Whats important to your consumer? Ask your female creative director!

Despite the fact that women control 80% of consumer spending, only 3% of creative directors in advertising are female. Women are driving the economy by bringing in more than half the income in American homes.

 So its no surprise that female consumers are a little frustrated with the notion that brands, in general, do not understand them.

This isn’t hard to figure out why this is happening, despite all our progress with women in the work force. Women are more challenged than ever with balance in a way that our male counterparts are not. Men and women start out in equal number in advertising but advancing to senior positions often dovetails with starting a family. So, the higher you go in an organization, the less females you’ll see. The less female leaders there are, the less support “up and coming” females have.

We need to change the way we think of “balance.” While the male partners are surely doing more household chores and child care than our fathers did, and significantly more than their fathers before them, its still a whopping 83% of women are taking on the lion share in these areas.

Here’s a start: let’s shift this notion of women need to be working 60 hour work weeks in the office in order to compete with a man. Great ideas don’t happen while you are sitting in the office, (regardless of your gender.) Usually the most creative time is while cooking or working out, doing things that balance and ground a woman.

Unfortunately, since the advertising industry hasn’t progressed enough to foster flexibility and diversity, clients are “missing out” when creative teams lack that strong female vision. When clients think about hiring an agency they need to be asking who is going to work on my business, who is the person to be the voice for my brand targeting women.

There are signs that the tide is beginning to turn. Ad Clubs all over the country are starting to have mentoring programs. Organizations are putting a greater emphasis on getting both genders represented in internship programs. This type of awareness will develop female role models, and will hopefully create clear paths to follow.

This may seem like a campaign for work / life balance for women, but actually, this is a movement for for all brands and marketers alike.  This is not new news – its the age old: “it takes one to know one.” So stop relying solely on market research and the latest info graphic on Mashable, and instead, invest in someone who genuinely understands the consumer’s point of view – a women (and chances are, a mother.)