Exposed: Australian adland’s sexual harassment shame
An anonymous creative compares her multiple experiences of sexual harassment in Australian adland to her time in the US. This piece first appeared on Gabberish.
In 2013 I began my advertising career. Five years on, three agencies later and a life upheaval to California, I’ve been asked to examine the differences between the two countries.
If you go west of the USA, west of The Wild West, all the way across the Pacific Ocean, you hit the land of advertising in Australia. The other Wild West. In some ways, its agility and tendency to break the rules leads to innovation and other creative victories unmatched by many other countries. In other ways, it’s stuck in the past with storylines mimicking the 19th century.
Let’s set aside the cheating of results to win sacks of gold, the coke found on the front desk on a Monday morning, and the Campaign Brief comment section shootouts, I’d like to focus on the damsels who are constantly being distressed by the cowboys.
As last years burlesque company event showed, adland is about 20 years behind the rest of Australian business, not just in terms of providing a safe work space, but professionalism in general.
I honestly don’t know of any other industry where so few people have the spine to say ummmm…..maybe this sexually themed/free booze events with my junior *colleagues* is a tad unprofessional…..
Its embarrassing.
so many thoughts on this and it’s such a complex and distressing issue that it can’t be solved in a 1500 word article or the comments section but please please please everybody…report examples of harrassment that happen to you or that you personally witness happening to others (gender based, sexual and other forms).
I do understand that articles like this have their place in raising awareness and also why you have written this anonymously (and also that I can be accused of being naive), but the most effective way to weed these people out of the industry (and charge them if necessary) is to report them to authorities…be that HR, senior management or the police and have their behaviour judged, punished and exposed.
Sorry about the coke on the front desk.
That was me 🙁
Was it Classic, Diet or Zero?
Just last week our male MD said to a male client that it would be nice if D* worked in this office, “it’d be good to have someone sensible in here instead of all these girls”. I quote verbatim.
Not harrassment, but certainly a clear message on where we females sit in the totem pole of this office.
You are not alone in observing this.
Literally (almost) every major publisher that I have worked for has one of these blokes at the top or near the top. These comments are frequent and are seen as acceptable, as they aren’t sexual in nature and more ‘gentle ribbing’.
Often they are never said publicly, more between two guys having a loud chat by one of their desks or in the doorway of their offices.
The inference being:
‘This is an A and B conversation, if you don’t like it, piss off’.
You wont change these guys – its hardwired into them and no amount of counselling can undo years of late 90’s / early 00 media culture.
The only joy that you can take from this is that most of these guys will be found out, put out to pasture and retire soon….. hopefully the new breed of late 30 somethings / early 40 somethings can do better.
Your story sounds so familiar.
Often in smaller Oz Agencies there isn’t an HR Officer a concerned female employee can speak with and often, the offenders are the founding owners of those agencies.
I have left many Agencies over the years because there was nothing else I could do to remain safe.
To remain within the industry, nothing was said.
Though my career has been stymied by those philanderers, I am glad that massive change is afoot and, in the coming years, junior females may have a better chance to achieve their potentials without being objectified, harassed and bullied.
Hey, here’s an idea – why doesn’t someone ask Lou Barrett what she thinks?!
Harassment doesn’t just travel downstream. Nor does it necessarily pit gender against gender. And speaking up about it doesn’t always end well.
My career took a leap when I was given a very senior role overseas. However, one year in and I was encountering a clique of locals who banded against me and I started hearing snippets of their derogratory disdain. Even though I was excelling at my role – as one of their superiors – and I tried hard to forge positive working relationships with them, one in particular was impossible to work with. After an altercation in public, I informed the CEO and lodged a formal complaint. While he was suspended, I found myself being quietly exited only 6 months later.
Unfortunately, formal complaints brand you as a trouble maker, a risk the agency cannot have. Agencies, big ones at least, need safe, compliant, submissives.
My advice would be to make your harassment issues known to your closest circle of colleagues first. Get allies. Get a band of people who are willing to raise the issue as a group. I couldn’t do that because I was on the leadership team and my closest circle of colleagues were the ones who drafted my papers.
“Agencies, big ones at least, need safe, compliant, submissives.”
So true – although, you could swap agencies for businesses and it would still be true.
I’m not sure if that’s true. A lot of business has cleaned up its act lately. I suspect it is actually worse in an industry where people believe their own bs more often than not. The kind of person who calls themselves a “creative” without a sense of irony is more likely to be the kind of person who thinks every woman is interested in them.
If you think women have it bad Down Under, imagine how much worse it is when these misbehaving jerks are posted to asia as expats.
