You are a man who works in advertising

You are a woman who works in advertising

You are a man or woman who wants to work in advertising

You are a man or woman who worked in advertising, left to help more at home, and wants to jump back in

You are a man who’d like to go home early sometimes to pick up his kids without feeling like less of a man

You are a mother who’d like to work late sometimes without feeling like less of a woman

You are a man with a stay at home wife who deserves more credit for your success at the office than you realize

You are a stay at home Dad who deserves the applause

You are a stay at home Mom who deserves the same

You are a workaholic who needs a good excuse to relax

You’ve ever felt guilty for not working more

You’ve ever felt guilty for not working less

You’ve ever said to yourself, “I should be at home with my kids,” but in your heart you know you really enjoy being at work

You’ve ever said, “My wife/husband will kill me if I have to work this weekend. Again.”

You’ve ever said, “My kids will become alcoholic strippers if I don’t spend more time with them.”

I could go on, but I won’t. (You’re welcome.)

If you fit any of the above demographics, we’d love to see you at the event tomorrow night at GSD&M, where I am a proud sponsor and speaker.

You can buy tickets here. austin.3percentconf.com

And you can read more about The 3% Conference here. www.3percentconf.com

Thanks in advance for your support,

Stefani

She’s looking for holiday wrapping paper
With angels on it.

A woman, 60 something, driving a handicapped buggy
Asks me, have I seen any?
We’ve been to three stores, she says.

I help her look.
How can it be so difficult to find wrapping paper with angels on it?
Why is it?
What kind of world are we in now where wrapping paper with Dora and Toy Story characters
is more plentiful than angels?

The world we’re in is Target.

She’s handicapped.
She needs angels.

So do I.

I help her look.

As Tina Fey and Amy Poehler prepare to host the Golden Globes, I have hope.

I have hope for a world where more women write, direct and produce their own stories.

Another woman who gives me hope? Kit Pongetti.

Kit Pongetti is a fellow Texan and University of Texas alum who will be introducing a short film she wrote and directed for Austin’s Film Festival this week. And Zeehive is proud to be a sponsor of Pongetti’s screening of Stakeout tomorrow.

STAKEOUT is a short film that follows Cyd and Sarah, two nerdy teen girls in 1980’s suburbia, who, instead of attending high school parties, choose to watch them from the comfort of their Toyota Tercel. Convinced that their “stakeouts” are an ironic criticism of their peers’ behavior, the girls are forced to view their friendship in a new light when one of them ends up outside of the car and inside a party. The film takes a heartfelt look at the comedic, and ultimately bittersweet, moments of growing up.

The 16-minute short is an adaptation of “Guy Spies” a feature length screenplay written by Pongetti and Jessica Sheets (about their own high school misadventures). In their story, what the characters soon realize is that the comfort of their Tercel will not protect them from the growing pains that begin to interfere with their lives and ultimately, their friendship. STAKEOUT illustrates just how growing up, whether inside or outside the popular realm, brings more challenges than just finding the right focus on your binoculars.

While this is Stakeout’s Texas debut, it’s not the first this world has seen of Pongetti’s talents. The film has generated accolades and interest in the short time since its release, making its debut at the Director’s Guild Theater in May of 2012 at the American Film Institute’s (AFI) Directing Workshop for Women Showcase in Los Angeles, where it brought home two out of three awards presented during opening night. From the Austin Film Festival, STAKEOUT will make the rounds at the Sundance Film Festival, Miami Shorts and the Napa Valley Film Festival. The film will also be available on all Virgin Airlines flights during October and November.

Pongetti was selected as an AFI Fellow, which partially funded STAKEOUT via their Directing Workshop for Women, which has been a major force in training women in narrative filmmaking since 1974. Over 250 women have been given the opportunity to participate in this innovative and unique training program for tomorrow’s directors.

All this, and the fact that we find the film hilariously adorable, is what makes us proud to sponsor Pongetti’s film with a happy hour/screening event tomorrow at The Hideout.

