Opening New Doors: Anna Minkkinen, loyalkaspar

por Carol Mason , AdForum (NYC)

Anna Minkkinen
Executive Creative Director loyalkaspar
 

This Women's History Month, we spoke with Anna Minkkinen, Executive Creative Director at creative branding agency loyalkaspar, about her experiences in the industry and the issues we still face.

 

What barriers do women still face in our industry and why are they still there?

It’s hard to speak about this without referencing what we’ve all gone through the last couple of years. Clearly, Covid affected women who had to choose between their jobs and their children. All the childcare scenarios that made our working lives hold together were suddenly out the window. My kids were just old enough to manage virtual learning but if they were just a few years younger I’m not sure how I would have coped.

All that said, I do have some hope that all this will ultimately usher in a new era that could help women. The business we are in is very demanding in terms of time and energy. It may be true that men are doing more than they used to at home, though I do feel that women still bear a lot of the responsibility with raising families.

For years, before covid ever hit, I had arranged with my company to have a flexible schedule where I would work from home some of the week—and this was something that I was grateful for. Don’t get me wrong, I was still working a lot of hours, but I had more control of my time and I had more ability to be present at times when my kids were young. There weren’t a lot of agencies that would give me a deal like that and it was only something that worked because my company had trust in my creativity and work ethic. I think now that companies have gotten more used to the idea that people can still be productive and be remote, I hope that more women will be trusted by their companies to be able to make work arrangements that allow them to be more present and more flexible to be fulfilled creatively and personally.

 

How should we tackle an issue such as equal opportunity, not solely for women’s equality but across the entire DE&I spectrum?

I feel that in our design / advertising world, we often find talent through the trusted networks of people we already know. So, I think it’s hard to break in if you don’t already have some kind of way into that network. It’s important for agencies to have an open mind about recruiting and to make an effort to look beyond their existing contacts. Given that we do hire a lot of freelance talent on projects, it’s a perfect opportunity to try out different people and not always go to the same pool. I have found when we’ve done that we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the work and the new perspectives we’ve found.

When it comes to increasing the number of women owning companies, which I think is very important, it would really help if our country could find a way to build a more robust system of national healthcare that we all stood behind. If we had a system where healthcare was something we all paid into separately from our jobs, it would be easier for women to consider the risk of leaving a job that provides healthcare for themselves and their children and take the leap into owning something.

 

How would brands react if their ad strategy was created and produced by a majority male team?

In the last few years, some clients have definitely become more vocal about knowing who is running projects and they do sometimes insist that the teams they work with are not majority male or male-led. There are some jobs that we would not have landed if our company didn’t have a strong female leader involved.

This is not to say that I only want to be handed the “women’s projects.” Certainly, if a project is specifically geared to an audience, you want the creatives to understand that demographic, and I also think that we all benefit from teams that include diverse members to contribute to making something great.

 

What experiences did you have joining the industry?

When I first started in the industry I was definitely in the minority as a female creative. There were always women producers but not necessarily other creative directors or designers. And for sure, while live-action directing, I was usually surrounded by men. Now, this has changed a lot over the years, and I like to think I helped that along a bit as I got involved in hiring, but I’ve been told by women that I was the first woman CD they worked for and that it had a positive impact on them, which made me happy.

I think working through two pregnancies and still managing to successfully pitch to clients even with a prominent belly—well, it made me feel like if I can do that maybe I can do anything.

In terms of my experiences as a female creative director, it's hard sometimes to put your finger on some of the small things at work that are affected by gender and that can feel frustrating. For example, if you are going out to dinner with clients and they are all men, the dynamics are a little complicated when you’re a woman. It feels a little harder to socialize and bond in the same way that the men do, so you feel like you aren’t building the same beneficial client relationships as the men. But when both agencies and clients consist of a mix of men and women, the dynamics just feel more natural, and the conversations go in directions that feel broader and more inclusive.

 

Who inspires you the most and why?

I am inspired by women who manage to push themselves creatively while also juggling everyday life, because I know how hard it can be to find balance. As I get older, I realize how much I value the wisdom that comes with experience and I love hearing about people who managed to be creative throughout their lives, not just as young hot-shots without a care in the world.

Many years ago, I had read something about Toni Morrison and how she balanced career and family and managed to become a successful writer (who, by the way, didn’t publish her first novel until the age of 39). There is this amazing quote of hers where she talks about how her experiences with her young children brought up memories that inspired her first book “The Bluest Eye” and she said, “but while I was writing—I remember this more than I remember the book—while I was writing, and I write with a pencil and legal pads, my son is doing something over here and then he spits up some orange juice or something right on my manuscript, and I, being a writer, wrote around it.”