DOOH Advertising

'The Aunties' aim for women's inclusion in DOOH and advertising

The Aunties aims to elevate Australian women who work in the creative, DOOH, advertising industries. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

March 7, 2023

The Aunties, a non-profit volunteer group created by the women of the Melbourne Advertising and Creative Club, aims to elevate women in creative roles, including DOOH and various advertising categories, according to an interview with founding members published in AdNews.

"When you attend one of our events, it's so welcoming for everyone — there's this incredible vibe like nobody's left in a corner," McGregor, executive creative director at Dentsu, said in the interview. "Everybody's getting talked to, everybody's being taken under somebody's wing… I always say to people, your mentor shouldn't be in your own agency, you can have your own agency mentors of course, but it's always good to have someone on the outside you can ask any question that you want," McGregor added. "Even just someone you can say to; 'is this normal, is this right?'"

"We try to always make it really clear, especially for our programs, that women — non binary, agender, gender-nonconforming and marginalised genders — are very much welcome," Phoebe Sloane, senior copywriter at Clemenger BBDO, said in the interview. "When you're starting out you often don't know what normal is, and it can leave women vulnerable in many ways. It's really about sharing experiences and offering a safe space to listen," Sloane added.

In terms of mission, " I think agencies really need to focus on how they're going to keep women in the jobs because we know there's a really big drop off when women have children," McGregor said. "The agencies need to be more proactive in welcoming women back to work with really good maternity leave policies and parental leave policies. One day when we have equity with that, that's when we're going to start seeing a lot less problems with people being uneasy about hiring women of a certain age because they're worried they'll go off and have children."