• by Larissa Faw , March 9, 2015

It’s no secret that Adland has a gender imbalance problem — only an estimated 3% of creative leadership positions are held by women. And various efforts have been launched to address the issue. Just last week Cannes Lions stepped up with a new award that recognizes work aimed at challenging gender bias.

Now, Omnicom’s DDB is launching the “Better By Half” initiative, a commitment to help promote gender equality within the global agency network and throughout the advertising industry. 

The initiative will bring men and women together at every level to discuss and find opportunities to improve gender balance. Research shows that the better the gender balance in leadership positions, the better the company’s performance.

The DDB effort will be led by Janet Guillet, executive creative director at DDB New York, who has been appointed as the first president of the Better By Half Council. 

This Council will tackle a number of gender-related issues including: career development, mentor programs for women, increasing the number of women in leadership positions, and developing a network for overcoming women’s challenges. The group will also work to spark dialogs at industry events and with industry organizations. 

This new initiative stems from a DDB campaign launched in 2014 called “Empower” that was tied to International Women's Day last March. The “Empower” website, created by DDB Chicago, features photos of women from across the DDB Network and tweets from female employees on Twitter, answering the question, “What empowers you?”

Since then DDB has continued to address the issue of gender balance in advertising through events, thought leadership and speaking engagements. During this year’s Super Bowl, for example, DDB Chicago co-hosted the inaugural 3% Conference big game “Tweetup” event with Kat Gordon, Founder of The 3% Conference that champions female creative talent.

Now, agency executives want to expand the debate beyond women. “We have to stop thinking of gender balance as a women’s issue,” said Mark O’Brien, President of DDB North America. “Since gender balance benefits everyone, both men and women need to be part of the conversation. We will have representatives on the Better By Half Council from our offices in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. With this launch, our goal is to lead the way in a dialogue that is intended to identify and remove the obstacles that lead to gender imbalance, especially at the more senior levels of management.” 

More information on the Better By Half Initiative can be found here.