Traditionally, men have been told they are the leaders and providers, whilst women were homemakers and objects of desire. Men have been paid more and placed in more senior positions, across nearly all industries. But, thankfully, we no longer live in this world. Women are taking strides towards equality at work, achieving more senior positions and progressive businesses are reimagining a much fairer workplace. We are seeing the spread of conventionally ‘feminine’ values that has allowed for greater emphasis on collaboration, empathy and kindness, positive mental health conversations and a better work-life balance. And driven by the pandemic and the shifting of men into different roles- such as homeschooling and housework- we are now seeing these values being incorporated into society at an accelerated rate.

The world we live in no longer conforms to the old-fashioned gender roles. Most men know, feel and understand this. However, media and advertising representations of the ‘successful man’ haven’t moved at the same rate. Success is meant to make us happy. But success- or what men have been raised to think of as success - is no longer having that effect. In fact, it’s been making men unhappy by still depicting largely unattainable aspirations and narrowing the space for men to express their emotional needs. This has led to the rise of controversial voices, such as social media personality Andrew Tate, capitalising on men’s desire to find identity and connection.

As part of our new report ‘The Price of Success’ we conducted research of 4,000 men in the UK and the US to find out how they feel about the perceived ideas of success and happiness perpetuated by brands and the media. Staggeringly, over half of men say that advertising and the media is likely or very likely to negatively impact how successful they feel. This figure rises to 66% with Millennials. Launching in Men’s Health Week, we worked in partnership with men’s charity Equimundo who have also identified this fault line: Most men want to be authentic and allies for a better world where they are more connected to those they love. Sadly they are not being supported accordingly by the media and brands.

The men we surveyed said that they used to define success as making lots of money (23%), having material things (20%), a glamorous lifestyle (17%), and being famous (17%). Today, success for men is about less quantifiable things: feeling happy day-to-day (23%), having good relationships with the people around them (23%), taking care of their health and wellbeing (22%) and having a life partner who loves and supports them (21%).

The report clearly finds that men believe traditional models of success are no longer fit for purpose. Yet media and advertising are still pushing an old agenda in many ways. Therefore, as men start to act more authentically this isn’t being supported or reinforced in wider culture, causing confusion and repressive behaviours.

You can see this incongruity in our data. For instance, men want to be seen as caring, but believe that society wants them to be cool and unflustered. Men like to win while believing it’s unhealthy to get too obsessed with it – but they see society as promoting the idea that winning is everything. Men have a nuanced relationship to material possessions – thinking they can be useful and fun, meanwhile, society defines possessions solely as signs of success and glamour.

Men like to look stylish, while believing that good character counts for more than good looks. Society puts all the emphasis on the superficial. Men increasingly believe that the work they do should be meaningful as well as money-making, that it should have a broader social purpose. But they do not see this reflected in social attitudes to work, which seem more likely to emphasise the macho ethos of “work hard, play hard”.

The mismatch, between how men feel about success, and how they see society portraying it, has deeply problematic effects.

Now I’m aware this all sounds quite disturbing and in many ways it is. But we have at our disposal resources to be serving men, and society as a whole, in far better ways, and it is incredibly hopeful because both men and the brands that serve them have an opportunity to redefine what being a successful man is. Brands have an opportunity to think beyond the stereotypes that underpin a dated conception of success and that’s an exciting creative brief. Many are already doing it well - think Nike and the fantastic support of Marcus Rashford, or Belvedere directly contradicting the James Bond representation by using Daniel Craig as himself. But it needs to be more commonplace - and it needs to be now. Men are at a tipping point - we, as an industry, have a duty to support them.