The Gender Pay Gap
in the American Advertising Industry

In 2022, an article tracking anonymous ad women's salaries by Jess Watts, Brand Strategist and cultural researcher, led to an opportunity to team up with UCLA to charter an academic study on the state of pay for American advertising professionals.

Jess Watts and Dr. Nancy Wayne, Professor Emerita of Physiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and founder of Women Advancing Together® launched an industry-wide survey early March, 2023, as part of their research in identifying and sizing pay gaps in the industry, and to get a clearer picture on what factors may contribute to gender pay gaps in pay in advertising. Data collection ended May 2023, and was published March 2026, "Perception Isn’t Reality: Ad Men and Women See the Gender Pay Gap— and Each Other—Differently."

The purpose of the study is to establish a contemporary benchmark, validating the size of the gap in the American ad industry by examining all known variables that contribute to gender-based gaps in pay.

Women were paid 5% less than men on average, and 8% less if they were mothers

The average mother in advertising will lose ~$270,000+ over her career due to her gender

Less than 35% of all respondents shared salaries with their colleagues, with men being less likely to share

Jess Watts

Brand Director

Dr. Nancy Wayne

Scientist, Educator & Speaker

Questions and media, press can reach Dr. Wayne and Jess Watts here.

What's the shelf life of this data?

This March-May 2023 dataset still captures the underlying system, and is useful for diagnosing mechanisms of the gap, where inequity occurs, and its drivers. The study is well powered and functions as a practical industry baseline for measuring the impact of pay transparency laws/policy, organizational change, and equity efforts. This data set also provides a baseline pre-AI restructuring, as well as a baseline for longitudinal follow-up.

The Gender Pay Gap in the American Advertising Industry