Giving good creative feedback is an art.

It’s also a key contributor to the learning and development of creatives and the quest to create great work. But the impact of negative, unconstructive feedback may be having a profound effect on the advertising industry and compounding the talent crisis.

We began with a call out to the advertising community to Drop The Shade. As part of this initiative, we created a survey to help us surface and understand the issues around giving and receiving creative feedback. It also aimed to uncover the impact of negative, unsolicited and anonymous feedback, both on individuals and the creative community as a whole.

The results are in.

Sign up to see the findings of the survey in our full report, coming soon.

But for those short on time, we’ve listed some of the key discoveries below.

Thank you! We will be sending out the full report early in 2024. In the meantime, keep scrolling for some of key discoveries

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KEY FINDINGS

People don’t want to end the industry discourse, they just want it to clean up its act.

Opinions are like arseholes (we’ve all got one)

80%

of respondents have fed back or publicly commented on someone else’s work.

We can’t help ourselves... we comment a lot

58%

of people commenting publicly do it regularly - at least a few times a year.

Not everyone
plays nice

57%

of respondents think other people are mainly negative in their feedback

Words hurt

54%

of people have been personally affected by negative feedback.

We’re pushing people away

Over 3/4

of respondents feel negative feedback is impacting talent retention and discouraging new talent.

We want to fix things

77%

of respondents want to remove anonymous commentary from industry publications.

The Charter

Love Our Work’s mission is to elevate the standards of the advertising industry by holding ourselves accountable to the way we give creative feedback. Our aim is to rid ourselves of the toxicity we see and hear in our workplaces and on our professional forums. We believe that giving good creative feedback is crucial to helping nurture young talent and protecting the mental health of us all.

Be yourself

I will stand by my words and always put my name to any comments I post online

Be constructive

I will craft my feedback in a way that is respectful and understanding of the work

Be objective

I will remove myself and my feelings from the feedback

Be specific

I will hone in on the details to ensure my feedback is actionable

Be positive

I will focus more on what’s working and good rather than what’s not

Be supportive

I will support other people’s work even if they work in another agency

I agree to only deal with publications, awards shows and media partners that help foster these principles. I reject environments that foster toxic creative feedback.