Bigger bucks, massive titles and ‘permission’ to act out their loutish moves in full view of the entire agency.
Every day is Friday.
One of the major network agencies had a fucking stripper at their Christmas party last year. I was appalled.
which one?
name it, or at least allude to it
I don’t know if it’s the same one you are talking about, but my previous place of employment (a major network agency) had a stripper/burlesque performer at the Christmas Party.
It was appalling.
Seems all to familiar. I have personally witnessed a high profile TV executive fire a young man who came to the aid of a jnr female whom he was acting inappropriately toward at an office event.
This lecherous being kept drunkenly placing his hand on her lower back and whispering in her ear.
I was told immediately afterwards by a friend that this wasn’t the first time and that he had also dealt with love rivals iwithin the organisation in a similar fashion.
Basically, if he took a shining to a young female, they dealt with it and so did any of her their concerned male colleagues. This happened in Sydney, within the last 5 years. I hope he reads this – yes, people do know of your reputation, you fucking creep.
I believe this to be untrue. My agency is predominately run by female execs and there are so many initiatives to ensure women are represented. I believe homophobia is a WAY bigger issue in agencies. I hear staff members in high positions regularly make offensive slurs and even when complaints are made nothing has been done about it, in fact they have been protected and promoted.
Interesting and troubled account.
“It’s the last night of my first internship. A group of us are out for drinks.”
“A year on. Another group is out for drinks.”
“A boozy Friday night at the agency. ”
“An end of year production company party.”
Based on this article my first impression is that in majority of cases alcohol might’ve been a factor affecting participant’s behavior.
Solution? No more parties in the agencies.
The last story made me a bit confused tho:
“After the first incident, I told our boss, a few of us notified HR but they said they couldn’t do anything unless the women who were targeted spoke to them directly.”
I don’t understand what exactly happened? I mean, no offence but if anyone, in any workplace pulled out his penis on the co-worker (“his dick inappropriately falls into his hands”) that would end up with jail!
It seems people in agencies have way too much time on their hands. ..
Part of the issue is that the time demands at agencies become all encompassing, so that interaction between staff becomes a mix of both work and social. Which is then compounded if the agency / senior partner pays for some of the drinks as a ‘thanks’ to staff. “We work hard, we play hard,” is the agency mantra, but one that can have awful outcomes for those down the totem pole.
The second story indicates that the woman directly involved told other people, not HR. HR indicated they would only act if the person directly involved complained, which she hadn’t / didn’t.
And no, someone exposing themselves doesn’t go automatically to jail – even the point of the story is that the agency involved didn’t appear to do anything about their own staff! For jail to be an end point, the police would need to be involved, then there would be evaluation of the story (e.g. “do you have any proof that this happened?”), an arrest would be made, then a conviction recorded, etc. It’s a long-winded process that could get knocked out at any point because the systems involved aren’t quick or easy to get through. Hell, Louis CK is back on stage, not in a jail cell, and he admits to exposing himself (and more) to women!
Case in point: there’s a former marketing manager I know of who has ended up in jail for defrauding his employer. The case was pushed by the employer, there was clear evidence of the fraud, it was for a sizable amount of money and it still took roughly five years for the final conviction to come through. The situation described in the article is much less clear cut and probably wouldn’t end up with anyone in jail.
This is so true re the blending of the personal and professional. I’ve always found the drinks between colleagues event is dull at best, recipe for disaster at worst. Did anyone “generously” paying for drinks and forcing staff to socialise with them outside of work hours (yep sometimes these parties are mandatory) not stop to consider that a) it might not be a smart idea to booze up your staff and b) your staff would probably rather be anywhere else than hanging out with people they spend their whole week with?
Its weird. Get your own friends, they are employees not your mates.
True
I was looking at an agency role job description just yesterday. All was looking good until I got to the final line:
“we also know how to party”
Completely put me off. Not that I don’t like to socialise (although I much prefer the company of family and friends to bosses), more that I don’t want to be at an agency that is so desperate to partly define itself in this way.
I also know how to party. I don’t need a job that shows me this. About time the agency world grew up.
Finally it’s the advertising industry’s turn to expose the rampant sexual harassment and abuse at agencies. First agency I worked for (a very big agency) I was 17 and within a week, had much older male staff members calling my home at night (before mobiles phones), and leaving me copywritten “poems” on my desk for me to find in the morning.
One very senior male staff member in particular, told me how he fantasised about me when he was having sex with his wife. This was not only my first agency job, but first job ever, and I naively thought that was how older male adults behaved.
Next agency, I was cornered in the photocopy room one day where my AD leant against me from behind and “jokingly” try to stick his tongue in my ear.
