Out of fight, out of mind…

What’s common to Will Pucovski, Nic Maddinson, Glenn Maxwell, Sophie Molineux and Rachel Trenaman? They’re all cricketers who have revealed their struggles with mental health issues in recent times. The movie industry, the music industry, the fashion industry – the lists, like twilight shadows, are growing longer everywhere even as darkness approaches. Across the world, people are slowly coming to terms with it. They are recognising it. They are coping with it. They are fighting it.

According to the WHO, 'one in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives.'

What about the ad industry?

Looking back, I can recall thousands of water cooler talks, beer session cribs, corridor gossip and cigarette-break arguments… But I can’t recollect a single instance of anyone opening up about being depressed or struggling with a mental health problem.

It couldn't have been a perfect world.

Actually, it was far from it. It was a bloody nightmare, interspersed with an occasional ‘corporate campaign’ - and the even rarer TVC - that make the job worth enduring.

And yet, no one complained. Anyone who was down was just suffering a burnout. All it took was a Feni-fuelled Goa trip to bounce back with energy and take on more of what the madhouse threw at you. It rarely worked like that. But one had to brave it and show that one was up for the fight. The ad industry was quite like the army. Induction was like boot camp. And a true professional would have to earn his/ her spurs the hard way. "You don't have what it takes to be in advertising" was the last thing one wanted to hear.

'Develop a thick skin' is second in the list of most frequently doled-out advice in the corridors - and cabins - of advertising. In other words, you are, on one hand, expected to deactivate one of your five sensory organs, and on the other, be sensitive to the customer, to the market and to the new developments taking place.

Advertising, at its worst, can be a depression magnet. Murphy is always at work, the deadline is always yesterday and there's always a better way of expressing the brand's key proposition. (Euphemism for 'client wants another option'.)

Even more dangerous is the fact that being upset is ok. It's a sign that you're passionate about your work. It's understandable if someone were to rant and rave, or burst into tears in a conference room, or throw stuff around when a meeting is in progress. A yellow, smiley stress ball on the table and a bottle of BP/migraine pills tucked away in the drawer make for fine props.

Besides, ad folks are meant to be weirdos. Their relationships can go downhill, they can take to substance abuse, their temperament can be haywire, they can be sociopaths by day and party animals by night, and it's all attributed to occupational hazards/ job profile/ creative eccentricity/ all of these.

There is no red flag that tells the ad world that all is not well with an individual. It's an endless abyss - one can be in freefall and never hit bottom because nothing is out of place here. (We're the ones who came up with that 'normal is boring' stuff, didn't we?) Your struggle to get out of bed to see another day is blamed on long nights with Jack, Johnny and Glenn. Your total lack of interest in the job on hand is because the brief is boring. As for your mood swings, all creative folks are like that.

At the risk of oversimplifying the workflow in other industries, most of them have a binary approach to results. Either the program ran or it didn't. The code worked or it didn't. The numbers tallied or they didn't. The product sold or it didn't. But not in advertising.

Everything here is subjective. There can be a brief. There can be no brief. If there's a brief, it can change. The creatives can go through any number of iterations. Anyone who has the power to change creatives will change it.

Servicing doesn't have it any better. Stuck between a client who gives very little time and even lesser information, and a creative team that refuses to begin work unless they have a clear brief, they become the primary TA for all the antacid TVCs ever created.

A survey was conducted in Australia - the first major study of its kind - into the mental health in the media, marketing and creative sector. The findings revealed that around 56 per cent of the respondents displayed mild to severe symptoms of depression. What's significant about this number is that it's 20 per cent more than that of the national average in that country.

The rate of anxiety was also found to be around 29 per cent more than the national average.

The percentage of depression was the highest at 61 per cent for creative folks, with marketing coming second at 53 per cent and media at 46 per cent. I'm not aware of any such study that has been conducted specifically for the ad industry in India, but it would be interesting to know the findings. The question here is, how many agencies are equipped to tackle depression at work? (How many of them even have an in-house HR department?)

The tough part is, with the 15 per cent commission model gone, with digital threatening mainstream, with other industries offering far better salaries and perks, and with clients constantly threatening to look around for options, agencies are having a tough time trying to hire good talent, do good work and retain (good) clients. So, with the industry struggling, and with the agency struggling, what are the chances of help reaching an individual who is struggling?

Read the full report below.

(The author is a creative consultant who has worked in advertising agencies such as Contract Advertising and RK Swamy/BBDO and JWT)