ANZ highlights gender pay gap in OZ in new social case study via Whybin\TBWA Melbourne
To coincide with International Women’s Day 2016, ANZ via Whybin\TBWA Group Melbourne, has launched a social case study highlighting the gender pay gap in Australia by capturing the reactions of brothers and sisters doing the same chores but not receiving equal amount of money as payment.
The video series, titled Pocket Money, aims to bring the financial inequality conversation to a personal, everyday level by posing a confronting and thought-provoking question: “How would our daughters feel if we paid them less than our sons for chores around the house?”
The videos will be shared across ANZ’s social media channels – facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram – with the #equalfuture hashtag from Monday 7 March 2016.
Says Louise Eyres, ANZ group general manager, marketing: “ANZ is committed to gender equality whether it be related to pay, leadership roles or recruitment, and we have introduced a number of initiatives to help create an equal 
future. We know we still have a long way to go, but we’re committed to progress as a business.
“We are all responsible to challenge the status quo to address systems that prevent women and men from succeeding equally. This social experiment was designed to address the issue of the gender pay gap in a very emotive and thought provoking way, demonstrating its very existence in an everyday scenario that 
Australians can relate to.
“Whilst Australian values reflect gender equality, the principle isn’t supported by the facts when it comes to the gender pay gap. The launch of an ANZ Women’s report in 2015 found that complex issues, along with structural and cultural barriers, result in women facing financial disadvantage in the workplace and retirement.”
The report, titled Barriers to achieving financial gender equity, identified that as of February 2015, the national gender pay gap stood at 18.8 per cent. Nationwide, men earn an average $1,380 per week, compared to $904 for women. Extended over a 40 year career, the pay gap between genders is in excess of $700,000.
For more on ANZ’s commitment to helping women strengthen their financial position visit
Client: ANZ
Creative: Whybin\TBWA Group Melbourne
Executive Creative Director – Paul Reardon
Creative Director – Tara Ford
Senior Creatives – Rob Hibbert, Mark Jones, Chrissy Chrzan
Agency & Film Producer – Janine Wertheim
Director – Celeste Geer
DOP – Katie Milwright
Editor – Tabata Picinelli
Colorist – Martin Greer
Sound – Phil Kenihan (Front of House)
Regional Group Head – Ricci Meldrum
Senior Account Director – Stephanie Luxmoore
Account Executive – Todd McLerie
Planning Director – Kees Kalk
Digital Planner – Harry Steinhart
Media – PHD
PR – Haystac
29 Comments
It seems that TBWA has got the equality bug.
Campaigns for Medibank, GayNZ, Equal Pay, International Womens Day, and more and more, just keep pouring out of them.
Anybody think it might be because they think they’re fertile territory for an easy awar? No idea required as such, just a nod to a worthy cause to get everyone on side and ‘hey it’s been said by a bank/ Medibank’.
Love it. Powerful message told with charm and humility. Congratulations ANZ for putting your money where your mouth is.
@e-quality perhaps it’s because “It’s 2016”
Unfortunately, the “bandwagon” has drowned out some worthy messages……it’s hard to tell who’s telling the story out there let alone owning it.
I think a rethink is needed for the next iteration.
The only winner is Whybin/TBWA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46a8Q-MOrTw
When did brands become gross SJWs? Regressive Left engines for postmodern politics.
The problem with equality is that it means different things to different people. For some people it means equal opportunity (good), and to others—like ANZ—it means equal outcome (bad—unless you’re a Marxist). For the most part, the two get conflated quite deceitfully or carelessly.
Relativism has become so fashionable that people can’t distinguish between what someone gets PAID and what someone EARNS.
But what would I know? I have a socially constructed Y chromosome.
Brilliant.
this ad perpetuates myths of the pay gap… the difference in payment is a career choice one not an employer (illegally) discriminating different pay for the same job. it would have been so much better to articulate this issue by showing boys doing chores that are paid more/seen as more masculine (mowing the lawn etc) and girls doing worse paid jobs (cleaning) which are perceived as ‘feminine’. that’s the actual issue at hand – why we groom kids into gender stereotyping. and well this ad is doing just that.
without this it just feels like ANZ and the agency doing what advertising does so often – spreading misinformation and using social issues to market themselves. poor show.
The first four stories on CB today are for ‘you go grrl’ type campaigns.
There have been many more.
When Kellogg’s Special K tries to jettison years of encouraging women to be superficial and remake themselves as the female empowerment flake, you know it is time to jump off the bandwagon.
