Breaking the Bad Rules of Adland Could be the Radical Shift Women Need

I was milliseconds away from quitting adland for good. It wasn’t a decision I came to overnight. It was the accumulation of a thousand cuts over 25 years in the industry. So what made me radically change my mind? First, I’ll take you on a journey of what it’s like being a woman in the creative department of an ad agency.

In your 20s, it’s a level playing field. It’s all there for the taking: the briefs, the creativity, the ‘burn the candle at both ends’ buzz that’s held out as a ‘prize’. But at this point, women have likely negotiated a smaller salary than their male counterparts (research proves this).

In your early 30s, you start stepping into CD positions. You get a bit more autonomy over clients and briefs, but not enough to really demand the boundaries you need to also go into the world of baby making (which may or may not involve IVF, miscarriages, weekly doctors’ appointments, heartache, physical exhaustion). Doctors tell you, “You’re working too hard.” “You need to slow down.” But everyone works hard, and no one slows down, because it’s advertising.

Late 30s, the babies may come, but you return to work and must now fit in two jobs, while burning the candle at both ends and also in the middle. You are expected to have the same quick wit and sharp ideas as before, but your brain feels like cabbage. You consider quitting. How can you come up with Cannes-winning ideas with so much going on?

Meanwhile, men (who remember are likely paid more) have got pay rises while the women have been on maternity leave. If the guys in the department have had babies, they are supported to return to adland with little change to their working day. They continue to grab the briefs, sit on the juries, and start looking upwards in their careers.

Jump ahead to your 40s. The women look upwards and only see guys. They look around them and see an industry unable to change. Perimenopause hits. Cabbage brain returns. The kids are getting harder. Work and kids is getting impossible. The guys feel invincible. The women feel exhausted.

50s. The women think ‘fuck it’. Ageism is the final nail.

But here’s the thing.

At every point on that journey, it wasn’t just the women who needed supporting, it was also the men. If the men had been actively supported in taking a good chunk of paternity leave and then helped to return to work on a flexible schedule to support their wives or partners, and did the same flexible days or hours as the women in their department, we’d be able to maintain a more level playing field.

While working at a top London agency, I pointed out there was an excellent paternity leave policy up for the taking. None of the guys knew about it, or were willing to take it up. And why would they? They needed to grab the briefs and sit on the juries, remember? It’s what they’d been conditioned they needed to do, because it’s advertising.

In their 40s, when the kids get harder, men should continue to be supported to work flexibly. They should see that it’s totally normal to leave the office for school pick-up and then jump back online once the kids have been sorted. When they look upwards, they need to see guys more senior than them taking time out over the school holidays to help wrangle kids, or bringing their kids into the office when the childcare shit hits the fan.

And perhaps, importantly, they should see other men taking a break from their ad careers to become the main carers at home. They should feel like that’s a good option, that it will be amazing for their families, and perhaps their health, (all that candle-burning has likely fucked their bodies). It will also be good for the women in their departments, who may be doing the same. 

Then, if they were supported to return after a season away feeling healthy, super tight with their kids, and brimming with new ideas, the level playing field would remain. Perhaps the ageism nail gun would also stop firing.

But that doesn’t happen.

So why have I done a complete 360 on my decision to quit, after all that? It’s simple. My husband, also an ad creative, has taken a ‘season’ away from adland to be the main carer at home. And I found an agency that’s doing things differently. It has a male MD doing school pick ups. And bringing his kids into the office. It’s a place that actively encourages men to change how they work once they have babies. When the head of design, Dane, had a baby and wanted to move to another city to be nearer family, they said “Great. Go! Work remotely. We’ll make it work.”

These things shouldn’t feel so radical to me. But it does. It feels like I’m in a different universe. In the last two months since I’ve been there, we’ve won three pitches back-to-back without any candle burning whatsoever. No late nights. No weekends. Just happy people doing what they love and then going home. Radical, huh?

Some days, it feels like I’m now in a whole other industry to the one I’ve been in for the past two decades. I’m sure there’s a touch of new-job-rose-tinted-glasses going on, but I can already see that by breaking some of the bad rules of adland, things can be so much better. For everyone.