That Bacardi Rum ad. Or for men’s underwear and hairdressing brands such as Damensch, XYXX or The Man Company. Or Castrol Lubricants, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, Philip Morris among others. Did you know that the person in charge of how these categories are marketed are women? Yes, you read that right.
Many of the top positions in organizations that are otherwise perceived as male-dominated are now held by women. What are the opportunities and challenges they experience on a daily basis?
Zeenah Vilcassim, Marketing Director of Bacardi, shared: “We are often our own biggest critic. When I started my career, I remember struggling to feel confident in my own skin. But I soon realized that being the my authentic self and having the confidence to bring that to work every day allowed me to focus on empowering the team around me.”
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Others like Rumi Ambastha, Brand Marketing Director, The Man Company believe it is wrong to look at any industry through the lens of gender. Otherwise, most categories will be seen as a male-dominated business, except for a few. “I realized very early on that even though I’m going to get noticed from time to time that I’m a woman in a male-dominated industry, at least I’m not going to get noticed for that fact.”
He added: “When I walk into the office, in a meeting or in a conference room, I’m just a professional. Once you start seeing yourself as a professional, every challenge or opportunity isn’t seen through a lens of gender, but only as a human being”.
“While times are changing and we see more and more women in the marketing sector, it is also true that we are far from where we would like to be. The challenges it brings are twofold. From advertising, marketing and understanding the consumer perspective, most of our audience is male. This narrative is also changing now with more women drivers, mechanics and even truckers now,” shared Jaya Jamrani, VP Marketing, Castrol India.
Deepti Karthik, senior vice president of marketing at Damensch, a men’s underwear and grooming brand, said, “When I was marketing mobile phones, my TG was still 18-40-year-old men. Therefore, men’s fashion is identical to others in terms of marketing principles. However, when it comes to experiencing the product as a consumer, I find myself as disabled as a man who runs women’s sanitary pads or a person who runs brands of children’s products or products for pets Every time I mentioned it as my introduction to someone I was meeting for the first time, it would definitely raise a few eyebrows.
There are times when you go to industry events and wish there were more women around. Not only because diversity is beautiful, but because getting more women in the industry will change the way the auto industry is perceived, Jamrani explained further.
While women in the marketing industry have come a long way to change the narrative on equality, boardrooms have yet to undergo change to achieve this.
Petal Gangurde, Head of Brand, XYXX strongly believes that there should be a more equitable representation of women on corporate boards and this is necessary both to promote gender equality as an important social goal and also for businesses, as gender-diverse boards of directors show a wide range. of unique competencies.
A wave of change is already evident in India today, with a recent Deloitte report highlighting the fact that women currently hold 17.1% of all board seats in India by February 2022, which is more than double the figures of 2014. This indicates sustained growth in women’s participation in the economy in all sectors, but there is room for improvement, said the Bacardí executive.
Jamrani said, “There are two sides to making changes in the boardroom. Externally, advertising has the power to change the narrative to show the young, new India, but in the internal focus, awareness of organizations is paramount. Brands must build a culture where they not only hire diverse candidates, but also help them thrive.”
The Castrol executive recalls how during her first days at Unilever she made sales in the field. He even felt awkward asking a fellow man where the next toilet would be, in the middle of somewhere in Nagpur. But things are much better now, he said.
Although Ambastha has seen a massive change in the representation of women in the industry in the last decade, although the representation would now be 1:5 at the leadership level. It can be said that there is a small beginning – which removes the biases of rejecting a person just by assigning the thought, this gender does not belong to this role.
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