Two weeks ago, the hand lotion hit the fan when a Dove ad ran on Facebook that appeared to have a black woman turning into a white woman after using a Dove product. In the longer version of the ad, which most people did not see, the white woman then turned into a Middle Eastern woman.

In the aftermath, the model featured at the start of the ad has said she didn’t feel she was subject to racism but plenty of the public did feel it was problematic, at the very least.

The whole episode raised questions around what checks and balances advertising agencies have in place to prevent such stuff-ups. On a wider level, we might ask, do these things happen because advertising is still dominated by white men at a creative and management level?

Jane Caro is an award-winning writer, novelist and documentary-maker with many years experience working in advertising. When I asked her how something like the Dove fracas occurs, she said:

“Because agencies are stacked to the gunnels with white blokes with absolutely no idea that they have absolutely no idea. Dove’s huge mistake was going from black woman to white woman, obviously. Had they even for five seconds thought about it and changed the order of the women in that ad, it would have been so much less gob-smackingly — ‘Oh my god, does this say soap scrubs the black away?’.”

“I regard these things generally as stupidity, ignorance and a lack of imagination. It’s not done deliberately but its because these people have not listened when anyone has told them about stereotyping or what it means. They have ignored it and now its bitten them on the bum and they deserved to be bitten for it.”

Bec Brideson has been in communications and advertising for 25 years. The author of Blind Spots, Brideson has built a significant career helping clients to successfully reach a female client base and keep them.

Like Caro, she believes Australian advertising isn’t doing enough to address diversity in how it hires, and Brideson points to some recent efforts including a survey of 1200 staff across 15 agencies in the last year. 

The results demonstrate clearly that the industry, particularly the creative side, is dominated by white men, with women a majority in support and administrative roles; 85% of the survey respondents were Caucasian, 15% non-Caucasian, 6% Asian, and just one Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander. Not 1% — just one. In management, the contrast is even more stark, with only 16% of CEO and managing director roles being filled by women.

Brideson says the global consumer economy of women is valued at $28 trillion, whilst the overall consumer economy totals $35 trillion. That means women control 80% of consumer purchases globally. A 2015 Ernst & Young report showed that by 2025, women will be responsible for 75% of discretionary household spending, and yet the advertising industry is male-dominated. So where are the the female creatives and CEOs who might instigate a cultural change in advertising?

Brideson says eight years ago there were no HR departments or talent specialists within that agency landscape.

“Now there definitely are a lot of those people will take it on and take it seriously and try to change it. But I feel that’s window dressing. I would say that is diversity dressing your agency. 

“It’s a response to two things. One is the social pressure that we’re hearing more and more we as a society are expecting to see affirmative action on diversity. And the other thing is that we are seeing pressure applied by our clients and and it’s always been whispered to me ‘We will care about diversity when our clients start telling us that diversity is a problem’.”

Caro’s view is less hopeful.

“Look, even if they hire someone who doesn’t look like a white bloke, unfortunately it will be someone who conforms to the white bloke rules, they will have had to drink the white bloke Kool-Aid because to get ahead you have to reflect the bosses back to themselves at twice their natural size and the problem with that is anyone who is different, anyone who says ‘Hold on, there might be a problem with this idea’ is seen as difficult and told they are not a team player.”

Brideson believes the solution may lie with major brands putting their agencies on notice, and says internationally Pepsi and HP software have done just that. 

At the time of writing it was not possible to know if any of the models from the Dove commercial knew that Unilever, who owns Dove, also makes and sell a skin-whitening product called Fair and Lovely sold in over 40 countries as pointed out by Dr Liz Conor of La Trobe University.