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Archive for December 21st, 2009

Boeing And Banging

This week Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher was fired for having an affair with a female company executive. And once again corporate policies ethics and conduct are under scrutiny.

Affairs among highpowered people and their business associates are nothing new. Jack Welch of GE had one. Rudy Giuliani had one as mayor of New York City. Some people are just drunk on power. But in the advertising industry it seems such behavior is more pervasive up and down the totem pole.

If theres anything the ad industry produces more of than TV spots or junk mail its salacious gossip. And Ive heard as Im sure you have as well any number of tawdry rumors of CEOs getting their swerve on at a Christmas party or other employees doing it in or out of the office.

Our business has all the ingredients for a stew of sexual tension: Long hours frequent travel loose ethical standards young horny employees heavy drinking and the general freedom to say almost anything on ones mind in the spirit of ideation or concepting.

Even some ad industry lingo is suggestive:
Can you mount that?
I think you need to push that further.
We have 2 good ones. We need a third.

Its no accident that a disproportionate number of people in the ad biz are married to other ad people or creative types in general. Some are legendary: in 1967 Mary Wells married Harding Lawrence who was her client at Braniff. Now thats superior account service.

There are no acrosstheboard ad industry standards about these kinds of issues just like there are no standards for anything else. Interestingly I actually know of a few agencies that have a policy of not hiring two spouses. And there are some agencies that were started by husbandandwife teams.

But its also possible that something is seriously out of whack in our society or in our industry when theres no work/life balance. When so much of our energy is spent on our jobs and so much time is spent with our coworkers our families and friends dont get the attention they deserve. So it becomes hard to meet people outside of work if youre single and way too easy to get involved with people at work if youre married.

There are other potential consequences to a sexually charged work environment. One former writers assistant on Friends is suing for harassment because she was subjected to hearing coarse vulgar and demeaning language in the writers room. The defense maintains that such talk is part of the creative process. And Ill buy that argument but still some people have less tolerance for sex talk and we need to be cognizant of that.

So in the interest of selfpreservation companies like Boeing which have more conservative environments will probably reevaluate their personnel policies and try to maintain a zerotolerance stance in the wake of the Stonecipher incident. But I dont think well see a lot of stricter fraternization codes in ad agencies.

After all its one way of ensuring where the next generation of ad talent will come from.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Branding. Religion. Censorship. Office politics. Global politics. Sexual politics. And getting drunk during a job interview.
Since 2002 Danny G. a.k.a. Dan Goldgeier has been writing the most provocative advertising columns ever published. They’re all witty thoughtful and probing and a must read for those who want a perspective rarely seen in traditional industry publications.
An Atlantabased copywriter and ad school graduate Dan has worked at shops big and small. He reads incessantly about advertising and is a whiz at rock roll trivia. Learn more about him by visiting his copywriting website or AdColumnist.com the View From The Cheap Seats Archive website. You may also find articles by Danny G at TalentZoo.com.