Time’s Up Advertising Forges Ahead With the Challenging Task of Changing an Entire Industry

Today, nearly 200 agency executives have pledged they will no longer accept bad behavior, discrimination and inequality. The organization is led by a steering committee that recently released a charter with three clear pillars for the type of workplace it aims to create: safe, fair and dignified. It has also forged partnerships across the larger Time’s Up initiative in industries including tech and entertainment.

In October, Time’s Up Advertising unveiled a partnership with chat app Fishbowl that will allow for an anonymous, women-only group dedicated to the movement to provide others with links to resources and an email line to report incidents of sexual harassment or other forms of abuse.

What began in early 2018 as a call for better workplace culture has taken on a life of its own and evolved into a full-fledged organization. The Time’s Up Advertising steering committee, whose members collectively responded to Adweek’s questions via email, said they didn’t originally intend to start such an entity.

“We’d hoped that coming forward with a group statement and putting a stake in the ground would empower each agency/network to take the principles of Time’s Up and apply them,” the members said. “But, if it takes a stand-alone organization to get this change done, we’ll build one.”

Creating an organization

Today, the committee is planning to create a more formal structure and is preparing to announce its first full-time executive director and project coordinator. Still, Time’s Up Advertising remains very much a grassroots organization.

For example, Mara Lecocq, a freelance creative director who founded the interactive database for senior female ad executives Where Are The Boss Ladies?, has been helping BBH New York chief strategy officer and chairman Sarah Watson, a Time’s Up Advertising steering committee member, and Fishbowl co-founder and chief operating officer Loren Appin launch Fishbowl’s dedicated Time’s Up Advertising group.

Lecocq is not a formal Time’s Up Advertising member. She said she just “genuinely” wants “to help them out because they’re doing something awesome.”

“Time’s Up Advertising has reminded us of two things,” the organization’s steering committee said. The first: “that we’re not alone.” The second: “that we have so much work to do.”

“Sometimes it’s daunting, but we look around at the women beside us and feel optimistic that we can create change because there are a lot of badass women fighting for this,” they said.

Time’s Up Advertising struggles to meet expectations

Time’s Up Advertising has, however, faced criticism and at times admitted to its own shortcomings. One widespread criticism holds that the organization hasn’t done enough or moved quickly enough. The committee also specifically said its “inclusion mistakes” have been “a very painful wake-up call for us all.”

For example, the community responded with anger after Time’s Up Advertising decided to limit access to its first meetings to women with full-time agency jobs. This initially barred freelancers and people who had left the industry–some due to the very issues Time’s Up Advertising was formed to address.

Another issue was the way the group dealt with the question-and-answer segments of those initial meetings. Attendees voted to determine which questions it addressed, and multiple parties who were there indicated that questions posed by women of color were largely ignored.

Producer Kai Deveraux Lawson, a veteran of agencies including AKQA and Wunderman who co-hosts the Mixed Company podcast, said she went to the New York meeting feeling “optimistic” but left disappointed.

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