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by Megan Reeg on 3.26.2010 in Advertising, Company News 0

It’s been a good month for Brightonian women.

Our agency was recently certified as an official Women-owned Business Enterprise by the State of Missouri’s Office of Supplier and Workforce Diversity. As a bona fide WBE, Brighton is eligible for benefits such as supportive services, technical and non-technical assistance, and the opportunity to better access state-aid contracting programs.

Plus, our fearless leader, Tina VonderHaar, was recently named one of the Top Women Business Owners for 2010 in St. Louis by St. Louis Small Business Monthly.

As a young business woman, I am particularly proud of Brighton’s designation and Tina’s achievements. The marketing and advertising industry has come a long way since the days depicted in Mad Men. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the “mad women” in advertising whose audacity and intellect paved the way for women like me, not to mention the men who had the humility and foresight to hire them.

The agency business is no longer the boys’ club it used to be. However, as far as women have come in this industry, I think we definitely have more strides to make. Considering that women make the majority of household purchase decisions, it’s striking to me that the creative side of the business is still dominated by men. In fact, 85% of all brand purchases today are made by women, while “only 3% of advertising agency creative directors are women” (she-conomy.com). It’s strange to me that there are so few women in upper level creative positions when women make up so much of the target audience.

Overall, women outnumber men in advertising agency positions. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2008 reported that women hold 56.2% of agency jobs. However, their numbers diminish with each step up the corporate ladder. Women hold 74.1% of the office and clerical positions, 57% of all professional positions, which are defined as jobs requiring a college degree, and 36.6% of senior level positions.

Despite their slow rise to upper management, women are playing a large role in reviving the economy.

• This past February it was announced that women outnumbered men on the nation’s payrolls for the first time in recorded history.
• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of businesses owned by women increased 20% during a recent five-year period, while the revenues produced by those firms jumped 15%.
• Nationally, 10.1 million firms are owned by women, employing more than 13 million people, and generating $1.9 trillion in sales as of 2008 (Center for Women’s Business Research).
• Women control $12 trillion (about 65%) of the world’s $18.4 trillion annual consumer spending (Boston Consulting Group).

Who knows these women better than other women? These statistics say a lot about the power of having smart women at the helm of marketing and advertising agencies, and at Brighton, we are proud to say we are one of those agencies. Of course, we’re proud of our smart Brightonian men too, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to share our awards!

For a complete list of St. Louis’s Top Women Business Owners, visit http://www.sbmon.com/WomenBusinessOwners/tabid/147/itemid/852/Default.aspx

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