Welcome, creative friends!

Where did all the leading ladies go in film? Is advertising in the eco-lane or stuck in traffic? And why are ad agencies flipping through the help-wanted ads? Dive into the numbers.

In today's rundown:

• 🎥 Female-Led Films Drop 30%

• 🌍 Ad World: Where's The Green?

• 🎭 Why Are Ad Agencies Struggling?

• 🔥 Press Worthy Stories

• 📚 Learn & Grow

Read time: 3 minutes

🎥 Female-Led Films Drop 30%

Hollywood's 2023 gender report is a reel bummer, showing a drastic drop in female-led films.

Where women once held 44 spots in the top 100 movies, they now only have 30—a low not seen since 2010.

And it’s not just women as a whole taking a seat back; women of color are getting cut from the frame too, with only 14 films featuring them as leads.

Even seasoned actresses are waiting in the wings, with just three flicks featuring leads aged 45 and up.

It’s not all cut scenes and snubs, though. Disney's leading the representation race, but Netflix is nipping at its mouse ears.

As Tinseltown trims women from key roles, the report's authors warn that token films won’t brighten the picture—true progress needs a full-length feature commitment to inclusion.

Yesterday’s poll:

Is the Fujifilm X100VI worth the hype?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📸 Shutter up and take my money!
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤔 Let's see the real-world reviews first.
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 Who needs a separate camera these days?

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🌍 Ad World: Where's The Green?

Remember when every other ad was about saving the planet? Yeah, seems like advertisers have hit the mute button on climate change.

Why does it feel like sustainability has fallen off marketers' radar? Last year, the climate crisis was one of the hottest topics in the ad world (pun intended), but now it's more of a cool breeze.

Publicly, some brands are scrapping their carbon offset projects and stealthily abandoning previous commitments, leaving conservationists to wonder if "value stances" rest solely on their monetary value.
Big brands like Shell are ditching their green goals, and states in the US are even forming an anti-sustainability club.

Yet, according to Contagious, the search term "sustainability" retained its popularity while coverage has cooled.

Experts weigh in on the 'greenhushing' trend, where saving face on greenwashing accusations is more crucial than a genuine eco-push. But is advertising the problem or the solution? It's a tricky triangle, as promoting sustainability clashes with the ‘buy more’ mantra.

Creatives must take care to remember the landmark impact meaningful, eco-positive campaigns of the past have had on consumer behaviours – before the marketing money-machine overran those aspirations.

For ESG-conscious brands, the next step could be reinventing the conversation by earning and sharing their environmentally-friendly victories, however small.

Yesterday’s poll:

Sora's text-to-video skills: Awesome or Dangerous?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🌟 Future of Media
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 😬 Deepfake Danger
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤷‍♂️ Mixed Feelings

🎭 Why Are Ad Agencies Struggling?

Creative agencies like Publicis and Interpublic are struggling to grow, and some analysts say their labor-based business model is to blame.

Background: For much of the 20th century, ad agencies threw in creativity and planning on top of a 15% commission-based media buying service. That changed when creative and media departments split up at the end of the 1980s and agencies began turning to a billable hour system to make up for lost media kickbacks.

The result: Creative agency revenue saw barely any growth from 2000 to 2019, while media agencies (charged with buying the media their parent creative agencies used to get a cut of) enjoyed record profit growth.

So what? Business-as-usual might not be the answer for creatives.
NYC-based Huge and others in the game have crossed the Rubicon, shifting from billing by the hour to a “productized” model: selling packaged services and products that focus on driving growth.

But breaking from the advertising status quo isn’t easy. As one consultant put it, “There are so many really obvious symptoms to the problems of being on the wrong model”.

The shift won’t be easy. Economist Rory Sutherland said that shifting from an effort-based pricing model is tough in B2B environments, where “it’s very difficult to change a pricing model…when it’s become kind of enshrined”.

Yesterday’s poll:

Insta's creator marketplace goes global:
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🌍 About time!
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🧑‍🍳 Too many chefs
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍟 How 'bout small fry markets?

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