Come get your senior pictures taken again in our 80s photo booth, munch on 80s candy (Nerds anyone? Helllloooo?) and drink like you did when you packed a fake I.D. (If you feel like puking, there will plenty of women there to hold your hair back for you.)

WHAT:        Austin Film Festival

WHY:          Screening of the hilariously retro fabulous short film, STAKEOUT.

WHERE:    The Hideout Theatre, 617 Congress Ave., Austin, Tx 78701

WHEN:       Friday, October 19 at 3:30 pm (second screening on Thursday, October 25 at 4:00 pm)

More information about STAKEOUT can be found at http://www.stakeoutfilm.com/story.html

Because one of the many things we learned last week at the 3% Conference was to listen to the millennials, here’s a post from our intern, Miss Christine Soules.

My family has always had very high and traditional expectations for me. Receiving a B was not acceptable. It was always implied that I could push myself to be better. It was the norm in my family to earn perfect grades, participate in extra-curriculars, have a job over the Summers during high school, and be accepted into a high ranking university. Now that I’m here at UT, I should of course graduate with honors, have jobs, internships, and leadership roles in organizations.

It was also standard in my family to be polite, speak only in turn and never, ever too loudly. I need to cross my legs when I sit and be lady-like, always. My mother taught me basic sewing, cooking, cleaning and reminded me that I would need all of those things someday when I had a family.

And I was told that, when you have that family, you need to spend a lot of time with them. It would be horrible to leave them at daycare all day. “You can marry an engineer,” Mom said, “like I did.” But study more for your class. Stay up all night if necessary. You are very intelligent and you need to make sure you don’t spend all your time socializing.

So… wait…what?

I feel like I should make it clear that in no way do I disrespect my mother for being a stay at home mom. I don’t disrespect my father, either, for never getting home from work until 9 p.m. They are both very hard workers and dedicated to what they do. I’m not bitter about the hours I was told to spend studying or learning chores because it has helped me immensely in my life.

However, I’ve always been a little bit confused about why I have been expected to perfect both my academic career and also perfectly prepare for a life of starting a family and being a mother. Yet, at the same time I get the impression that I can only pick one.

It was expected that I stay up past the point of crying in frustration to study for every math exam I ever took. But I’m also expected to be a mother someday, and have been told that I would be a bad mother for pursuing a career that would take too much time away from raising children.

Why am I expected to spend hours preparing to be hired for the perfect job, only to say no and choose marriage and a family instead? Why must I achieve all the same things as my brother, but not be rewarded by personal success? If I’m competing with and being as successful in school as my male peers, why do they get to have both a career and a family… but I don’t?

It’s wonderful to grow up in a generation where women are given more and more opportunities and set higher expectations to be intelligent and powerful. This is also a time where we are realizing that perhaps expecting men to be away from the home at their jobs for such long hours is causing some of the problems of broken families. And I am beginning to notice a shift, where more and more men want to pursue hobbies of passion outside their careers, whether it be a craft or a family.

So why can’t we modify the way we set up our businesses to account for this? Why can’t hours be more flexible, and our advanced communications be more utilized? Happier employees are more productive and more efficient. Women can contribute in wonderful ways to businesses if they’re awarded the flexibility… and men can contribute wonderful things to their families, if they’re awarded the same.

This is a section from the book Organizational Behavior by Talya Bauer and Berrin Erdogan that I’ve been reading for my Management class (taught by Dr. Mihran Aroian) in UT’s Advertising program The point of the class is to learn how to better manage employees to make them the most satisfied and productive. I thought it related well to this discussion.

“Work–Life Balance

In the 1950s, people’s work was all consuming. Employees went to work, worked long hours, and the rest of the family accepted that work came first. As society changed, the concept of always putting work first became outdated. In modern times, more employees expect to lead balanced lives, pursue hobbies, and spend more time with their children while at the same time continuing to succeed at work. The notion of work–family conflict is one cause of job dissatisfaction. This conflict can be particularly strong for women because of the time necessary for pregnancy and giving birth, but men struggle with it as well. When work life interferes with family life, we are more stressed and unhappy with our jobs. Research shows that policies that help employees achieve a balance between their work and personal lives, such as allowing telecommuting, are related to higher job satisfaction. For example, the medical resources group of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca International does not have fixed working hours, and employees can work any hours they choose. Motorola’s technological acceleration group also has flexible hours and can work from anywhere (home, office, or a coffee shop) at anytime.”

