Innocean Australia, creators of F*ck the Cupcakes, and B Corp purpose-led agency Paper Moose, have launched a voluntary industry charter – Love Our Work – that aims to foster more positive conversations among creative communities.
Innocean and Paper Moose joined forces last year to take a deep dive into how the industry is interacting with other people’s creative work and its impact on the creators.
More than three quarters of respondents in the Drop the Shade study conducted last year, felt that negative feedback was impacting talent retention and discouraging new talent from entering the industry. Encouragingly, 77 per cent of respondents wanted to remove anonymous commentary from industry publications, yet the issue persists and has not changed since the study was conducted.
Following consultation with production companies, agencies and like-minded individuals in the industry, the Love Our Work charter has been launched. It asks agencies, production companies, trade press and individuals to help inject some love and pride back into the conversations about the industry’s creative output. It is an attempt to bring the industry together to lift each other up, not tear each other down.
Paper Moose Creative Director, Jeremy Willmott, said: “Having seen, first hand, the impact thoughtless comments about work can have on someone’s career, let alone how it affects me personally, I’m proud to be helping do something about it. We’ve created a charter that acts as an ongoing commitment for better behaviour and allows like-minded people to stand in support of this issue. Our mission is to drive meaningful, constructive conversations that help make our work better and we’d love the industry to join us.”
Innocean CEO, Jasmin Bedir, said: “As an industry we grapple with attracting and retaining talent, mental health issues and a lack of inclusivity and diversity, but we’re also fighting for relevance and against ever decreasing profit margins. Toxicity amongst ourselves makes this multi-billion dollar industry smaller. I feel like this charter is the perfect public statement from all of us that sets the bar for how we should conduct ourselves. I don’t see how anyone that runs a business in this industry wouldn’t want to support it.”
Innocean Executive Creative Director, Wez Hawes, said: “In Australia, anonymous negativity, trolling and vitriol are still readily tolerated in our industry, when we all know the harmful effects and mental health issues associated with this type of ‘feedback’. Discussing and debating work will always be justified, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. The ‘Love Our Work’ Charter is merely setting standards for us all to do this in a healthy, constructive way. We’d love others to now get on board to publicly offer their support.”
Paper Moose Founder and CEO, Nick Hunter, said: “Putting work through the rock tumbler of constructive criticism is critical for us to continuously improve and drive the very best results for our clients, but the way in which that feedback is delivered is equally important. This is a journey for all of us and we need to collectively as an industry get better. Celebrating the work and giving people the tools on how to deliver feedback is that first step.”