As a gauge of consumer interest, check the viewed stats.
Beautiful stuff.
And to the rest of the sad dinosaurs here – don’t worry. You get your International Mens day every time you get paid so stop complaining.
@Trudeau,
Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great piece of work and I fully applaud the sentiment, but don’t be so naive to think that the bank would be doing it if it would actually hurt their business. There’s an old but excellent maxim: ‘a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money’.
Why aren’t the banks standing up for boat people?, why aren’t they campaigning for carbon pricing and adequate climate policy? Etc etc.
Because it’s not safe enough or innocuous enough to assume that it won’t be at odds with their shareholders and the majority of their customers. This isn’t campaigning stuff at all and you know it.
My point was that the agency is doing similar social conscience strategy work for several if their clients, which I suspect it is doing for the sake of easily appealing to award juries.
This in itself is s good execution, no doubt. But where’s the work demanding a higher minimum wage or a more progressive tax system?
“If I don’t forget”….
Spoken with conviction. Watch this little one, he is our hope for the future 🙂
I like the idea but some of the lines feel like they were fed to the kids.
Seems a little familiar. But this is better.
http://www.welovead.com/en/works/details/452wnlrAe?fromxwk
I (a male) used to share your views that ‘the pay gap exists because women choose part-time / take lower paying jobs / don’t speak up enough to ask for a pay rise’.
It wasn’t until I was briefed by the Workplace Gender Equality Association to work on a campaign for equal pay that I was shocked – horrified – to find out the fact is for women in equal positions in similar companies.
Even unionised / award-covered jobs, unlike our industry where super creatives only earn as much as they’re willing to ask for / their boss is willing to pay.
I know these organisations will exaggerate statistics to apply pressure for more funding from the Government / justify their existence (look at the totally disproportionate amount of funding for women suffering domestic violence vs the non-existent funding for men suffering domestic violence for example – it certainly doesn’t match the statistics).
But there must be some truth there, somewhere that women are getting paid less in equal jobs – and the surprising statistic that female bosses were the worst offenders in their unfair payment of women.
Hey Weak, I love your idea. I couldn’t help but feel disgusted at the ad. Not only is it providing kids with the false truths of women being ‘paid less for the same work’, it assumes that women have an equal presence as men in each industry. http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap
The link above outlines some current statistics on what men and women are being paid and how the ratio of men to women and vise verse in major industries contributes to the outward appearance that men earn more than women. I’m a first year Uni student, and attending lectures for IT, science and engineering, I saw first hand the lack of women studying these more technology and theoretical subjects, only drawing on the ‘issue’ into the future.
Many companies strive to achieve equal parts male to female interview/employment rates at their workplaces, irrespective of their qualifications. This means that many men are being turned away simply because the businesses feel pressured to employ a decent percentage of female applicants.
Also, I have no problems with women deciding what jobs suit them, but men and women are different. You can’t argue that the fastest male sprinter in the Olympics is a decent step above that of the opposite gender, just because our bodies work differently. So it is with the mind. Women can multitask better, they often have that ‘woman’s touch’ that men often lack. So who is to say that men and women should be treated the same in the workplace. Some jobs make more money, and so they can afford to be paid more. Others, like health services, are unlikely to earn lots of money as even the poorest of patients need access to medical facilities which is where the government steps in to cover their wages. Its all a vicious cycle that has been based on the undeniable fact that men are better at some things, while women are better at others, and as a society, we value some services as more desirable/luxury than others and that is the way things will be.
I think some of you (@weak and @matt) are missing the point. The issue ANZ is raising is that women doing the SAME or SIMILAR job to men typically get paid less. Performance in doing that job is another matter, but the starting salary is typically less for women than men for the SAME or SIMILAR job.
@matt your argument that more men study IT, science, engineering than women is true, but the women who do decide to study these subjects and work in these fields should get paid the same as men (for the SAME job) – but they don’t!
Thankyou for helping me to decide to take my business elsewhere ANZ
This ‘ad’ is disgusting.
Shaming the young boys into being apologetic because of their gender. And somehow that isn’t sexism …
It was been illegal for DECADES to discriminate against someone’s gender in the workplace. Women get paid the exact same for doing the exact same job.
The gender pay gap has been debunked so many times that the fact there is a campaign about this is ridiculous. There is a lot more to it than this, but since you want to have a campaign based on “simple arguments” ill promote one on my own simple argument. If women are paid less for doing the same job, why are women not employed in the majority of positions?
