Essay 4857

Also making Advertising Age’s 10 Who Made Their Mark list was Dentsu-suing Steve Biegel. His entry reads as follows:

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STEVE BIEGEL
He came out of nowhere with the raunchiest legal filings in recent memory. Allegations against his former bosses at Dentsu included forced trips to strip clubs and bathhouses, rampant anti-Semitism and an illicit snap of Maria Sharapova’s crotch that made it all the way to AdAge.com. Whether Mr. Biegel’s claims will stand up in court remains to be seen, but his place in adland history is suddenly secure.

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Guess 2007 was a slow news year on Madison Avenue.

So far, the Steve Biegel vs. Dentsu spectacle has essentially displayed Biegel’s (and his lawyer’s) dubious PR prowess. Although the spankings delivered on various blogs could ultimately hurt the fired creative director beyond the courtroom—if things even reach that stage.

The case itself appears to be as shaky as a Prague pole dancer. The accusations of anti-Semitism might look more kosher if Biegel could convince the other terminated Jewish executives to join him in a class-action suit.

In the end, the fiasco does emphasize the existence of real and perceived discrimination in the advertising industry. No breakthrough scoop there. Yet one can’t help but wonder if it all points to another growing problem.

Despite the online Biegel haters, the word on the street says Biegel is a decent, hard-working guy. However, our profession has always been driven by subjective opinion, so a new boss can decide a formerly talented employee is suddenly a hack. The Dentsu firing allegedly exhibited the political bullshit common in the business, including the replacement maneuvering and unceremonious dumping. Unfortunately, insensitive, mean-spirited and asinine management is completely legal. Otherwise, the entire industry would be facing litigation.

In our current marketplace, companies are not only downsizing staffs, but severance packages as well. The once-charitable big shops are handing out one week’s salary for each year worked, and forget the additional “two weeks’ in lieu of notice” payment. Negotiating for a better deal is tricky and tough, and it often requires the threat of legal action. It’s a safe bet that Biegel found himself in such a situation.

As people who have pursued employment-related lawsuits will tell you, the filing selections are extraordinarily limited, with highly specific definitions for protected classes and offenses. Unless you have indisputable evidence of wrongdoing—and lots of it—you’ll encounter an uphill raging-inferno-firefight.

Of course, Madison Avenue’s buddy system also means you’ll be blackballed for life, which can be compounded with the constant mergers and nomadic, shifting leaders holding hiring authority.

Critics argue that Biegel had the right to quit and land a different job. At the same time, it ain’t easy to secure comparable gigs for creative directors. The roles are more elusive, and the salaries are less generous.

In the future, somebody might find a way to legally punish lousy management, or at least rethink our subjective work environment. Given the rise of corporations like IPG with their DraftFCB carnival freaks, it seems inevitable for an enterprising attorney to challenge the justice status quo. For the moment, the best options we have are charges of discrimination.

Pardon the pessimism, but Madison Avenue has never been fazed by discrimination.