Women in Advertising Are Closing Every Gap They Can. The Pay Gap Persists Anyway

For Watts, the findings underscore how seemingly modest pay gaps produce substantial long-term consequences. Over a 25-year career, the study estimates the gap could translate into more than $167,000 in lost earnings for women who have never been pregnant, and more than $271,000 for mothers.

“That’s not small potatoes,” Watts said. “That’s student loan debt, that’s buying a home, that’s building generational wealth.”

Samantha Choi Cadley, founder and CEO/CCO of independent agency Manual Labor, said the dynamic is familiar. A friend of hers at a larger agency discovered she had been underpaid only when an acquisition forced the agency’s books open.

“She found out she was absolutely getting paid less, even as she was doing more work,” Choi Cadley said. “Not even peer-to-peer.”

Now running her own shop, Choi Cadley said the solution starts with who is making compensation decisions. “It’s about who you’re putting at the table,” she said. “If you have the same group of people that have come up through the same organization or model, you’re still playing the same habits, the same structure, whether intentionally or not.”

Watts hopes the research will prompt agencies to take concrete action, recommending pay band transparency, regular compensation audits and escalation processes so pay equity concerns do not stop at the direct manager level. Though the research predates her appointment, DNA&Stone has already begun implementing those measures internally, revising promotion guidelines to clarify how employees advance.

“Transparency is important,” Watts said. “But accountability is what ultimately closes the gap.”

Without those changes, she warns, the industry risks losing the very talent it depends on: “When nearly half of women say gender discrimination is affecting their career, eventually some of them are going to leave. And that’s not the kind of industry any of us want to be building.”

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