This Anonymous Network Is on a Mission to Fight Ad Agency Toxicity

Expectant mothers in Finland receive a box from the government with items they’ll need to help them adjust to parenthood: baby clothing, diapers, bibs and so on. This custom recently sparked an idea from a group of advertising creatives: what if they could offer a similar welcome box to people about to embark upon a career in the ad industry? What useful objects might those newcomers need to help them navigate the role? Their answers to that question were foreboding. The group, who call themselves The Change Collective and wish to remain anonymous, made two ads styled as workplace “welcome kits.” The first, for women, contained items such as an evidence bag for collecting DNA after a sexual assault; a dictaphone to record abuse, threats and gaslighting incidents; and anti-depressants to help with burnout and mental illness. Meanwhile, the welcome box for men included a megaphone to call out misogyny and a copy of the 2003 Sexual Offenses Act. The kits were far from a warm welcome to the world of advertising, but The Change Collective does not want agencies to sit comfortably. Since the #MeToo movement, advertising leaders and organizations have spoken publicly and regularly about the need to tackle sexual abuse and harassment in the industry—yet the collective’s members are frustrated with a lack of significant progress. Their goal is to do what their name says: push the industry’s leaders to finally make real change. Staying anonymous The Change Collective is not the first industry group to address sexual abuse and harassment, but they may be one of the most guerrilla in their approach. They are a loose group who communicate through messaging and phone calls, bypassing traditional agency structures and bureaucracies to create their work. They are purposely using shock tactics to get attention. And from the beginning, it has been important to them to remain anonymous. Their insistence on anonymity could be damning of the industry’s culture, which some of the collective’s members say tends to protect the perpetrators more than the victims. Staying anonymous “allows us to create the work we want without any kind of fear,” one member explained. “If we were out there with our names, we’d end up having to compromise, self-edit and be a bit softer. We’re bored of the soft approach.” The member will reveal these details about the collective: first, it includes both women and men. “Men find it hard to speak out too,” the member said. It is also comprised of senior creatives, photographers, production specialists and PR professionals, mostly based in the U.K. This isn’t just women’s problem.Change Collective member The Change Collective formed following the most recent moment when abuse in the industry came under the spotlight, after executive Zoe Scaman published a searing piece on her Substack site detailing the discrimination that she and other women have faced in advertising workplaces. “A lot of my peers were talking to each other in their DMs, sharing their own stories that were like Zoe’s. People can feel more comfortable opening up in a DM with their friends,” the collective member said. “It was a continual trigger, with a lot of stories hitting you at once.” Fighting apathy After a while, as the public conversation subsided, an attitude of “apathy” set in across the industry as it had following other similar furores, the creative recalled. That stalled progress is what prompted the formation of the collective and the idea for their first campaign. “We’re riding the wave and trying to keep the wave going,” she said. The Change Collective created the welcome kit ads to run on social media and styled them after the kind of flat lay images typically seen in fashion magazines. They also enlisted Alison Carmichael, a celebrated hand-lettering artist, to do the lettering on the ads. All the items illustrated in the ads are inspired by real stories from members of the collective. Each ad also shows contact information and helplines for advertising industry charity NABS, the Equality Advisory Support Service and the Rape Crisis hotline. It was important that each source of advice be an independent organization, because agencies’ HR departments have historically been seen to protect the perpetrators rather than the victims, the collective member explained. “When we thought about what we would have needed if we were starting out in advertising now, number one was we wished we had someone impartial and independent to help us and also that we had a heads up about what to expect,” the member said. “Advertising now is very positive, solution based and forward looking, but that can be more triggering for people who have gone through this, because it’s diminishing their situation to say that everything’s fine. It’s why we created a male welcome kit as well, which is more solution based. This isn’t just women’s problem.” Abuse is 'more stealth' Because the #MeToo movement caught hold in the ad industry, sparking sector-specific initiatives such as TimeTo, there could be a misperception that the problem of harassment and abuse at agencies has been solved. Scaman’s piece shattered that façade for many people. The danger now is that “toxic misogyny and harassment are going much more stealth,” The Change Collective creative said. “In the old days, people were being openly abused. It was this kind of ‘rock and roll’ thing going on. Now it’s gone underground a lot more,” she said. “Agencies have codes of conduct and diversity policies. There’s this perception sometimes that it couldn’t possibly be happening at the agency, because they’ve just done a big piece in the trade press about their codes of conduct. It’s harder now to speak up, which is terrifying.” 'No More': This Declaration, Written by Women in Advertising, Puts All Harassers on Notice One of the problems that the group wishes to expose is that most of the industry’s perpetrators have not been named or held to account, the member said. The collective wishes to see an end to some businesses’ use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in cases of sexual harassment and assault, claiming that they allow perpetrators to go unnamed and unpunished. “It’s a cloak that everyone in agencies can hide behind,” she said. Covering up misdeeds and allowing perpetrators to stay in their jobs and even advance through the industry is limiting women’s job opportunities, she continued. “[Women in the industry] are all talking and sharing stories. Before you get a job, you ask around: is this place safe? Is that guy a good guy or a bad guy? Some of the perpetrators are much more powerful now,” she said. “The industry’s not that big. That’s the thing about being a woman in this industry: there’s not that many places left to go.” Pushing for progress Along with the elimination of NDAs in cases of abuse and harassment, The Change Collective also wants to see better education and training in workplaces. Their biggest goal, however, is to combat apathy and keep the conversation going until concrete actions are taken. Any future work they create will continue that mission. “If [the conversation] went silent again, I don’t think we could stand it. We’d have to aggravate the water again,” the member said. Sophia Durrani, head of strategic planning, government at media agency MG OMD and vice-president of Bloom, the professional network for women in communications, said The Change Collective’s shock tactics “can be incredibly effective in encouraging people to reconsider what they think is the norm. This cognitive dissonance can be a brilliant way to motivate them to try and tackle the situation.” But tackling this issue in the industry can’t stop with campaigns, Durrani added. “We need both–the attention-grabbing moment to jolt people into challenging their reality, and the more nuanced approach to behavior change–to be successful. Because, let’s face it, nothing has really worked until now.” Harassment Legislation Could Help End Use of NDAs in Advertising