Five things on Friday #262

It’s funny how one thing leads to another.

One reply to a Tweet about standing up for women in adland and the next thing I know I’m being asked to be a mentor for this fantastic programme.

This is how I found myself last week, listening intently to other mentors who were a lot smarter than me, in a room full of amazing women, offering mentorship and guidance with some of the issues that face this increasingly empowered workforce in our industry today.

Humbling, and utterly brilliant.

But like I said, it’s funny how one thing leads to another. When I made my intro to the room I, out of public-speaking-force-habit, began with ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen’ – which I caught as I finished, then self-corrected to ‘Er… sorry – good morning, ladies’ – cue: much laughter and general hilarity. It was all taken in good spirit too.

I tweeted the faux pas later that day and ended up in a brilliant rabbit hole of ‘how to use more inclusive language at events‘ as well as a robust discussion whether arguing gender pronouns matter at all (see full discussion thread).

The post linked above about more inclusive language is definitely worth a read. Especially if you speak at or host/organise events.

I picked up this brilliant profile of the above-named singer/songwriter from Jed Hallam’s equally brilliant newsletter ‘Love Will Save The Day‘.

Read both (and subscribe to the latter).

First thing is to read this piece over at The Drum that talks about how the UK advertising industry has allegedly lost touch with the public (the full whitepaper that supports this article can be found here).

The article makes a strong case that advertising has no idea what it’s doing, is obsessed with unproven channels, and basically has a major unconscious bias problem that prevents it from maximising effectiveness with any of the work it produces.

All of these points have a grain of truth to them (with a healthy dose of ‘it depends’ appended to each).

There are two main problems I have with the findings.

1. Nowhere in the conclusions talk about the role of planners when it comes to insight-led creative work.
2. The research only interviewed media agencies but goes onto making conclusions on the entirety of adland (no creative agencies were spoken to).

There is a meaner point you could make about how a research paper about bias is biased towards the channels the media owner behind it specialises in – but as I said, that’d be mean.

Current status: discussion time with the authors.

Whatever happens today, this is great.

Watch it all.

Three this week: 

• Speaking of adland (again) - I agree with this. 
• The President of the United States of America.
• Music.   

• Today is Pride here in London. I know this week is a bit Ogilvy heavy but I am so here for this AMAZING work: ‘This Coke is a Fanta‘
• Also timely, Rory Sutherland on penalty shootouts.
• ‘It’s nothing like a broken leg’ is a visceral look into what it actually means to suffer from a mental health problem (vivid language means this might be a hard read for some).
• Eat popcorn with chopsticks.
• Painting dragons.
• Lessons in brand architecture.