Women in the Advertising Industry: Female Role Models in Advertising

Now that March 8 has come and gone, we’re not going to criticize the purplewashing from certain brands. Nor the well-executed ideas from certain agencies that don’t have a single woman in a creative director role on their staff—no… What we’re going to look at, briefly, are some female role models in advertising whom I wish I’d known about before writing this blog post.

Yes, to write this article about female role models in advertising, I had to do some research—quite a bit of it, actually—but not because I lacked knowledge of advertising history; when I asked other colleagues in the industry, they said they’d had the same experience.

The names that come to mind when we think of leading figures in advertising are men’s. Women in the past were almost the exception, since the advertising industry was completely dominated by men until very recently. Or even today, as the platform says According to unadedos, only 22% of creative director positions in Spain are held by women.

Since it’s quite possible that you’re in the same position as I am—unaware of this (as are the vast majority of people in the industry)—,

Let’s meet some of the trailblazing women in the history of advertising.

The first woman to pursue a career in advertising was Mathilde C. Weil, a pioneer who, in 1880, also founded the first advertising agency created by a woman.

Household purchasing decisions were made by women, which is why advertisers began to focus on creating messages from a woman’s perspective.

The first woman in U.S. history to conceive and implement nationwide advertising campaigns was Helen Landsdowne Resor. She revolutionized the industry with her campaign “The skin you love to touch” for Woodbury cosmetic soap, which led his agency to exceed $100 million in revenue in 1927. Furthermore, long before the term sorority was part of our vocabulary played a decisive role in the inclusion of women in advertising, as she used her power to hire and support the talent of others.

As much as we love our work, it is a job—that is, we get paid for it—and that’s why, in addition to their campaigns, I want to mention Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, a copywriter who got her start in the 1920s and went on to become the highest-paid woman in the industry.

Advertising is made for people and by people, Shirley Polykoff She knew this well and drew inspiration from her own experience to create her campaigns for Clairol, a hair dye brand. At that time, dyeing your hair was very frowned upon; she had experienced this firsthand when her mother-in-law criticized her. Her campaigns, such as “If I only had one life… let me live it as a blonde!” or “Is it true… that blondes have more fun?” were very well known and led the brand to success.

Years later, she became vice president of her agency, and in 1973 she founded her own.

The Advertising Hall of Fame honors individuals who have left their mark on the industry through their work and innovations. In 1952, the first woman was honored, Erma Perham Proetz.

You’re probably familiar with the famous campaign “I Love New York” launched in 1975—its creator was a woman, Jane Maas. Furthermore, some people believe that the character of Peggy Olson from the series Mad Men is inspired by her.

As you’ve seen so far, most of the female advertisers we’ve mentioned worked on accounts for women’s products, but that wasn’t the case with Jane. She was the first woman to join the creative team at American Express Travel, an account that, to this day, consists exclusively of men.

Jane Maas, among many other things, was also a writer: in 1976, she published her first book, “How to Advertise,” in collaboration with a coworker. And in 2011, he wrote “Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the ’60s and Beyond.” I recommend this book if reading this post has made you want to learn more about the perspective of women in advertising agencies.

And what about Spain? To talk about influential women in Spanish advertising, we have to fast-forward to the present day; it wasn’t until the 2000s that the first female Chief Creative Officers began to appear in Spain; Uschi Henkes, Eva Conesa and the person mentioned in the title Mónica Moro.

I hope future generations don’t have to go through what I’ve gone through. And I hope that in the future, it will be just as easy to mention the names of influential women in the history of advertising as it is today to mention Albert Lasker, Leo Burnett, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, David Ogilvy, or Bill Bernbach.

These are just a few of the women in advertising, and if work-life balance becomes a reality, the imposter syndrome disappears, and the glass ceiling is shattered once and for all, I’m sure many more of our colleagues—brimming with creative talent and already giving their all in this wonderful profession—will come to the forefront.

Cristina Rivas,
, Copywriter