Being Indigenous and working in the advertisement industry sucks
Campfire x co-founder Peter Kirk reflects on 2023 - what he says was a very trying year full of "trauma, anger, anxiety, rage, frustration, more anger, more frustration and heaps of despair". Here's why.
So now we come to the end of ’23. Let’s just say it’s a year I don’t think many Indigenous Australians will forget in a hurry. This year has brought oodles of trauma, anger, anxiety, rage, frustration, more anger, more frustration and heaps of despair. Someone once asked me once, how did all the Voice stuff make you feel, and the only analogy I can think of is… it felt like I was watching a car crash happen in real time.
But more about all that later.
This has been one of the hardest articles I have ever tried to write. I’ve been sitting on it for days, thinking about it, writing, deleting and going back and writing, and then deleting. The words are tough to find.
Bugger it, I’ll say it – being Indigenous and working in the advertisement industry sucks, it truly does. I wish I had chosen a different career path.
Campfire x has been running for over four years now. We started in November 2019 and whilst we get to work with the biggest brands, we don’t (and never have) get to work on the biggest campaigns. Don’t get me wrong, we ask, we pitch, and we cajole, but for some reason the work we undertake is primarily within the Indigenous space, telling Indigenous stories. We never really get asked, nor are we included in conversations about mainstream campaigns. I don’t understand that, for all the talk around diversity and inclusion I think someone needs to crunch the numbers on the scope of “diverse people” that are included in the development and the creation of the campaigns.
Jack Johnson once wrote a song called Flake. It’s a typical Jack Johnson song, makes you feel like you want to be at the beach having a bevvie and smoking (whatever it is) but the line in the song is “It seems to me that maybe pretty much means no.” The amount of maybe’s that we hear when talking to brands about “mainstream” opportunities is consistent and expected. I’ve started wearing Jack Johnson T- shirts to client meetings. Hopefully someone will connect the dots one day.
To be fair, there are some wonderful things and wonderful people who are trying to change the system. I won’t put them on blast, but I couldn’t have gotten through ’23 without them. They heard my frustration, cries, and despair. They are working within agencies, chipping away, making a difference. But how much change can you make when the very system favors the very people that have created the system? The pitching process does need to be fully revamped to be more inclusive. I spent several years working with the Ad Council trying to change this process, trying to create inclusivity. Alas, I resigned. Change was too hard or not a priority. I needed someone in there to help me fight the good fight. I wish Matt Melhuish from BMF was still around. I miss Matt’s ability to create change.
There is a saying I have (I would have stolen it from someone but can’t remember whom): “To change the outcome you have to change the narrative.” And the narrative of the agency land needs to change. We must get away from this obsession with awards, we must get away from this pseudo competitive nature. One ad does not define an agency, just as one Indigenous person does not define the Indigenous population, and we must get away from this reactive behavior that allows and almost accepts that it’s okay to exclude and yell at people when under pressure. No, it’s not, no matter how important the pitch is. If we want to change the outcome of being more inclusive, than we must change the narrative.
Winning awards are great but creating a home and a sense of community for someone that hasn’t had one before is even better.
I said at the start I would talk about the Voice debacle and maybe I shouldn’t, (maybe it’s one of those things that should be locked in cupboard forever and brought out to be taught at universities and case studies, on a course on how to fuck it up yet still get paid) but I can’t. I think it’s something as an industry we do need to talk about, address and heal. I’ve lost dear friends within the industry over the Voice, people always non-Indigenous who would spend hours arguing with me on why the industry and themselves will be voting yes and not understanding why I was against that.
These are the same people that have never hired an Indigenous staff member, nor made sure Indigenous businesses were engaged at some level of procurement through their business. I would get so frustrated when the words “we’re trying to help” were said. I don’t believe I ever asked for their help and change starts with an individual, it doesn’t start with a whole society voting on something that has no powers, no authority and most importantly was never going to affect anyone’s life. The whole conundrum of the Voice was that it was sold as something that wouldn’t affect 97% of the population. What was the point of voting yes on something was never going to impact our lives? Change is hard, and we have to see it everyday to see the work it is doing.
It was so heartbreaking to see so much money get poured into traditionally white agencies to develop campaigns and strategies encouraging people to vote yes that was never going to work. The creative and strategy should have been developed by Indigenous creatives – it was our story to tell and if it failed with our creative, it would have been on us. No better picture reminded me of this failure than on the Monday after the no vote won, a lot of agency people attended SXSW Sydney and had started talking about AI. Moved on to the latest topic whilst most Indigenous people I know couldn’t get out of bed for a few days. This one took us a while to get going again. There is also something quite ironic that the most successful campaign for the yes vote was developed by an Indigenous person. Imagine if he (like all of us) were included from day one. As mentioned, the money that went to these agencies was massive and I suppose I only have one question about all of this: can we have it back?
So now we all move on it’s been a year to remember for some good reasons and some bad. We know what ’24 will bring, but I hope things change. I hope the industry changes its KPI’s. I hope brands demand more from their agencies. I hope mandatory minimums are included for advertising and media re federal government (look it up). I hope people start to see us allies rather than someone as an ad-on. But most importantly I hope someone rings me up out of the blue and says “Kirkie, let’s go for a beer”.
Happy holidays everyone.
The last thing we need are more mandatory regulations.
Every new agency has these issues and growing disappointments. Have you ever considered that what you are offering at this time is not relevant or good enough to align with the briefs?
Sounds like a case of everyone is out of step except me.
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