Over the course of our lifetimes, women face a financial shortfall of £223,000 in earnings and £106,000 in pensions — that's according to a promoted tweet from investment firm Aviva.
There's one problem: Aviva's own gender gap reporting reveals it pays women less than men. Thanks to government mandated figures, we know that in 2018 Aviva paid women 27 per cent less than men — both by a mean or median comparison — with more women working in lower-paid jobs than men, who dominate the more lucrative roles. While Aviva doles out the same number of bonuses to women as men, they are worth on average half the amount. The figures are roughly the same as in 2017.
As the Aviva ad was on Twitter, the backlash was immediate, with people arguing that "suggesting saving when we're already dealing with a pay gap is hilarious" and offering advice to "close your own gap before you patronise women for not saving."
Aviva isn't the only company to use feminism to promote a product while failing to have its own house in order. KPMG ran a series of ads about shattering glass ceilings in 2015, but last year was sued for gender discrimination. Audi ran an ad about discrimination about girls, but had no women on the board, and International Women's Day is annually co-opted by brands to push their products, be it whiskey or Barbie dolls. UBS ran an ad on International Women's Day in 2017; this year the Financial Times reported it was refusing to restore full bonuses to bankers returning to maternity leave.
Such messaging can be positive, even if the companies behind the campaigns aren't delivering on their own promises. "The constant, continual reinforcement of messages about women's equality and new ideals of femininity… does make a difference to cultural values, there's no doubt about that," says Pauline Maclaran, professor of marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London. "There is an upside even if the companies are being slightly hypocritical in their own practises."
However, the mismatch between advertising and actions can harm brands, Maclaran says. "Companies can easily jump on this bandwagon, and create an advertising campaign to help women feel more empowered — like Aviva has done — but they very quickly get exposed for not being authentic, for being hypocritical," says Maclaran. "And people share these very quickly on social media, so it can really work against the company if they are not practicing what they preach."
Aviva said it had seen thousands of shares, likes and supportive comments across the promoted tweets. And that is true: across three promoted tweets, Aviva garnered 1,756 likes and 397 retweets. However, below each of the tweets was a string of criticism, from "thanks for the tips on how I can take personal responsibility for addressing structural inequality" to "sexist targeted ads do not work".
The company said that the goal was to raise awareness and "empower women to make changes to their finances". A spokesperson said: "There are unquestionably many women who are on top of their finances and managing them well, so we knew that this campaign could be divisive. However, we also felt we couldn’t ignore the evidence which shows if you're a woman in the UK today, the chances are you'll have less in your savings and pension than a man of the same age."
That is directly contradicted by research from NEST, the workplace pension scheme set up by the government as part of its auto enrollment scheme. The average account balance and pension contribution for men is higher, it says in a recent report analysing its own membership, "driven by female average earnings being lower than males in aggregate." But, if figures are adjusted for earnings, women have either the same or higher account balances and pension contributions than men making a similar amount. "It's also a little shaming, saying women aren't saving as much as men and it's their fault," adds Sarah Banet-Weiser, head of media and communications at London School of Economics.
Regarding Aviva's own pay gap, a spokesperson said: "We are not proud of our gender pay gap, but we are absolutely committed to closing it. We are taking a number of steps to achieve this, focusing on recruitment, progression and retention." Those actions include equal parental leave, a women in leadership programme, balanced candidate shortlists for senior positions, rehiring ex-employees who have taken a career break, and supporting flexible working.
Getting your own house in order doesn't wholly mitigate criticism. Hair product maker TRESemme is currently running a campaign in the UK focused on imposter syndrome, highlighting via a survey the company commissioned that nine in ten UK women experience it — before describing it as "just a little self doubt".
TRESemme is owned by Unilever, the same multinational giant that produces Dove, Lynx, Magnum and plenty more. The company's board has four women out of 11 positions, and manages to cram in a few more female faces via non-executive director roles. In the UK, it pays women 8.2 per cent on average more than men, and women hold just shy of half of the highest paid positions, while its central resources arm pays about the same, regardless of gender. Unilever has even pledged to remove sexism from its ads — a considerable move from the company behind Lynx. Unilever did not respond to a request for comment.
But the company's progress hasn't prevented criticism of TRESemme's campaign. "I reckon imposter syndrome is likely to come from the patriarchal system in which we work, not whether we're having a good hair day," one critic tweeted, while another sarcastically added that it was a good way to get "emotionally vulnerable people to become brand loyal ambassadors". Treating women fairly in the office is important, but it doesn't make up for ill-judged advertising. "You can't just take something that is circulating in media and trending like imposter syndrome and attach it to your product," says Banet-Weiser. TRESemme is offering online classes designed to help women overcome feeling less worthy, a move Banet-Weiser says is intriguing but still limited. "It's also just about you. It doesn't do anything to challenge the reasons why we feel like imposters in the first place."
And no wonder the missteps, when advertising agencies remain predominantly staffed by men. According to 2016 figures from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the top-levels of advertising firms were 30 per cent female, though the gender gap closes among junior staff. Other figures, from Creative Equals, suggest only one in ten creative directors are women — perhaps it's no surprise then that 90 per cent of women polled by the company say advertisers don't understand them and seven in ten say they feel alienated by advertising.
"Women need to have more say, and more strategic roles," says Maclaran. "You still find in the ad agencies, the big jobs, the juicy ones and creative jobs, are often still dominated by men. So even a woman working in that area will have to conform to the cultural expectation of what is a still a masculine environment."
Even with women in charge of advertising companies and sitting on the boards of their customers, marketing isn't the best way to spread feminism, explains Banet-Weiser, calling it commodity activism. "When you harness political goals to your product, it's necessary that you're going to have to sort of defang some of those politics, dilute them in some way," she says. "One result of that is companies who do want to put feminism in their ads are going to choose really, really safe parts of feminism." And playing it safe might sell investment products, but it isn't going to push gender-pay progress.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
