OH, My God-get Lorena Bobbit on the case...This guy needs "trimming" in the most invasive way-Dork! (Oh sh... I dropped salsa in the key board!)

Date:   10/21/2005 5:30:07 PM ( 19 y ago)

Advertising
WPP Executive Resigns Over Remarks on Women

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By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: October 21, 2005
A well-known advertising executive and worldwide creative director at WPP Group resigned his position yesterday amid an uproar over remarks he made at an industry event about female creative executives. The comments, by Neil French, 61, drew attention to the absence of women at the highest levels of the creative side of the ad industry.

Mr. French told an audience in Toronto on Oct. 6 that women "don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to," saying their roles as caregivers and childbearers prevented them from succeeding in top positions.

His comments infuriated some executives in the audience of more than 300 people, prompting one of them, Nancy Vonk, the co-chief creative officer of Ogilvy Toronto, a unit of WPP Group, to write a column for a Web site denouncing his comments.

"I kind of felt that Neil was saying out loud what a lot of people were feeling," Ms. Vonk said in an interview. "It's undeniable that women aren't getting far enough in the creative part of agencies, and I thought we were looking at the reason why."

Billed as "A Night with Neil French," the $100-a-person question-and-answer event was to be a look at the creative side of advertising. When Mr. French was asked by a female audience member why there weren't more high-ranking women in creative agency positions, he said it was because they were not good enough.

Mr. French is often called one of advertising's best copywriters and is known within the industry for his colorful past as a bullfighter, nightclub owner, and manager of the heavy metal band Judas Priest. His reputation is built in part on his knack for streamlining print advertising copy. Among the advertising campaigns he worked on were Chivas Regal, Air Asia and Campbell Soup.

He has been based in Singapore since 1983, working there originally as a creative director for Ogilvy & Mather, another unit of WPP. In 1998, he was named to the position of worldwide creative director at WPP, an advisory position that a spokesman for WPP described as part time. WPP is the world's second-largest ad agency holding company, after the Omnicom Group.

In an interview, Mr. French defended his remarks. "A belligerent question deserves a belligerent answer," he said. "The answer is, They don't work hard enough. It's not a joke job. The future of the entire agency is in your hands as creative director."

Mr. French said he believed that the event was private and he was there to entertain the crowd. "I wasn't joking, but I was saying it in a jokey way, in a situation that was supposed to be entertainment."

Kevin McCormack, a spokesman for WPP, said Mr. French's opinions were his own. "His role is that of a creative adviser." Though statistics are hard to come by, industry executives said the scarcity of women in top creative positions is generally recognized. Creative directors are responsible for devising advertising campaigns.

The One Club, a nonprofit organization that honors creative work in advertising, will induct a woman into its Hall of Fame next week for the first time since 1974. Out of 40 current inductees, 4 are women, according to the club's Web site. The average annual base salary for female creative directors is $4,000 less than that for men, according to a study by the National Association for Female Executives; men earned $123,000, while women earned $119,000, according to the study.

Cindy Gallop, the former chairwoman of Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York, a unit of the Publicis Groupe, said such imbalances in agencies were typically starkest in the creative department.

"Senior female creatives are virtually nonexistent," she said. "It's an incontrovertible fact, and nobody has ever come up with any strong or clear answers on the issue."

Others discounted Mr. French's remarks as remnants of the more male-dominated era that was Mr. French's heyday. "Neil French is an individual who's from another time and place," said Mary Warlick, the executive director of the One Club in New York. "His opinion of professionals in advertising is off base."

Part of the reason for the scarcity of female creative executives may be self-selection, said Jamie Barrett, a partner and creative director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. "I think that the female creatives we have are great, but for some reason there don't seem to be as many women attracted to the creative side," he said.

Joyce King Thomas, the chief creative officer of McCann Erickson Worldwide in New York, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, said she found Mr. French's comments "Neanderthal-like," but attributed them partly to an industrywide attitude. "I think that the voice of advertising tends to be a bit masculine," she said. "And I think the idea that you have to be outrageous and edgy, which I guess is what Neil French was doing, is probably a more male thing. And that's the voice of advertising."

Carol Evans, the chief executive of Working Mother Media and the president of the Advertising Women of New York, said Mr. French's comments were emblematic of reigning attitudes within the industry. "There's still rampant sexism in our business," she said. "I think there is a problem in women creatives not getting the spotlight, not getting the recognition, and then getting bashed like that is a bad statement about the state of advertising."

Mr. French said he did not regret his remarks, but thought the reaction to them was "lunacy." "I'm extremely sad about it," said Mr. French, who has been widely pilloried on the Internet. "Death by blog is not really the way to go."



 

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