This could be one of the first steps to creating real change in our society. So what we need is more people discussing this idea. Our Intro to Management textbook only includes one paragraph about the new challenge of work/life balance. However, for those struggling with this obstacle currently, there needs to be a much longer conversation about how the people responsible for raising a new generation can also be working to improve the current one. Raising a family and having a career should not be exclusive to either male or female. The more males and females can overlap in these fields, the more we will be able to progress.

Last week at the 3% Conference in San Francisco, a room full of 200 or so women and eight or so men sat around discussing why the 3%* exists and what we can do to change it. Because change it must.

Let’s first discuss the fact that there were only eight men in the room. (It could have been more like 10, but still. It seemed like only 4.)

Where were the men? Why weren’t they there?

Here’s why we need them to be, for the sake of better advertising, and a better world, for all of us.

During the panel on Changing the Work Place, we discussed the perception of “work/life” balance. A healthy work/life balance is what every woman needs to rise in the ranks of her career, but also serve as head of her household and make sure the kids are raised properly.

What I’d never heard addressed until last week was that men need a healthy work/life balance, too. Imagine that! Yes, men have needs, too. Something we tend to forget because they often masque those needs behind their stoic stances of manhood. Not all of them, but most of them are afraid to exercise these needs because it’s not perceived as manly. Work/life balance has become a woman thing. It’s not. It’s a human thing. It’s a family thing. It’s a make-this-country-what-it-used-to-be thing.

Staying late at the office, especially in this ego-driven business, has been worn as a badge of honor. Conversely, people who go home at a reasonable hour are perceived as slackers. They’re not passionate. They’re weak. They’re not Boss material.

We’re not just asking for men to respect the fact that women want to work outside the traditional office hours. We’re asking them to follow us out the door. We’re asking them to demand it with us. We’re asking them to work from home sometimes, if their wife needs to work a full day. We’re asking them to respect us, but also themselves. Working your ass off does not equate sitting at your desk anymore. Not in this day and age of Skype, Smart Phones and a billion ways to reach and connect with one another.

We talked a lot last week about how agencies can retain the women that enter the work force in equal measure as men, but then start dropping out as they rise through the ranks. This work/life, flex schedule thing, and the lack of respect for it at some of the bigger, more traditional companies, is one of the main things we need to change.

I will never forget being given a lecture one morning by one of my male bosses for not being in my cubicle at 7pm the previous night when he needed me to revise something. Did he call my cell phone? No. Did he email me to ask if I could make the revision. No? He simply walked over to my office, saw that I wasn’t there, and then decided I needed a good talking to. I don’t work at that agency anymore. That lecture is a huge part of the reason.

Several jobs ago, I worked at a small, creative agency in Los Angeles. It was one of many places I’ve worked where the expectation in the creative department is to work as long and hard as possible in order to prove your worth. One of the creative directors and partners, however, went home at a decent hour every night because he had a family at home, and what seemed like a lot of respect for his wife. And I remember everyone in the creative department, all men, making fun of him behind his back. (That CD was also going home to work on screenplays, one of which ended up being the story behind the movie Old School. But that’s another story.)

The point is, men get hassled too. Because it’s not manly to want balance. So what I’m trying to say to the men is this.

Help us.

This is hard for me to say. Because I’m a feminist who often contemplates writing children’s books due to the fact that I believe another part of the problem is that fairy tales are all about handsome princes rescuing helpless maidens in distress. And I want that to change, too. I’m not a huge fan of women relying on men. But this isn’t reliance. This is asking for help. Another thing I’ve recently learned takes courage, as well.

A room full of women can change the world. But we could change it a helluva lot faster if we had more men in the room nodding along.