Agency 3. The GM would regularly get shitfaced at lunch and upon his return with his favourite protege of the day, announced that he knew we were plotting against him and were a bunch of c***s and he’d kill whoever he could prove was colluding. He was eventually caught out in one of his drunken rages and dismissed Enter a CEO who would share porn via email with chosen male staff, and after a few drinks on one occasion described how erotic he finds the veins on women’s breasts and encouraged male staff to pursue whoever he would love to fuck at the agency if he wasn’t married, not that eventually marriage stopped him.
What do you do when your boss calls you at night offering to be your mentor? Hang up? Being young and single I was easy prey. Politely declining his offer instead just spurred him on as he was convinced I was just playing hard to get. I got out of there as soon as I could.
Next agency my boss was a woman. Unfortunately she was of the variety that thinks being an unreasonable nasty bitch equates to being powerful and how she earned respect, rather than what I’d hoped for which was an inspiring, supportive and protective female leader. Maybe she’d been through what I had and it was her way of surviving. Another miserable place to work.
Next up an agency who boast more of being a runner up than the winning agency, where one shameless psychopath stuck in 1983, rewarded long hours with agency (read client) funded alcohol fuelled bonding sessions. This coupled with incessant slighting of staff members to other staff members, with the objective to keep the competition between staff alive, and a kill or be killed culture. At Xmas account service staff are encouraged to get their clients and themselves as drunk as possible at Xmas lunches. Women in particular told her to get loose and unleash their “inner wench”. After all the fun’s been had, they’re reminded to hide this agency generosity amongst various clients’ job numbers (not necessarily the client who was taken to lunch) and promptly invoice those clients.
And let’s not forget agency Xmas parties. Everyone is to bring as much grog as possible to a two night and day bender where again staff are encouraged to get as drunk as possible, and behave as stupidly and outrageously as possible (there are awards for the poorest behaved) so there’s stories a plenty to recount over and over throughout the new year all the way up to the next debaucherous do. People who leave this agency are mocked for not having the “rare” qualities to tolerate this culture rather than why they really left, or were managed out by a spineless (in case you ever wondered why he walks that way), two faced, lying slime ball.
Thank God for the internet creating some sort of accountability and exposing these arseholes (surprising it’s taken this long) who have affected lives of others, women especially, robbed of the respect, support, encouragement and success they deserved. Careers cut short and an industry poorer for it because of this shameful, disgusting, predatory behaviour. And until those arseholes are gone for good, there’s still fear of naming names as too often these acts weren’t seen or heard by anyone other than their victims, who often don’t have the financial means to sustain their fight for justice against those who can “claim” expenses thus never dipping into their own money, the enormous salaries that they pay themselves and their favoured cohorts huge salaries.
Shame on you all. You know who you are. Hopefully one day everyone else will too.
I can guarantee that pretty much every female (and gay) creative can match or surpass you with similar anecdotes. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
This has been going on for decades and I do think having women in senior positions helps a lot.
At a well-known award-winning agency group, to CFO is a known slime bag. Some examples of his behaviour:
Due to multiple complaints about her work ethic, said CFO was asked to fire the very attractive, surgically enhanced receptionist he had hired (yep, he had that level of involvement in hiring attractive female talent in the agency). She went into his office to get fired – and walked out with a pay rise. The CEO and the ECD wanted her gone (for the sake of the business) – but they were overruled. And livid.
A mid-level suit had an offer from another agency – paying about 25% more. The GAD petitioned to match that payrise because the suit was excellent and clients loved her (obviously, she was also being massively underpaid). The (notoriously tight) CFO’s response? “All right – it’s worth it to keep a pair of tits like that in the agency.”
And then he was caught bringing his mates in to the agency’s bar area after a night out (seriously? Did you have nowhere else to go?). In their excited state, he dropped his bag of coke, which the cleaner presented to the CEO the next morning. Yep, there are cameras in the agency, so they know exactly who had dropped that little baggy.
His punishment? He’s been promoted to Group CFO.
Thoughts on such a complex topic. 1 If you fail to report incidents then you are part of the problem 2 Without the predictable ‘victim blaming’ retort anyone who consumes large amounts of alcohol and goes to nightclubs with coworkers is behaving questionably 3 an unpopular view but vague anecdotes and generalisations about widespread harrassment unless verified can be a sinister way to ladder climb. You eliminate most of your competition in roles if you claim a conspiracy to keep women down
This is important. Awareness is key. Hiding behind anonymity won’t succeed though.
What is the best strategy for addressing this age-old problem in our industry? It would be great to hear from the supportive males in the business as well as the Snr women.