey. “And that’s before you overlay cultural diversity,” Ms Gloster added.

“Whilst we’re making progress, and we’re certainly not complacent about DE&I, we still have more work to do. Incremental change isn’t good enough.”

Gender inequality similarly persists in boardrooms across the country.

Women are gaining seats at the table, and Ms Gloster is among those who have managed to break through.

According to the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) Gender Diversity Report, 35.7 per cent of directors on ASX 200 boards are women. Women also accounted for almost 45 per cent of new director appointments to ASX 200 boards in 2022.

Ms Gloster said the business community has rallied to drive greater diversity in recent years, including the 30% Club, Chief Executive Women and the AICD, each of which have actively helped advance diversity in corporate governance in recent years.

“Marketing’s value and perception in the boardroom has been often talked about. Today, it is even more critical. Not just to understand the customer, and customer-led growth strategies, but to also understand the impact and reputation of the company with a broader group of stakeholders, its social licence to operate and trust.”

Prior to Ms Gloster’s board career, she was chief executive of the Australian Association of National Advertisers for four years. Under her leadership, the AANA won two prestigious President’s Awards from the WFA for international leadership in marketing on trust and transparency in media.

Through her work to support the board and team at UN Women Australia, Ms Gloster also helped lead the charge on a series of national campaigns designed to accelerate change and galvanise the influence of the media and marketing community.

One initiative included the 2021 When Will She Be Right? campaign from creative agency The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, which offered a poignant reminder of the gender inequality that persists in Australia. Australia is ranked 43rd for gender equality internationally in the latest Global Gender Gap Index.

A week after that campaign aired, Ms Gloster marched alongside then UN Women Australia’s president Debra Eckersley at the March 4 Justice in Sydney. Recalling that moment, Ms Gloster noted a woman carrying a placard, on which she had written “When Will She Be Right?”.

“To see a line that was created and shared through industry generosity, run on TV ads and billboards and then resonate with people, is a reminder of the enormous impact the media and marketing sector can and does have. And how it can be a force for good.

“Creativity has an enormous capacity to be a catalyst for change. It can make people think differently, behave differently. And with that comes great responsibility in marketing. And I think that ultimately elevates the role of the profession. Because of how we go to market, how we use creativity, and the fact that we can dismantle those inequalities. It’s a really special honour that the industry has.

“We are driven by change. We like to see progress being made. We’re outcome focused. we’re defending budgets to show an outcome.

“There are so many things that we can be doing to dismantle the inequalities in society while still driving a profitable agenda for clients. There’s not many professions you can do that with.”