Working in Advertising Left Me Suicidal — Here’s Why
In pursuit of happiness: a story of discovering purpose
Summer 2010. It’s eight in the evening and I have just finished work to the tune of my boss’ farewell: “half day is it?”
I am off to Soho to meet my siblings for drinks. Luckily, on this occasion, I didn’t need to pile on more to my £25,000 credit card debt, because it was my birthday!
With a willingness to work twelve hour shifts, commute for three hours a day and an artistic flair which earned itself a first at Oxford you’d think I’d be on more than £1,000 a month. Sadly you’d be wrong. Weeks earlier my £150-a-week internship at Leagas Delaney was terminated abruptly. One grand a month now felt like a blessing.
In creative advertising the people who come up with the idea for the ads are called ‘Creatives’. These Creatives work in pairs. For some reason, most Creatives are both lads. At the very least you’ll get one boy and one girl. You will rarely find two women working together. I never really understood why, I think there’s a perception that women aren’t really funny enough or witty enough to make adverts. LOL.
ROTFLMAO!
Despite the fact that 85%² of purchasing decisions are made by women, ad-land seems to reckon women don’t know what women want. Back in 2008, (around the time I made the ill-conceived decision to enter that industry) only 3.6%³ of Creative Directors were women. More recently that figure is 11%. Though better, it remains abysmal⁴.
The reason progress moves slowly is down to a variety of reasons, including the fact that long hours don’t support childcare, that people like to hire people who look like them⁵, that unconscious bias tends to champion masculine ads. The list is long and yet advertising is missing a trick. All of this means 91%⁶ of women are left feeling that adverts don’t really understand them and revenue opportunities are lost as a result.
However, the amount of money brands are making from advertising is the least of my concerns. I am here rather to piece together the recipe which cooked up a sinking depression I couldn’t see a way out of so that I don’t accidentally eat that poisoned pie again.
It doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. Dwindling self-confidence, an inability to make ends meet, feeling discriminated against without being able to evidence anything tangible, excessive hours resulting in a minimal social life and feeling like a failure had created a perceived pointlessness which in turn left me feeling worthless.
I always had some understanding about what made me so miserable, (though finding logic was as easy as herding cats in that state). A decade later, I wanted to comprehend what actually made me happy and why advertising as a concept, an industry and a career felt so wrong.
Epicurus was a philosopher born in 341 BC who studied what makes us happy. A trailblazing legend for diversity who included girls in his School of Happiness on principle (and not as an exception). He came up with a system for living which is probably even more relevant today than it was back then.
He mused that we didn’t need heaps of money or status at the expense of our time. We could survive with less cash if we are making a difference and doing meaningful things. He recognised the importance of friendship over romanic desire, the former bringing kindness and the latter causing jealousy or pain. He posited that we didn’t need luxury either, all we really needed was calm.
Take this famous Patek Philippe advert and have a look at the tagline. You’re not buying that £50,000 watch but the joy of family. In fact, you’d be lucky to end up with just the watch. Instead you’re missing quality time by working your arse-off (so you can buy luxury items) and wholloping another chunk of debt to your credit card.
“You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”
- some guy in advertising⁹
Advertising is proven to make us unhappy¹¹. Professor Andrew Oswald compared survey data on the life satisfaction of more than 900,000 citizens of 27 countries from 1980 to 2011 against annual advertising spend in those nations. The researchers found an inverse connection between the two.
The higher a country’s ad spend was in one year, the less satisfied its citizens were a year or two later. Advertising raises our aspirations and makes us feel that our own lives, achievements, belongings, and experiences are so inadequate that we really do need that overpriced watch to compensate.
Ironically, ad-land seeks to play upon our misconceptions and desire for sex, status and luxury. Remember that beer ad, a fun time with friends at a party, that refreshing fizz, the excitement. The ad is selling you a fun time with pals*, when really you’re just buying a beer that you’ll probably drink alone.
If I really understood how adverts worked back then, maybe I’d have made a mint and been able to douce myself in yoghurt ‘til the cows came home.
Yet, it turned out that in my own pursuit of happiness, I bought into the same fallacies adverts thrive on through my choice of career. I had purchased a lie — the promise of happiness, wealth and status. When really all I needed was to feel that I was doing something useful**.
Today we already use the equivalent of 1.75 Earths¹² of natural resources each year. The global middle class is expected to grow and reach 5.3 billion by 2030¹³, so by then, we’ll need 2 Earths¹⁴. 1.8 billion of us live in water stressed regions¹⁵ and the World Bank estimates that we’ll have at least 143 million more climate migrants by 2050¹⁶.
The environmental, socioeconomic and health consequences of too much ‘want’ are astronomical.
It would be unfair of me to claim advertising were the only culprit in this imploding world but it is certainly part of the problem**. It seems Epicurus was rather prescient. Though I will disagree with him on one point:
Epicurus believed that striving is bad, because aspirations leave us constantly reaching for something more than we have. Whilst that’s true, our planet is different now and we must all toil a little, to make the world a better place. So what did I learn ten years later? We need to stop, think and find our purpose.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive”.
Howard Thurman — Theologian and social justice leader¹⁸
When you’re happy in something you do and you believe in the value it brings, you will ‘succeed’¹⁹. (And hopefully, leave our little world a little bit better behind you).
[1]Herbal Essences Advertisement with Nicole Scherzinger (2014)
[2] Source: Yankelovich Monitor & Greenfield Online cited by Marketing to Women
[3] Source: Windels, Kasey Farris, Proportional representation and regulatory focus: the case for cohorts among female creatives
[4] Source: Campaign Live, Where do all the women in advertising go?
[5] Source: Forbes, Why you mistakenly hire people just like you
[6] Source: The Guardian, Five facts that show why the advertising industry fails women
[7] Source: Müllerlight Desserts advertisement (2013)
[8] Source: Heineken, Walk In Fridge advertisement (originally 2008)
[9]Source: Patek Philippe, Generations Campaign. Conceived by advertising agency Leagas Delaney
[10]Source: Patek Philippe, Generations Campaign. Conceived by advertising agency Leagas Delaney (2016)
[11] Source: Harvard Business Review, Advertising makes us unhappy by Nicole Torres
[12] Source: Fortune, We don’t live on 1.75 Earths but we act like we do by Jean-Pascal Tricoire and Mathis Wackernagel
[13] Source: European Commission, Growing consumerism
[14] Source: Huffington Post, WWF living planet report warns that by 2030 two Earths will be needed to sustain our lifestyles by Ted Thornhill in reference to WWF Living Planet Report
[15] Source: Water Footprint Network, water stress to affect 52% of the world’s population by 2050 in reference to MIT research
[16] Brookings, the climate crisis migration in reference to the World Bank
[17] Source: Adbusters.org
[18] Source: Howard Thurman, theologist and social leader quote
[19] Success is not only about status or money, this isn’t a reference, it’s just a fact.
*(Beer fridge and friends are not included).
**It would be remiss not to recognise that advertising can be a force for good. They have the power to communicate important information, women in advertising are trailblazing diversity efforts to support the industry in getting better, and with $300 billion needed to halt climate change, some things will need selling!
My own Creative partner made it as one of the few female Creative Directors, she has pioneered a wealth of socially conscious ads, created initiatives that support other women in advertising and conceived a social sustainable entrepreneurship project that travelled from London to New York and Delhi.
It just really wasn’t for me.
