Challenging marketers to “SeeHer” accurately
Linda Tuncay Zayer, marketing department chair and John F. Smith Chair of Business Administration at the Quinlan School of Business, is an expert on gender representation and storytelling in advertising. For nearly 20 years, she has been researching issues at the intersection of gender equality and marketing and advertising.
Since 2022, she has served on the Education Advisory Board for the SeeHer organization, a part of the Association for National Advertisers that seeks to increase the representation and accurate portrayal of all women and girls in marketing, media, and entertainment to reflect culture and transform society. All the while, she continues to research inclusivity in storytelling.
"Through my role, I have had the opportunity to talk with C-Suite executives and other top industry leaders, participate in speaking events to create awareness of these critical issues, as well as advance research and education in this area,” Zayer said.
A national effort
SeeHer is a coalition of companies, agencies, and partners, representing over 7,250 brands and including some of the largest corporations across the globe. Celebrities including entrepreneur Lori Greiner, television personality Michael Strahan, and journalist Katie Couric are just a few of the many who sit on the SeeHer Advisory Board.
In September 2023, Zayer spoke at a SeeHer event in New York City in a session on "Training the Next Generation of Marketers," to discuss the importance of giving students tools and frameworks to make a difference in the world through the work they do and the social change they can advocate for.
In February 2024, SeeHer launched a series of free, open-source education modules where students and early career advertising professionals can learn to combat gender bias in advertising, marketing, and media and ultimately earn a gender equity certification. Zayer, along with scholars from across the country on the Education Advisory Board, helped develop the education modules.
The same month, Zayer was invited to the United Nations in a UN Women event with the Unstereotype Alliance, which aims to eradicate harmful stereotypes in the advertising industry. There, she participated in conversations surrounding Sustainable Development Goal number five: Gender Equality.
Sharing Quinlan values
Zayer is using her expertise build bridges between education and industry, including meeting with top leadership in companies such as Procter & Gamble, American Express, Nestle, Publicis and others.
At the Quinlan School of Business, Zayer instills the values of being a difference maker to students through tackling ethical issues, such as equity and inclusion, and engaging in data-driven decision making and storytelling in advertising and marketing practices. With SeeHer, she is called to put those same values into practice.
"When people feel seen and celebrated, they respond positively," Zayer said. "It is the right thing to do and makes good business sense. It is vital to put gender equity front and center in not only the creative work of advertisers and marketers, but also in the workplaces in which advertisers and marketers operate."
Creating leading research
Zayer's work with SeeHer, coincides with her research in representation and inclusive storytelling, specifically taking a Transformative Advertising Research (TAR) approach. TAR is a subfield proposed by Zayer and her co-authors in a 2022 Journal of Advertising article that calls upon various stakeholders to harness the power of advertising for well-being outcomes, including the common good. The paper was a finalist for Best Paper in the Journal in 2022. In a follow-up publication that is forthcoming in the Journal of Advertising, Zayer and her co-authors examine award-winning Cannes Lions campaigns to conceptualize inclusive storytelling into three components: representation, storytelling, and impact. This paper recieved an honorable mention for Best Paper in the Journal in 2023.
"It's not enough just to talk about gender equity, for example. You have to be relentless in tracking, measuring, and reporting outcomes," Zayer said. "Positive social change and greater well-being can come about, but we need efforts at all levels, shifts in societal discourses, top leadership, organizational change, grassroots efforts, and individual difference makers."
