Cultural Consultancy 'This Is Anotherkind' Launches to Tackle Advertising’s Female Blind Spot

Award-winning creative director Tiara Lowndes has recently launched This is Anotherkind, a cultural consultancy designed to help brands better understand their most valuable consumers: women.

Women account for 85 per cent of all purchases and drive up to 80 per cent of all consumer spending [1]. Yet more than 90 per cent of women say advertising doesn’t speak to them and almost half have changed their spending behaviour because advertising doesn’t feel made for women like them [2].

Which is a big problem for brands, when women – especially those over 50 – control an estimated $15 trillion to $31.8 trillion in worldwide spending, and are projected to manage 75% of discretionary spending in the near future [Forbes].

“When women aren’t a key part of the creative process, advertising reflects an idea of women rather than the reality of their lives.” Lowndes says.

Including women in the creative process and actually listening to them. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Yet in Australia, while women make up more than half the advertising workforce, they are underrepresented in senior leadership and creative roles and their experiences are often one of struggle and disempowerment.

According the Advertising Council of Australia's 2024 Census Report, women make up 30% of women in creative C-suite or executive leadership roles. 26% of women said they

had been bullied, undermined or harassed in some way at work in the last 12

months.

23% of female-identifying workers also said they were considering leaving the industry due to a lack of inclusion or discrimination they have experienced. That rises to 31% for women who identify as an ethnic minority.

The problem is both cultural and structural, and it’s hitting the commercial bottom line.

“The people best placed to understand the female consumer are missing from the rooms where the work is done and the decisions are made. It’s a blind spot that’s costing brands recognition, sales and loyalty.”

Lowndes notes an increasing desire for stories that put women at the centre of the narrative. “This kind of storytelling already increasingly exists in the culture women consume, in the books she’s reading, in the TV and films she’s choosing,” says Lowndes. “So why isn’t there more of that richness and complexity in advertising?”

Anotherkind brings senior female perspectives into the earliest stage of brand thinking, before assumptions become strategy and strategy becomes creative. It partners with companies to offer cultural insight, brand consulting, creative direction, workshops and keynotes.

“Our partnership with companies starts upstream to examine what might be holding back the work before it begins,” Lowndes says.

“We know that women prefer brands that align with their values and beliefs. Truly engaging with what women think, need and aspire to is crucial to a successful brief.”

Working with a consultancy like AnotherKind isn't just about bringing women into the room, either. It's about intention. Listening, and making space.

Lowndes says that one recent campaign brief, aimed at working mothers, framed summer as the easiest time of year.

“For most working mums, summer is the opposite as they coordinate school holiday activities, childcare, seasonal celebrations and family gatherings. When a brand tells her summer is easy, it tells her it doesn’t understand her life. A better question is: how could we make her summer easier? That’s the difference between a brand she scrolls past and a brand she loves.”

Mavens applauds This Is AnotherKind, which continues the work of trailblazers like Bec Brideson, Jane Evans and Cindy Gallop, who have advocated exhaustively for bringing women into creative spaces in order to produce work that resonates with over half the population.

About Tiara Lowndes

Tiara is a brand specialist, creative director and writer with more than two decades of experience, both agency and direct to client, for brands Google, Woolworths, CommBank, Bankwest, Breville, Jockey Australia and New Zealand, Unilever, Wotif, Air New Zealand, Revlon, and more. Her award-winning work includes Modibodi’s ‘Embodied’ campaign and Berlei’s ‘Do It for Yourself’ featuring Serena Williams. Her most recent work with 303 for Levande is nominated for four Effie awards. Her forthcoming debut novel, Knucklebones, was shortlisted for the Australian Fiction Prize.

[1] Dr Jana Matthews,[2] Zappi, ‘Respect Women as Purchasers to Achieve Business Growth’, centreforbusinessgrowth.com, February 2025.

[2] Zappi, ‘The Relevance Gap: Why Women Feel Increasingly Unseen by Advertising’, March 2026.