Encouraging Better Gender Representation in the Creative Industry

Lori Meakin, ‘No More Menemies’ author and Founder & CEO of The Others & Me, speaks on the impact of how the advertising industry currently represents women and girls. “They’re not asking us to give them confidence and to empower them, they’re asking us to stop trying to destroy it,” she says.

This is an excerpt from the talk: Represent Me — what does it take to engage the audience of the future? from D&AD Festival 2023. Here, Lori reports the insights that she and co-speaker, then WACL President, Rania Robinson, gained from pupils at Kensington Aldridge Academy in West London on calling out negative impressions and limiting beliefs generated by today’s ad landscape. It explores how ads portray, or fail to portray, underrepresented groups, the effect it has on the real world, and what this teaches boys and men.