Maddy Kramer of Edelman: We women have stopped competing against each other, now we’re all in this together

Maddy Kramer, a creative with more than 15 years experience, speaks on her inVisibleCreatives platform of her concern about closing the advertising industry’s gender gap, and on which she continues to bring still “invisible” female creatives into view. “I would advise them to be themselves and find allies in an industry always looking for someone who can become a leader,” said Kramer, the current associate creative director at Edelman.One of the milestones she considers worth noting in recent years has been the support women provide for one another. “There are many more women managing agencies. I think the most important thing is that we stop competing with each other and that we feel we’re all in this together.” Kramer confesses to a great deal of luck throughout her career, but that the key has always been working with a good production team and people who backed her. “Throughout my career I’ve created ideas by myself that excited me, and used production teams I got to know in the industry. And those ideas that I created ‘by myself,’ without the help of any agency, are what kept my career growing. As my dad always said, ‘You no longer have the No, look for the Yes.’”Though she finds it hard to break the old mold completely due to the same old patriarchal system, the pandemic slowed down even more the slight growth of women in the ad industry. “Families had to choose the highest paychecks to stay afloat, while mothers had to be housewives in order to care for their children. That is happening because men have had the advantage over us for years while women just didn’t have the right to work. In order to be a society that is 100 percent inclusive, we have to start all over again.”