Advertising, Female Professionals in

When modern advertising developed in the United States in the late-19th century, the industry was open to a variety of enterprising individuals, including females. Since then, women have distinguished themselves in all facets of the business, creating original and profitable campaigns, and even heading important [Page 34]advertising agencies. By 2008, women comprised half of all employees in advertising and related professions. Nevertheless, agencies in the United States, England, and elsewhere remain bastions of gender inequality, particularly in creative departments, where men outnumber women more than two to one.

Ironically, many of the females who have achieved career success in the field have done so through exploiting sexist stereotypes. Advertisements are among the most pervasive transmitters of cultural messages in modern societies, and limitations on women's input into advertising may play a crucial role in perpetuating sexism. Social changes and repeated calls for industry reform may gradually bring equal opportunity to the field.

Helen Woodward is emblematic of women's early involvement in the field during advertising's “progressive” era-moving up from stenographer at the Merill and Baker Agency around 1902 to becoming a copywriter, freelancer, and then in 1924, leaving the industry to write scathing critiques of it.

Advertising Women of New York was founded in 1912 because advertising women at that time were barred from attending other ad clubs. The group has continuously supported the professional growth and advancement of women in communications, and, since 1997, have issued The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Awards to celebrate and embarrass advertisers’ depictions of women.

By 1918, the J. Walter Thompson Agency had a separate department of female copywriters headed by Helen Landsdowne. Staffed predominantly by graduates of prestigious colleges, these women created ads for Pond's, Crisco, and other women-oriented accounts that proved enormously profitable. Advertisers understood that females were making 85 percent of household purchasing decisions, and women creatives were able to communicate with this important audience. Ad women during this “progressive” period made use of stereotypes about feminine intuition to gain employment in creative positions. By exploiting this stereotype, women gained the freedom to escape the formulaic approaches that were prescribed to their male counterparts. Women early in the 20th century created new ad forms, including advertisements that imitated the look of editorial matter, and ads featuring endorsements by aristocrats and society women.

Even though significant agency revenue was attributed to women, they were often barred from positions of power such as deal-making or client contact roles. By the 1930s, many agencies limited top jobs to business school graduates, at a time when business programs excluded women. Women's contributions were underplayed or even hidden from clients and the public. A pioneer, Landsdowne was rarely photographed, almost never gave speeches or wrote articles, and was generally kept out of the limelight until three years after her death, in 1970, when she was placed in the Advertising Hall of Fame.

By the 1960s, some ad women were well known, including the glamorous Mary Wells, who entered the field as a fashion-advertising manager, worked as a copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach on the company's breakthrough campaigns for Volkswagen and Avis Rent A Car, and went on to establish Wells Rich and Green in 1966, where she updated Braniff Airlines’ image. Wells, along with Mary Fillius, Jane Trahey, and Jo Foxworth helped bring the advertising industry into its golden age.

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