*3% is the number of creative directors in advertising who are women. Based on the fact that women control 85% of the marketplace, and that 90% of us feel like marketers don’t understand us, we believe that last figure is due to the first one. We need to change the fact that so few women hold positions of influence in advertising.

I’ve never been a fan of the term girl crush. But I embraced it and was overcome by one the moment Cindy Gallop took the stage to kick off the 3% Conference last week in San Francisco. First of all, she’s a fireball of energy. And utterly unapologetic in her passion. She speaks frankly. She speaks loudly. She commands attention.

Well, she got mine. Because she grabbed my attention so eloquently, I learned a lot from her opening keynote. She was the embodiment of what a good ad can do.

Here’s what I was able to get down on paper (she talks fast!):

“People hate advertising in general, but people love advertising in particular.”

What she meant by that is most advertising is not intentional or empathetic enough. It doesn’t wear the consumer’s heart on its sleeve. When people who really get what the consumer is going through are allowed to tell the brand’s story, the advertising has an emotional tone that breaks through a consumer’s defenses. When women create advertising for other women, that’s what happens. When people who don’t understand women create advertising for women, it’s that “advertising in general” that condescends or tries to entertain just for entertainment’s sake.

At least, I think that’s what she meant.

“When advertising is created mostly by men, it presents women to other women through the male gaze, or as a man sees us. Therefore, creativity is defined by what appeals to men. The new creativity is female-informed. It’s work born out of real empathy, not the old stereotypes we see on the Superbowl.”

She said “go look up The Male Gaze.” Which I did. It has its own Wikipedia page, which says this: “The Male Gaze is a Feminist theory that was first developed by Laura Mulvey in 1975. The male gaze occurs when the audience, or viewer, is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male. Mulvey stressed that the dominant male gaze in mainstream Hollywood films reflects and satisfies the male unconscious: most filmmakers are male, thus the voyeuristic gaze of the camera is male; male characters in the film’s narratives make women the objects of their gaze; and inevitably, the spectator’s gaze reflects the voyeuristic male gazes of the camera and the male actors.^[1]”

“In the feminist theory, the male gaze expresses an unequal power relationship between the viewer and viewed, or the gazer and the gazed.”

Interesting, I thought. Angry, I felt.

“Women make men in business uncomfortable because they ask the tough questions, such as, “What are you thinking right now?” Greatness comes out of discomfort.”
I agree with this one wholeheartedly. I’m married. I make my husband uncomfortable on a daily basis with things I want to discuss about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. I imagine I’ve made male coworkers uncomfortable, too. However, when a woman ruffles feathers in the workplace, it’s often labeled as “being difficult.”

Which brings me to another quote and inspiration from Cindy Gallop. Words I’m trying to live by now that she’s given me permission to live by them.

“Be the bitch.”

When men challenge the status quo, they are perceived as intelligent, creative, powerful. When women challenge the same things, they are perceived as a bitch. Cindy Gallop says, “Be the bitch,” as a way to say, challenge the status quo. Stand your ground. Demand your worth. Because as she also says…

“We challenge the status quo because we are never it.”

“Women think differently. Women create differently. Women design businesses differently.”

In an industry built on the foundation of creativity, I hope the ad business can start doing more to maintain and nurture the “different” perspectives of our female creative leaders.

This conference was a great start.

Last week, I attended the first annual 3% Conference in San Francisco. The conference was founded by Kat Gordon, and was an attempt to do something about the fact that only 3% of creative directors in advertising are women. Because women control 85% of the marketplace’s decision making and because 90% of women feel like marketers don’t understand them, we feel strongly that those big numbers are due to the very small 3% number. The conference was a day-long discussion on why the 3% exists and what we can do to change it.

I will be posting throughout the week on what we learned and what we need to do. But first, I’d like to share a story that stands out as one of the most insightful things I heard.

In a breakout session called The Future of the Agency Workplace, Will Burns of Ideasicle told a little story that resonated with me.

