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modified the job descriptions and the way agencies work, traditionally an advertising agency is made
up of creative teams, account planners, account managers and media planners and buyers. 2
Within the framework of the advertising agency job descriptions, it was one of our research
questions to determine the differences between men and women in the advertising agencies that
determined our conceptual framework. As the data showed, few women reach the top levels of
advertising agency creative departments, though relatively equal numbers of women and men enter
the field as copywriters and art directors. 3 Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies reports that
there are 14% women creative executives in the U.S. advertising agencies. Out of 249 creative
executives in U.S. advertising agencies, only 35 were women. The number of women in Account
Services positions has doubled in the last two decades. More than 50% of Planning and Research
employees are women. In media, women outnumber men 3 to 2. 4 Unfortunately, such statistics for
Turkish advertising are unavailable. However all the advertising executives interviewed confirmed
similar ratios for the Turkish advertising industry. All women advertising executives we have
interviewed admitted that they do not hold any statistical data on the ratio of women to men
advertisers working in their agencies. Just this insight alone enlightened us on the lack of statistical
data in Turkish advertising industry.
Considering the lack of studies done on the Turkish advertising industry, this study aimed to
contribute to the advertising field by focusing on the following research questions.
•What are the differences between men and women in advertising if any?
•How does womanhood affect advertisers in such a creative industry?
The findings of the study can be grouped in six major categories, namely women are equally
creative as men; women are better at organizing, listening, multitasking and detailed‐oriented
thinking; women in a man’s suit are better received in managerial positions; women who have
compartmented their lives are more successful in the advertising industry; social support in private
life is a major part of success of women in advertising and obstacles in life are common for most
successful working women. Thus, below are the detailed explanations of these categories.
All of our informants agree that women are equally creative as men in the advertising
industry. They do not favor men or women when a new candidate applies for a position in the
advertising agency. Everyone is creative however some are less fearful or less of memorizers. People
are as creative as the boundaries in their minds. Upbringing, education and sometimes personality
can establish codes and cliches in their minds. The ones who can notice and go beyond them are
more brave and more of risk‐takers; thus they experience new things. Many of the informants
believe that real creativity is being able to use one’s gender positively in your work. Both genders can
successfully work on masculine [tires/sports] or feminine [cosmetics] products. The most important
issue is to be brave and take a risk‐taker approach in execution. One of the informants, Leyla,
explained that “in world history, major creative people are mainly male. Women have taken on the
role of establishing and protecting order. This might be the reason for women not being associated
with creativity where the goal is tearing down what is established/customary.”
The informants interviewed believe that women are better at organizing, listening, multitasking
and detailed‐oriented thinking. These four qualities came up constantly in the discussions as the
qualities that turn women into better performers as Account Managers when compared to men.
Additionally, it was noted by Petek that “since women are used to thinking 5 steps beyond the
current situation, they are able to do 5 different tasks with the same quality. Men can have issues
with concentrating on a different task until the task they are working on is resolved.”
There seem to be an agreement among the informants that there is not a gender in this line of
work. They point out that if there is a gender difference, it has to do with the choices women make