Pay equality was a running theme throughout the last election and plans were announced to close the gender pay gap by 2030 in the UK. However, the creative media sector is falling behind with a pay gap of 15%, a recent survey has revealed.

SJD Accountancy, part of the Optionis Group, found that the creative media gender pay gap has increased by a further 5% since 2018 and if this pay gap continues to increase at this rate, then experts fear that full pay equality by the next decade will not be achievable.

Highlighting these findings through this survey, especially for contractors, is essential for industries to see where they can improve and potentially eliminate the gender pay gap before this next decade closes. The importance of equality in the workplace is vital, especially as we’re heading into a new decade.

To further highlight the pay inequality, SJD have created a gender pay gap tool for people to check their own sector, with a focus on contract workers within a variety of industries – such as finance, health, science, accountancy, IT, and retail.

Out of 14 major industries surveyed, only two (engineering and pharmaceuticals) have seen a significant advancement in pay equality since 2018.

The sectors surveyed and their positive and negative pay gaps are as follows:

N/a: Not surveyed in 2018.

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Diageo-owned global vodka brand Smirnoff is working with music streaming platform Spotify to promote equality for women musicians around the world through the launch of its new Smirnoff Equalizer campaign, which features an app that allows Spotify subscribers to analyse their playlists and find out what the balance between male and female artists is.

According to Spotify data, none of the top 10 most-streamed tracks in 2017 were performed by women artists or bands, which is why the vodka brand and the music service have teamed up.

The Smirnoff Equalizer analyses Spotify users’ listening habits to provide them with a percentage breakdown of the number of men versus women artists they have listened to in the previous six months before providing an equalized playlist tailored just for them, where artists of both genders are equally represented.

Users can also make use of a personalised slider, which allows them to increase the number of women artists in their playlists. The innovative platform was debuted at Smirnoff’s “Phenomenal You” launch event, held on March 1^st, 2018 in New York City, one week before International Women’s Day.

Neil Shah, Smirnoff Global Senior Brand Manager, says: “We developed the Smirnoff Equalizer in partnership with Spotify because we believe that when we get to discover talented women artists and their phenomenal music, we’ll all have a better listening experience. The Smirnoff Equalizer not only drives awareness, but also allows Spotify users to take direct action by increasing the number of tracks from women artists in their playlists.”

The goal behind the Smirnoff Equalizer is to get more people listening to more women artists. The bigger their fan bases become, the more opportunities they will have to perform and succeed. The Smirnoff Equalizer platform will run through the summer and can be accessed by Spotify users of a legal drinking age in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Mexico and Argentina.

One of the artists featured in the Smirnoff Equalizer is Honey Dijon, an African-American transgender woman who is a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ and women’s rights and highly respected for her musical heritage and curated DJ sets that defy genres. She will appear in the platform to share her experiences facing gender bias in the music industry.

The Smirnoff Equalizer is the latest initiative from Smirnoff’s “Equalizing Music” campaign, which the brand announced in 2017 with the goal of doubling the number of women festival headliners by 2020. As an extension of this effort, Smirnoff has also partnered with Global Radio and Live Nation to equalize festival line-ups across Europe with performances by women DJs.

“We are very proud that Smirnoff once again chose Spotify as its brand partner for the ‘Equalizing Music’ campaign,” said Danielle Lee, Vice President, Global Head of Partner Solutions at Spotify. “We share Smirnoff’s goal to improve gender diversity in music, and for all the artists, songwriters and producers who create it.”

The launch event for the new API in New York City was themed around “Phenomenal You” with Smirnoff encouraging each woman to celebrate the inherent power of women across the world, starting with themselves.

At the event, Smirnoff unveiled new special edition “Phenomenal You” bottles for Smirnoff No. 21 vodka which are being gifted to 100 phenomenal women around the world, along with a donation made in each of their names to She Runs It, a charity which helps women move into leadership roles.

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The sooner the industry addresses its current gender salary imbalance, the more young talent it will attract, says Taffy Msipa of experiential marketing agency Sense.

As someone just entering the marketing industry, it’s clear to me that a lot of the recent heated debate over the continuing (and very significant) gender pay gap has missed a valuable point: not paying men and women performing the same roles the same amount is not just unfair, it’s bad for business.

The fact that the issue exists in the 21st century is rightly attracting lots of publicity and causing plenty of outrage, because it’s explicitly unjust – why should you get more money just for being a bloke? It simply doesn’t reflect the real world. Women are taking on the same responsibilities as men so should be on the same salaries. However, outside of the ethical arguments, if the inequality persists it will hurt marketing.

In our sector, like many others, the short-term cost of closing the gender pay gap as quickly as possible actually makes good commercial sense because it will pay dividends going forward. Whether you’re an agency or business, you want to attract the best possible marketing talent. Before you can nurture and develop talent, first you have to attract the raw material.

You need to convince graduates that marketing is a great industry to work in, where employees are rewarded based on performance, regardless of their gender. And this issue doesn’t only concern women; an increasing number of men would feel more comfortable working in an environment where both genders are treated equally in terms of pay and rewards.

Since 1997, the Office of National Statistics has been measuring the differences between salaries of men and women across a wide variety of sectors, broken down into quite specific roles. Young people considering their career options can visit the ONS website and download the latest gender pay gap statistics and use them to help decide which sector to work in. It makes sense that the current focus on equal pay will encourage more people who are about to take their first step on the career ladder to do this basic research.

Someone checking the latest figures would see that the current pay gap for ‘marketing associate professionals’, the more junior roles, is 17.1%. This means that men in the same job are paid on average 17.1% more than women.

By then looking at ‘marketing and sales directors’, they could get an idea of whether the pay gap widens with seniority. Does the difference increase the harder you work and the higher you climb in the industry, something many might view as pretty demotivating? The ONS statistics reveal a figure of 12.5% for more senior roles, so male and female salaries actually converge as you progress through the profession.

This is clearly a good thing in terms of attracting people into marketing. However, the fact remains that both junior and senior figures are significantly higher than the overall cross sector UK gender pay gap of 9.1%, meaning that there are plenty of other industries with better salary equality than ours.

So it’s quite simple. Taking action together as an industry to reduce marketing’s gender pay gap now will prevent the talented marketers of the future from choosing another career where men and women are treated more fairly. It will also help to stop those currently working in the sector jumping ship. Finally, it will curb the demotivational and destabilising effects of half the workforce knowing they are being underpaid – and therefore undervalued – compared to their male colleagues.

Of course, most sectors are facing this issue, but those that address it first will steal a march over the others in terms of drawing young talent. By acting now as an industry, we can show we’re forward-looking and promoting a fairer society. Plus, it would be a great way of marketing the industry to graduates like me and growing our talent pool for the future.

Taffy Msipa is a Graduate Account Executive at London and New York based experiential marketing agency Sense.

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