Agency boss: Women ‘happier’ without leadership roles
August 1, 2016
Saatchi & Saatchi chairman Kevin Roberts is in hot water over comments he made about women in advertising in a recent interview.
Make that boiling water—and the temperature may get higher.
Publicis Groupe, owner of the U.S. agency, put Roberts on leave following remarks attributed to him last week in an interview with Business Insider.
At issue? Roberts’ view of women in the industry.
He said they are “happier” when they are not in leadership roles.
“Their ambition is not a vertical ambition, it’s this intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy. So they say: ‘We are not judging ourselves by those standards that you idiotic dinosaur-like men judge yourself by,’” Roberts was quoted as saying.
He went on to say that often Saatchi & Saatchi has tried to promote women to leadership roles but gets turned down because the women prefer to stay in the trenches, doing the everyday work of advertising rather than managing others.
Roberts also said gender diversity is not an issue in advertising. (A recent Media Life survey would seem to suggest otherwise.)
Swift backlash over comments
The response to Roberts’ comments on social media was, as you’d expect, swift and not kind. Many called him out on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
Publicis says it is evaluating his future with the company.
Tags: agency, controversies, kevin roberts, saatchi & saatchi chairman women, Saatchi Saatchi, women in media
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Agency boss: Women ‘happier’ without leadership roles
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