How Antoinette Lattouf Pulled Off the Smartest Bait-and-Switch at Cairns 2025

By Shyaire Ganglani.

At first, it felt like a comedy set.

Monobrow jokes. Reverse discrimination one-liners. A zinger about the The Australians' editorial accuracy being “on par with a drunk uncle live-tweeting a family feud.” How she was happy to offer a nose hair for genetic testing when in the Federal Court matter over her sacking the ABC argued that Lattouf must prove the Lebanese race exists.  

People were laughing. I was laughing. And let me just say to be able to handle a painful situation like a live streamed litigation with such grace in a room filled with marketers and advertisers who aren’t exactly your usual target audience is masterful.

But then, somewhere between the witty punchlines with an undercurrent of human rights and intersectionality, Antoinette Lattouf did something most of us in this industry rarely pull off:

She got everyone in the room to let their guard down.

And then she told us the truth.

Not a polished, brand-safe version of it, either. But the raw kind. About growing up as the daughter of Lebanese refugees. About surviving newsrooms that love your ‘diversity’ until it becomes inconvenient. About being cheered on one week and legally fought the next. About just wanting to do your damn job, and being turned into a political headline for doing it.

As a brown woman in advertising, I know that pivot all too well. One minute you’re brought into the room for your ‘fresh take’ and the next you’re being told to tone down the diversity demands and the social media posts about ethnic cleansing because a client “just wants to have a nice campaign about doors” and “why does everything have to be political?”

So when Lattouf said she took eight months off being an advocate for diversity in media  just to exist…to go to the gym, mind her business, and be a person again, and use her communication skills to write satirical skits and columns about nits I felt that. Deeply.

Because we don’t always want to be the story. We don’t always want to be driving change. Sometimes, we just want to write the copy, build the deck, get the brief out and go home. 

But here’s what she showed us so brilliantly:

If audiences trust people more than they trust institutions (and yes, she brought the Edelman Trust Barometer and Roy Morgan receipts), then you, your ethics, your honesty, your name are the brand. You are your own platform.

And that platform is worth protecting. Even when it costs you. Especially when it costs you.

Because let’s be honest, here. If the legacy media machine can chew up one of its brightest stars for posting a Human Rights Watch statement on Instagram that it had already reported on twice, what makes us think our little brand guide or “tone of voice refresh” is safe?

The talk was clever. Meta. So meta that you felt like it was a live demonstration of why sticking to our ethics will help our personal brand more than selling our souls.

Antoinette wasn’t just telling us the story of her childhood, her media success and turmoil, her life, her surname becoming a verb “Lattoufed”, her work, no. She was showing us how trust is built. Laugh with them, drop the tension, slip in the truth when they least expect it.

It’s the exact opposite of how most DEI panels go in Australia. Instead of asking the room to care about inclusion because it “impacts the bottom line,” she flipped it: if you are the brand, then compromising your integrity is bad business. Full stop.

And that’s the line that stuck with me: “You are your own pocket of trust.”

As a writer, I used to think that meant I had to be palatable. Now, I think it means I need to be real, consistently, imperfectly, publicly real. Because that’s how people connect.

And in this industry of spin, DEI backlash, surface solidarity, and ‘safety-first’ groupthink, real is the riskiest and most powerful brand of all.

So if you’re a creative, a copywriter, a strategist, a CD, a CCO, a CSD, a C-anything-whatever, anyone in the business of shaping stories, get out your AI transcribers or shmancy pens and take notes.

Antoinette’s keynote was a masterclass in authenticity, talent and credibility.

And she did it with wit, a mic, and the guts to say: I’m not here to make you comfortable. I’m here to make you listen. And you won’t even realise you’re listening. 

Antoinette Lattouf at Cairns Crocodiles 2025

About Shyaire Ganglani

Shyaire isn’t just a writer; she’s a poet, spoken word artist, and stand-up comic. Shy’s journey in slam poetry and comedy has taken her to the stages of Dubai, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid and Melbourne. Her critically-acclaimed piece ‘In Defiance of Darls’ calling out racist and sexist cliches in advertising can be found in Mavens Volume 2 magazine.

She has also featured on a few panels to champion diversity and inclusion in workplaces, including a pre-panel performance for Women of Colour Melbourne Gathering 2023 and key panelist at Mavens magazine launch event. A keen activist in anti-racism, she has written for leading industry magazines and her work for climate change has been featured on the Today show. Shy is working on her memoir and first poetry anthology this year.

About Antoinette Lattouf

Antoinette Lattouf is a broadcaster, columnist, author, speaker, human rights advocate, mental health ambassador who dabbles in satire and is terrible at reverse parking.

Antoinette is the creator and co-host of ‘The Antoinettes’ podcast, a weekly commentary and comedy podcast. She is also the co-host of news and analysis podcast ‘The Briefing’.

The multi-award-winning journalist is the co-founder of Media Diversity Australia — a not-for-profit organisation working towards increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in the media. Her columns appear in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, and Women’s Agenda.

Antoinette’s first book ‘How to Lose Friends and Influence White People’ was published by Penguin Random House. It is a witty and approachable anti-racism guide and an honest exploration of the modern manifestations of systemic racism in Australia today, and how we, as a collective, can take steps to make change. Providing practical tools, using warmth, humour, and research to share evidence-based solutions that can be used by anyone.

In 2019, Antoinette was named among AFR’s 100 Women of Influence. In 2021 she was awarded a Women’s Agenda Leadership Award and B&T Women in Media’s Champion of Change. In 2022, she was an Influencer of the Year Finalist at the Third Sector Awards. In peer selected awards at her year 10 high school formal, Antoinette was awarded Most Likely To Die A Virgin.

Antoinette gave a TEDx talk in Sydney called ‘reverse discrimination doesn’t exist but tokenism does”. Here she tackled the pale, stale, male phenomena by adding what she dubbed ‘Gayle’ to the mix as a beneficiary of privilege and bias.Antoinette is also an Ambassador for parent’s mental health organisation Gidget Foundation after experiencing debilitating post natal depression and anxiety with her second child. She now quite likes both of her children. Antoinette also appeared on ABC’s You Can’t Ask That, detailing her harrowing journey.