There are few studies about the people working in advertising, but I have found this one from 2007 about Women in advertising in Spain with a lot of interesting data about women in all departments. But I am going to X-ray my department: Accounts.
As in every country we are more women than men working in advertising, and my department, Accounts, is predominantly female: there is 72% women vs. 28% men (in UK it’s fifty-fifty). At University we are more too, 70% of the students are women.
We are young. 36 years old is the average for men and 32 for women.
Almost 80% live with a partner (the department with the highest number of singles is the PR with 50% (they go out too much…)
Only a 34% of the advertising workers have children, and there are more fathers than mothers. Account people don’t have neither one child. Only the Production department has more than 1 child each.
Pretty rotation, we are changing every 4 years (again, only the PR exceed, with only 2 years).
We work almost 47 hours a week, more than 49 hours the creatives (they say…)
The study focuses on women in advertising agencies and going deep inside this theme, I want to translate a paragraph here which talks about the reasons why our department is predominantly female:
This work is usually ascribed to women by attitudinal and temperamental issues. In the area of Accounts it’s very important the emotional strategies for conflict resolution, the result of empathy with various parts involved in the process and “women in this, have more left hand.”
We must be able to solve problems related to people, convince, and sell. The stereotype is about of strategy, teamwork, and somehow, invisibility. Must “learn, search, always inquire, helping and being helped by the team Patience, organization, analytical, coordination, diplomacy, sensitivity, communication skills and relationships, as well as the skill to manage people and money are some of the qualities ascribed to it.
AEAP – La mujer en las agencias de publicidad.
