Cindy Gallop in seven

x Sponsored content on Research Live and in Impact magazine is editorially independent.
Find out more about advertising and sponsorship.

1. You’ve been a vocal critic of the lack of inclusion in the advertising and tech industries, and progress remains depressingly stagnant. What’s the most urgent issue for businesses to address?

It’s very simple. They need to listen to their employees about what is causing them to be excluded, believe them, and act to change those excluding dynamics.

2. Has the #MeToo movement led to behavioural or structural change? 

No, because in an industry dominated by a closed loop of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys, sexual harassment is systemic and the culture of harassment is driven from the top. The men at the top have been harassing and protecting their own for decades. Right-minded leadership needs to ensure – and clients need to demand – that agencies are gender-equal or more female than male. Sexual harassment magically disappears in gender-equal environments, because there is no longer the implicit ‘bro’ endorsement that it’s OK to behave like that. And when men interact with women as professional equals, they cease to see them in one of only two roles: girlfriend or secretary.

3. From Trump to tech companies, powerful institutions are facing backlashes. But do we need to be less divided to move forward?

Nothing changes until there is equality of power and opportunity. The white, male founders of the giant tech platforms that dominate our lives are not the primary targets of harassment, abuse, sexual assault, violence and rape – so they don’t design for it. It’s the people most at risk who design safe, unifying experiences. Put more power and opportunity in the hands of those most at risk, and they will design for – and drive – unity.

4. Why hasn’t there been a Harvey Weinstein moment in advertising? 

Everyone – women and men alike – is too terrified to talk, because the powerful men doing the harassing are the gatekeepers of everything. That’s why I want everyone to know I’m never giving up. To the powerful men who think you’ve gotten away with it: you haven’t. And to the powerful women who, sadly, have enabled powerful men – you haven’t gotten away with it either. One day we will break those stories.

5. Do we need to move away from emotion and focus more on the evidence that supports diversity?

Absolutely not. Rational facts and figures don’t work. If they did, we’d be looking at a very different picture. We are drowning in data that demonstrates diversity is good for business, and the white men at the top don’t give a shit. They’re sitting pretty, with their huge salaries – why would they rock the boat? They have to talk diversity, but have no intention of changing a thing, because the system’s working just fine for them. It’s like the old joke: how many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one – but the lightbulb has to really want to change. Well, in our industry, the lightbulb doesn’t really want to change. I don’t sell diversity, I make people want to buy it.

6. What’s the biggest misconception businesses have about society today?

That older people have no value. I mean that across the board – failure to target the segment of the population with the most money and most desire to spend it; failure to believe that films and TV series centred on older people will find an audience; failure to see older people and their lifestyles as aspirational, and to reflect that in advertising for younger people; failure to understand that hiring, promoting and retaining older workers is guaranteed to deliver better business results. There’s a ton of research that businesses choose to ignore, proving how valuable older people are. I go back to my previous point – you can’t sell people this, you have to make them want to buy. That’s what I’m working on with AARP’s Disrupt Aging initiative – to drive home these points at an emotional level, to challenge and change ageism.

7. What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career?

Not to give a damn what anybody else thinks.