Battling gender bias: Diageo, MG Motor rework ad norms to break stereotypes

At MG Motor, the company is working with select panchayat committees to encourage more women graduates to join the auto industry and to ensure a better diversity mix at its showrooms

Back in 2017 at the regular annual jamboree at Cannes, France, Julie Bramham, chief marketing officer of Diageo India, the British alcoholic beverages multinational found herself in a room full of marketers, all glued to a screen running the numbers on the deep and widespread misrepresentation of women in advertising. 

The numbers strewn across the slides that day were scary, Bramham says. Compiled by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, it showed that in 10,000 pieces of communication, 75 per cent had male characters in the lead and 65 per cent of the dialogue in a family setting was