Why every campaign needs a pervert sense-checker

Let me explain.

Today, I did a classic double-take while scrolling through Facebook and saw something that made my jaw drop. A campaign so poorly conceived it must have been a deliberate joke.

Is it just me who sees the issue here? It can’t be.

It’s just one of the world’s biggest brands talking about a cream pie. How many people sat in the numerous meetings on both the client and agency side and thought to themselves, ‘Well, I’m not saying it…’ yet another situation where a pervert suffered in silence.

And it’s not the first time a big brand has dropped a clanger like this. We’ve all been there – you’re in a pitch, an early concepts session, or just walking down the street and find yourself going, ‘Is it just me…?’

It took a few years, but I finally decided my troubled mind’s ability to notice things like this was a valuable skill, so I will often say, ‘Is it just me…?’ (sometimes it is) – but not everyone will, and we probably need to do something about that.

But the thing with the marketing industry is that there’s a big risk that the room listening to the idea is full of people just like the one who came up with it.

• Just 23.6% of marketing professionals come from a working-class background (Marketing Week)

• 90% of marketers have a degree (Marketing Week)

• 75% of marketing agency leadership teams are exclusively white and are generally underrepresented by women (The Drum)

Having a range of perspectives in our teams doesn’t just mean avoiding accidental penis jokes out there in the wild or posts going viral because they contain feet (voice of experience here); it also stops those cringeworthy and brand-destroying ads that really offend for completely legitimate reasons.

The ones that simply can’t have been run past a diverse group before going live – the accidentally tone-deaf, offensive, and sometimes just plain racist campaigns that beg the question, ‘how could they not have seen it?.’

It may be something seemingly as seemingly innocent as suggesting to a Glaswegian to catch a game of cricket through to M&S, suggesting it is puttin‘ ’he ‘D’ in your bread.

These real-world responsibilities all affect the bottom lines of the brands and the agencies who work for them.

But what can we do about it?

It’s pretty simple - don’t hire a team that thinks the same and comes from the same background. They’ll probably notice the same things and NOT notice the same things too.

Creativity works best when lots of different perspectives come together, and are used to challenging each other rather than awkwardly sitting there thinking, ‘That definitely looks like a dick to me’.

Your recruitment policies can help here in the long run, as can initiatives like Upriser. Aiming for a more diverse workforce will mean the viewpoints mix in each team naturally.

But to start with, try involving fresh sets of eyes with a different perspective. And root out your resident pervert for good measure – they’ll relish the chance to spot a filthy joke; it’s what gets us up in the morning.