The Power of Women Creative Directors

The Business Case for Lived Experience

We see this reflected in the data. A recent Lift Study by Circana found that ads portraying women authentically - across age, race, and background - can deliver up to a 10x lift in sales. And yet, despite women influencing more than 80% of all purchasing decisions, only about a quarter of creative director roles today are held by women.

The numbers have improved, but the gap remains. Leadership has grown slowly, and many of the top creative awards are still overwhelmingly judged and won by men.

Who Is the Voice for My Brand?

Kathy Delaney, Global Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, put it simply:

“When clients think about hiring an agency, they need to be asking who is going to be the voice for my brand targeting women.”

That’s not just a call for inclusion. It’s a strategic imperative. When you bring in leaders with relevant experience, the ideas become stronger and the work resonates more deeply with the people you’re trying to reach.

What This Means for the New American Middle

Nowhere is this need for lived experience more obvious than in how brands speak to the New American Middle.

This audience values substance, not spin. They see through brands that treat them like a data point. They want stories that reflect their lives: stories shaped by economic balancing acts, evolving gender roles, multigenerational households, and shifting definitions of success. Many of them are women navigating modern identity with resilience and pragmatism.

Connecting with the NAM means understanding what it feels like to live in this space—not just analyzing it from the outside. That kind of creative empathy can’t be taught. It has to be lived. Which is why having creative leadership that reflects this audience matters more than ever.

Brands that win with the New American Middle are the ones that trade assumptions for insight. That shift starts with who’s holding the pen, or directing the shoot, leading the brainstorm, and setting the strategy.

What We Believe and How We Work

At Britton, we’ve built a culture where balance is possible and where leadership is earned through both skill and perspective. Our creative directors shape campaigns that resonate with women not because it’s part of a brief, but because it’s part of who they are.

We understand the New American Middle because we come from it, live alongside it, and build for it every day. That perspective drives every decision we make—and it’s why our work connects.

The brands that win today aren’t the loudest. They’re the ones that reflect real life. And that starts with teams who’ve lived it.

If your audience includes women—and it probably does—you deserve a creative partner who doesn’t just understand that in theory, but who builds it into every part of the process.