Dive Brief:

• Forty-five percent of top marketing positions at ANA client-side member organizations are now held by women, according to results from the trade group's inaugural scorecard, which highlights marketers' progress in gender equality and ethnic diversity and whose findings were made available to Marketing Dive in an email. 
• Despite nearing gender parity, only 13% of CMOs or CMO equivalents are people of color; 5% are Hispanic/Latin, 5% are Asian and 3% are black, the group found. The survey examined industries including banking and financial services, food and beverage, technology, sports and entertainment and consumer packaged goods. 

• The ANA has created several initiatives aimed at helping marketers be more inclusive and sensitive to how they represent women and minorities in ad campaigns, including #SeeHer and the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM). The ANA Alliance for Family Entertainment's #SeeHer project gives marketers tools and data to make better gender equality decisions and has the goal to improve women's portrayals in advertising and media by 20% by 2020, per the survey.

Dive Insight:

The marketing industry has made significant gains in achieving gender balance among executives since its "Mad Men" days but clearly still has a long way to go when it comes to putting people of color in leadership roles. Trade groups like the ANA have, in recent years, made more concentrated efforts to encourage inclusivity, through initiatives like #SeeHer, AIMM and the new scorecard. Supporting such efforts with data and technology will not only help marketers get a better lay of the land but also be more accountable in addressing standing gaps in representation. 

"For too long, we've relied on inference and innuendo rather than hard facts and data," ANA CEO Bob Liodice said in a statement. "We've now planted a 'stake in the ground' against which we can begin to track our progress annually. But knowing these results is just the first step. We need complete commitment throughout our industry to create lasting change."

Recent cultural movements around women's empowerment and addressing women's issues such as #MeToo and #TimesUp have thrown a harsher spotlight on lack of representation. Several brands are, in turn, putting more of an emphasis on their inclusion efforts. Diageo last month pledged to "Free the Bid," which asks ad agencies and content producers worldwide to include at least one female director as part of the creative bidding process. Unilever around the same time pledged to put half of its startup bets toward women-led businesses by 2023. Very few of these initiatives specifically address racial and ethnic representation, however.