Companies and managers only care about the amount of money they make and if they could hire women to do the exact same job, but pay them less, wouldn’t they be doing it?
This ad is intentionally misleading. ANZ should be ashamed of themselves. This ad perpetuates a known myth that men are paid more for the same job as women. Absolute lie. Children are going to see this and be brought up believing this trollop. Lying to children is disgusting ANZ and you should fire whoever is responsible and publicly apologise for perpetuating a lie.
I would agree that paying a woman less, purely on the basis of her gender (and that factor alone) is reprehensible and immoral.
But I do have one question…..
…..in all of the hyperbole and confected outrage surrounding this ‘fact’, I have never once found anyone….anywhere…who can point me to 3 objects – a specific male employee, a female employee at that same company holding that same set of duties and the employer itself – and then demonstrated a pay difference.
I am alarmed that – frenzied discussion aside – nobody is actually asking for this data. I don’t mean second-hand accounts – I mean real-life ‘in our faces’ evidence that clearly shows discrimination on the grounds of gender alone. If it exists…sure…drag the perpetrator out into the street kicking and screaming and shoot them – they’re probably a man, and would be worthy of the title ‘misogynist’.
For reference…..I have worked in 23 companies as a contractor and consultant. 23 of Australia’s largest. In that time, I have had literally thousands of colleagues, and I would have ‘represented’ the requirements of tens of thousands of ‘human resources’. And in all that time….not once….ever – have I seen or heard evidence of this disparity. Sure, I have certainly heard lots of bleating about it – but I’ve not once seen any evidence.
I strongly suspect that the datasets on which evidence of pay disparity is ‘extrapolated’ are not only suspect themselves, but are subject to some less than rigorous analysis, and some fairly generous assumptions.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant – so find the data, and question it (oh, and if you find someone knowingly underpaying a woman…..then hang them high)
the lies this ad gives off is horrible, and worst of all, they teach this lie to children to further spread the lies. why is this add still airing
26 years in the workforce and never once seen or heard of pay in-equality based on gender…..what ever happened to ‘the best candidate gets the role, regardless of gender, race, religion etc….. If this is ANZ’s contribution to improving society, imagine what they would do with ‘your’ money…….
preaching the wage gap and not providing 1 example of a institution or company that pays men more then women for the same amount of work like this ad implies…. typical sjw feelings over facts. here is a fact men take more riskier jobs and as a result make up 95% of workplace deaths its reasons like this that skew up the average for men. if women were payed less for the same amount of work why would anyone employ men when they could increase there profits by 15%+ by employing only women. dumb..
I was absolutely appalled by this advert having seen it for this first time at our local cinema on 02/10/2016 (shown before a kids movie). This bank have so confused the issue. There is a big difference to being paid less and earning less. The gender pay gap myth (debunked by a range of labour market studies) is being perpetuated to gain popularity and ensnare future customers. It has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with the choices women make. As my wife has frequently stated, she expects to have less income than her male colleagues doing the same job and have less superannuation because she chose to work part- time! My disgust at this marketing approach ie being deceitful and deceptive cannot be overstated. I will absolutely ensure that I never pursue banking services from this organisation.
ANZ – lame, lame lame. Climbing aboard a “cause” for which the hype outweighs the facts.
All of you doubting the factual nature of the pay difference need to actually look at the many studies that have been done. There is documented proof across a number of industries that women doing the SAME job as a man get paid less. Also, my partner is the creative director of an internationally known agency – he has female creatives at the same level as men that he pays less (even though he says they do a better job). When I asked him why, he said the women hadn’t asked for a pay rise, so he wasn’t going to give them one if they didn’t ask.
Frustrated-
The fact that the government report from the Australian bureau of statistics on the pag gap lists more than half a dozen reasons for the “pay gap” which is actually an earnings gap. This is the true frustration of idiots quoting a statistic they haven’t even read the report on. I am not talking about a report you found in “summary” on a feminist page. I mean a report provided by the government, where the statistic actual comes from.
If you want this earnings gap to disappear, women need to;
1. Work on average several hours longer, which will compete with there male counterparts who are already working longer hours.
2. Chose to go into all male dominated fields, fields which pay more then nursing or teaching (fields dominated by women) .
3. Take less time of from work on average.
If you divide average weekly earnings of all male and female workers across all fields down to the hourly comparison, and ignore all contributing factors, you get this mythical pay gap. But anyone who has studied basic statistics, knows correlation does not imply causation.