How Advertising's Star Model Protects Abusers

Though Spark used a portion of his closing remarks to belatedly recognize the qualifications of his fellow guests by admitting that despite working in advertising for many years he quothad no expertise on the topicquot amp160 and eventuated the podcast by initially sending Knorpp Scaman39s article neither his lack of relevant experience nor apparent interest in allyship could stop him from attempting to shut down the conversation a mere five minutes inBostic began by arguing that the advertising industry has long tolerated men who sexually and emotionally abuse women because so many agencies operate on quota star modelquot that hinges their profitability on their top execs39 big reputations and loyal clients whichamp160in turnamp160makes them quottoo big to firequot no matter how badly they might behave And when she recommended dismantling the system by cutting stars39 salaries in half and doubling the salaries of junior executives Spark dropped the hammer of condescension quotYou can39t offer unrealistic solutions I mean seriously You know that39s unrealisticquotAnd what you might ask is Spark39s more quotrealisticquot yet nonexpert solution Executives announcing a zerotolerance policy and HR taking complaints seriouslySeriouslyNever mind that as Gallop explained every holding company already has such a policy and it hasn39t stopped the abuse Or that HR works to protect the company Or that NDAs and settlements intimidate and bribe victims into silence Or that whistleblowers are often blacklisted Never mind all of that because even after each point was explained patiently and in meticulous detail to Spark he nevertheless persisted He also took pains to note that not all quotrainmakersquot are sexual harassers Duly notedSo Spark didn39t come to learn Instead he offered an alltooaccurate representation of the advertising industry a man initiating a conversation about misogyny only to talk over two women more expert than him patronize them both with lectures about how business quotactuallyquot works refuse to be corrected propose demonstratively failed solutionsamp160and of course defend himself Nevertheless I am grateful for Spark39s honesty as it offered an unvarnished glimpse of how individual men can try to thwart women fighting for reform while also teeing up Bostic39s compelling breakdown of the more systemic barriers they face The rest of the words are hersI39ve been spending a lot of time talking to chief compliance officers and people who are responsible for setting up compliance programs at publicly traded companies What they essentially do is they make a calculation quotWhat is the likelihood of enforcement And what is the impact of penalty How likely is it that the regulator is going to come after me And if they come after me what is my risk How much am I going to have to pay Am I going to go out of businessquotIf the likelihood that someone39s going to come after you is low then you kick the can down the road If the impact of the penalty is really high then you might start to say to yourself quotWe should start a program to get into compliance in the next two to five yearsquot If both of the things are high it39s both urgent and important as it were then they suddenly get on the stick and start spending money on getting into compliance Reputational risk as it turns out works exactly the same way If they don39t think there39s any reputational risk investors won39t care the trade press won39t care there won39t be a bad headline about them then they kick it down the roadAnd the problem with saying quotWe39re going to have a zerotolerance policy and we39re going to take these complaints seriouslyquot is that that isn39t actually how compliance programs work It39s not how HR functions The job of the corporation is to protect itself because they39re trying to protect their shareholder value As long as that is the primary purpose of HR and all of these internal systems then taking a complaint seriously backfires on the person complainingOne of the first things that happens when you file a complaint for sexual harassment is the company moves to separate from you And the reason they do that is so you are outside the tent Once you are outside the tent you have no protection from the company And that39s the point You39ve complained about the company you are not one of us anymore The whole structure of quotcompliancequot immediately runs against the person doing the complainingYou have to have outside influence in much the same way that as long as Harvey Weinstein is doing really well at the box office and winning Oscars no one39s coming after him It takes New York Times reporters and Ronan Farrow going after him in order to start the conversation about how this man is a serial rapist And that should be the proof that it39s not good enough to say quotWe take these inquiries seriously we have a zerotolerance policyquot because these were actual crimes A lot of what goes down in agencies doesn39t rise to the level of physical assault it39s mere sexual harassment which is not a crime It39s a civil tort I can sue you about it but you39re not ever going to go to jail So the stakes even when they39re that high make all the structural forces accrue to the benefit of the person who39s the rainmaker And that39s why I want to dismantle the rainmakersI think people should be rewarded for performance absolutely But there is a kind of system in place that puts people who are famous awardwinning respected by certain kinds of men you know loved by a client provocative whatever in a position of power and they get paid enormous sums of money to do it While all of the people who are actually doing the work are being paid 30000 a year When you39re making 30000 a year as a junior account executive who has been sexually harassed by the head of the account who39s making a half a million dollars a year you cannot possibly afford to complain because now you39ve got to go find another job and you39ve got to try to do that without bringing with you the reputational risk of having accused this famous wellrespected man of something badThere are incentives in place that should really be looked at Now I think that39s about as likely as HR suddenly becoming a defender of the working class but that does not mean that the underlying structure does not need to be torn down and built anewFarrah Bostic39s BioFarrah Bostic has worked at Digitas IpsosOTX Hall ampamp Partners Mad Dogs ampamp Englishmen TBWAChiatDayamp160and Wieden Kennedy She has a bachelor39s degree in journalism and communications from the University of Oregon a juris doctor from the Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law and runs The Difference Engine a strategy and research consultancy she founded in 2011 to help clients like JetBlue and Google make big decisionsClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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How Advertising's Star Model Protects Abusers

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Christopher Boulton

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