Credit: Innocean
Innocean Australia has launched a study into whether DEI progress in the advertising and marketing industry is reversing and whether workers are silencing themselves as a result.
The Cost of Quiet Audit, developed with creative consultancy FckTheCupcakes, launched in March to coincide with International Women's Day and the release of the 2026 Workplace Gender Equality Agency data.
It tests the hypothesis that confidence to speak publicly about workplace and societal issues has declined, particularly among minority groups.
The study comes amid a broader corporate retreat from DEI. Funding has been cut, dedicated departments closed, and brand support for events such as Mardi Gras has been withdrawn across global markets.
Innocean CEO Jasmin Bedir said progress made in recent years appeared to be unravelling.
"We started FckTheCupcakes five years ago and there was a feeling of slow but real progress in the industry on the topic of inclusion and diversity,” Bedir said.
“DE&I was a big agenda item. But all of a sudden there is anecdotal feedback that the industry is returning very quickly to where we were 20 years ago and that we're now entering a 'post-woke' period.
“I've noticed that it has gone really quiet and women are saying behind closed doors that it's too risky to speak up anymore.”
Bedir said they hope to collect aims to provide a 'reality check' for the advertising and marketing industry's leadership teams
“If our industry's public facing values are diverging from the lived experience of our talent, what are we doing to resolve the risk of progressive retention and overall reputational risk?" she said.
The study targets participants from Australian marketing and advertising.
While open to all genders, it is designed to identify whether a 'silence tax' exists, how it manifests, and its scale.
Innocean CSO Giorgia Butler said the research would be a starting point regardless of the outcome.
"We do hope that the study proves us wrong,” Butler said.
“But if not, we will be working to do something about it.
“So this is the start of a bigger conversation, with the intention to expand the research into other aspects of individual identity, such as race, religious beliefs, and sexual orientation, in the years ahead.”
The survey will remain open throughout March.
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