Storyboard18 | Feel safer but also ‘gendered’: Life in advertising after #MeToo

In 2017, actress Alyssa Milano re-introduced it to encourage women to share their stories as part of an anti-sexual harassment movement. By October 2018, women in the advertising and marketing industry came out with their stories. The rest is history. Over a dozen senior executives from both independent and network advertising companies were named and shamed. Some were asked to leave, some left the industry, some moved on to newer roles, and some remained unaffected.

A new chapter

When one of the male founders of independent advertising agency Utopeia was called out by women for alleged inappropriate behaviour, the company’s co-founder and head of strategy Mitali Srivastava Hough was left confused. After several weeks, she decided to resign from the company. The agency later shut shop. In an exclusive conversation with Storyboard18, Srivastava Hough admitted that Utopeia was the only successful ad agency that tragically collapsed due to the #MeToo movement in India.

“…it was a collective failure and on a professional front, everyone associated with the agency went through a difficult time. For me, it was a very tough, harsh and emotional phase. The aftermath of it was a period of great learning and introspection,” she says.

Srivastava Hough decided to start a second agency called EQUAL that specializes in CSR solutions and meaningful work from brands. She claims that following the #MeToo movement, many brands reached out to her, and she conducted various workshops and communications around inclusivity, women's rights, LGBTQIA and sexual harassment.

“There are many gaps in organizations that need to be addressed, and there is a huge scope to revisit policies that protect marginalized communities,” she tells us.

Another realization also hit her.

“I realised that there is huge polarization with one side seeing a problem in everything while some leaders see no problems with anything. There is a huge gap in defining what constitutes a healthy corporate culture across levels,” Srivastava Hough notes.

Most agencies have realised the value of the movement and are wary of repercussions that could come their way if the policies and law is not respected.

“..on the surface there is a slight shift in agencies and some men are now whispering the things that they would say out loud earlier,” Srivastava adds.

To be sure, The 2013 Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, popularly known as the POSH Act, mandates employers to set up committees to hear complaints, conduct inquiries and recommend action to be taken against perpetrators. The redressal can range from a written apology to termination of employment.

Legal recourse

The POSH Act provides an alternative to filing a criminal complaint with the police. Women can still file police complaints, but unlike a criminal case that could drag on for years, the complaints committees (set up under the POSH Act) are expected to offer a quick and effective remedy.

Saloni Mody, partner, DSK Legal, notes that the #MeToo Movement acted as a catalyst for the change that was needed to address the issues on sexual harassment despite the laws that were in place.

“Propelled by the fear of negative publicity, the #MeToo Movement has jolted companies out of their apathy and stirred them into action causing them to take note of and comply with the POSH Act, which earlier was either not taken seriously or ignored completely. It has brought about a renewed focus, developing a healthy and safe environment for women by conducting training sessions on various aspects of harassment and creating a safe space for feedback and complaints of harassment,” she notes.

While the social media-led movement has empowered most women in the formal sector to speak up, it has excluded women from the informal sector, who constitute more than 95 percent of the female workforce.

Creating a safe space for women

In 2018, #MeToo Movement also led to the formation of a group called The Collective which was formed by 14 senior women from the advertising and design industry. The group is aimed at supporting women in the workforce so that they do not drop out because of having to face bias or lack of support or unequal pay or anything else that bothers them so much that they give up.

Ashwini Deshpande, co-founder and director of design firm Elephant Design, tells Storyboard18, they could see that many agency heads wanted to understand statutory requirements, compliances, and their individual responsibilities.

“I feel certain that POSH committees were revisited for better compliance, and rules were explained formally to all team members across all large agencies. Smaller, founder-driven agencies also braced up in most cases. It is difficult to say whether there were behavioural changes, but awareness levels of what should and should not happen were certainly raised,” she adds.

Over the years, The Collective has become more inclusive and created a support group for issue that women in the creative industry commonly face. Those include pay inequality, performance bias, unsafe travel arrangements, in-flexible work hours, stereotyping to handle women-centric brands, and so on. In 2021, it ran a "Speak up" campaign across social media platforms to better understand these issues from women in the industry.

“Now that we have a repository of issues, we are working on a manifesto that outlines all the good practices to create a safe and positive work environment.  This manifesto will be shared with all large, medium and small agencies with a request for them to adapt it as a good practice. That is the next step, and we are hoping to get it underway in the next few months,” Deshpande notes.

The pandemic induced online or hybrid work environment has its own share of gender inequality, says Lulu Raghavan who is MD at Landor & Fitch India. Raghavan is also a member of The Collective.

“...women often find it hard to speak up, be heard and receive their fair credit for ideas or participation. Another outfit, Indian Creative Women is trying to provide one on one mentoring to several young creative women. Most of us from The Collective recognise how important it is for young professionals to receive good advice to boost their confidence. We also participate as mentors for exclusive portfolio reviews for young women creatives,” she shares.

We’ve come a long way, but there’s a long way to go still. And for now, it seems, the women are shouldering most of the burden of change.