Doner, Gallop, R/GA get with Equal Pay Day
Today (April 4) is Equal Pay Day, a day dedicated to showing how much further into the year a woman, on average, must work to earn what her male counterpart earned the previous year. The day, originated by the National Committee on Pay Equality (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event, is now being embraced by more and more people and businesses around the globe.
In the marketing world, there is the 3% Conference and movement, started by Kat Gordon, which fights for gender equality and more female creative leadership, and several subsets of that, including the Summit on Black Women in Advertising and the #FreeTheBid movement to get more female directors included on pitches.
Those are great starts, and combined with the efforts for Equal Pay Day, the push for equality in the workplace has not gone unheard.
Doner is making a great effort with the launch of ‘Exit 3:24’. The agency is already changing its sign between April 4 and May 18, changing the ‘o’ in its name to a women’s symbol. With ‘Exit 3:24’ it is saying that its workforce will walk out at 3:24pm, when 80% of its workday is complete, in solidarity with women and minorities who, on average, make at 80% of what their male co-workers make. The time marks the time during the workday when most women deserve to leave because they stop getting fair compensation.
Doner is hosting walkouts in Detroit, Cleveland, Los Angeles and London at 3:24pm local time, to demonstrate the agency’s commitment to eliminating wage disparities in the workforce. In addition, Doner is enlisting an independent consultant to conduct a global wage audit and help the agency lead the industry toward more fair and conscientious compensation practices.
“With Exit 3:24, we want to help pave the way toward fairness and transparency in our industry, especially as it pertains to wage equality. We are also following through on a commitment we made to our employees last year, when we conducted a global talent survey that identified fairness as an area where we could improve on our promise to be a top global employer,” said Doner global president and chief executive David DeMuth. “On April 4, Doner will change our sign, close our business at 3:24pm, and commit to a comprehensive wage audit that looks at how we compensate our employees fairly and objectively. Our hope is that others will join us in this commitment to making progress on an issue that unreasonably persists across a majority of industries.”
The company even launched a video PSA, featuring boys and girls doing the same task, but the girls being awarded with a smaller treat than the boys, which both genders knew was wrong.
Along with Exit 3:24, Doner is partnering with the national 3% Conference to bring the event to Detroit for the first time on May 18, to enhance the dialogue around the lack of female creative leadership in advertising and its impact on connecting with an overwhelmingly female marketplace. From now until the beginning of the conference, Doner will transform its sign to the women’s symbol, to give the issue more visibility in the Detroit community, where the agency is headquartered.
“You can't claim to value women equally if you don't pay them equally. It's one of the metrics measured as part of our 3% Certified program and agencies that have conducted audits truly stand apart as leaders in this crusade," said Gordon, founder of The 3% Movement. "Kudos to Doner for committing to equal pay and inviting other agencies to take the pledge to join them."
The Gallop Bot
Cindy Gallop, an activist for equality with her IfWeRanTheWorld and MakeLoveNotPorn movements, is also getting into the Equal Pay Day movement. A collective of creatives at R/GA, The Muse, Ladies Get Paid, Reply.ai and PayScale teamed up to launch an innovative tool, a chatbot in Gallop’s voice to provide actionable guidance for women seeking a raise.
The bot, using plenty of Cindy’s spicy language, encourages women to get the “absolute goddamn fucking shit tonne of money” they deserve.
The tool harnesses the power of technology to give women the data and confidence they need to successfully ask for raise, while raising awareness and inspiring action. You can find the bot by searching @AskCindyGallop in the Facebook Messenger app.
In addition, Gallop did a promo video for the bot, stating that the makers asked if she would do it for free. She said: “Nope. Pay me…I know my worth. So should you.”