Picasso was at a cocktail party near the end of his career. Recognizing him to be the famous artist, a woman walked up to him with a piece of paper and a pen and said, “would you mind drawing a sketch for me?” Picasso said, “why sure, I wouldn’t mind at all.” He took the paper and pen and sat down for about 10-15 minutes creating a drawing for this nice woman. Upon handing it back to her, Picasso says, “that’ll be $15,000.” The woman says, “$15,000! But it only took you 15 minutes.” And Picasso says, “No ma’am. That took me a lifetime.”

The reason this story blew me away is because it gives me a great analogy to help explain to clients why I charge what I do (which is not much compared to big agencies, I might add). Because I’m a new agency, I’m always pursuing new business. In the process, I spend a lot of time writing proposals that outline what I plan to do for my clients and how much those services will cost them. The costs for my services always bring up questions and doubts about why it costs so much to do this, that and the other thing. The proposals are usually broken down into hours and the total is calculated based on my agency’s hourly fee. Which is very hard to calculate based on the fact that most of the time the real ideas don’t come when I’m sitting at my desk but when I’m driving around, showering or jogging around the lake.

It’s very difficult to measure creativity in minutes.

But this analogy is great. It helps me explain to my clients that when I charge them such and such for the ideas I’m generating for them, I’m not just charging them for the hours it takes to put pen to paper. I’m charging them for the years I’ve spent collecting knowledge in this advertising business. I’m charging them for the hours and hours that came before this one, making this particular hour I’m spending on their business more productive and insightful. I’m charging them for all the jobs I’ve taken in various cities so that I could work for brilliant people, and the experience that brought me. I’m charging them for all the late nights I’ve spent pitching business for large, global brands. I’m charging them for everything I’ve learned in nearly 20 years as a copywriter working at award-winning agencies all over this ad industry. What clients don’t understand is that they are getting all of that, right here, in their hour.

I learned a lot about what I’m worth in San Francisco last week. If Kat Gordon wrote me a proposal, I’d pay it. No questions asked.

I used to write a Mommy blog. Which I abandoned for several reasons that even I can’t explain. My adoration for bloggers continues, however. And thanks to Ms. Trish, I’ve rekindled my reading of blogs and have started reintroducing myself to the blogging community. Which is how I stumbled across this gem. It’s a post about parenting, but it’s also a post about how to live your life without letting things bother you. It’s advice I wish I’d been told much, much sooner. It’s one of the best blog posts I’ve read in a very long time.

I wish I’d written it myself, but because I didn’t, I’m just grateful I get to exist within a circle of people who can wax as wise as this.

It is truly an honor.

If I could write from this room, I’d spin tales of wonder.

I’d suck the air into my lungs and breathe the soft smell of those printed pages. On breaks, I’d take a book off the shelf and massage my fingerprints against them. I’d kick off my shoes and let my feet find the grooves of the floor’s wooden planks, soothing my nerves.

I’d do a cartwheel from time to time, in all that open space. But I’m oldish, so I’d be sore afterward. And that would feel good, too.

I’d ponder rollerskating across the vastness of that floor, but I’d reconsider. Not only because my skates have long ago been sold in a garage sale, but because it might scuff the floor and disrupt the silence, because while rollerskates are freeing, they are also quite noisy

I’d have staring contests with those trees, and all the palm-sized animals living within them. Even animals look away after you stare at them too long. Did you know that?

I’d study the overwhelming expanse of nothingness lurking outside those windows and try to emulate that sense of peace. I’d meditate on a dewdrop, as somebody wise once said it is wise to do.

If only I could write from this room.

If only I could be gazed upon by this view.

If only I could play this piano.

Then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have to remind myself to breathe.

Nothing thrills my little advertising heart more than a minimal, quiet spot like this one. It’s the simplest visual. Just an overweight kid jogging toward camera. But it says everything.

Greatness.

It’s just something we made up.

Somehow we’ve come to believe that greatness is a gift.

Reserved for a chosen few.

For prodigies.

For superstars.

And the rest of us can only stand by watching.

You can forget that.

Greatness is not some rare DNA strand.

It’s not some precious thing.

Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing.

We’re all capable of it.

All of us.