Peruse through any minority business publication and you’ll find the stereotypical collection of messages from advertisers hyping their own corporate commitments to diversity.
Pepsi, Kodak, IBM, Verizon, Mastercard, Citigroup, Procter & Gamble and more show images of multicultural staffers with contrived headlines lecturing on the power of differing perspectives.
Whatever.
These efforts have been discussed here before (click on the essay title above to review Essay 141).
It’s bad enough that advertisers want to promote themselves in this manner. After all, if you can legitimately talk the talk and walk the walk, why walkie-talkie your accomplishments with such braggadocio?
But what’s particularly perplexing is that the advertising agencies servicing these clients don’t aspire to similar standards. Why do corporations demand diversity from themselves, yet not from their advertising agency partners?
After countless decades of exclusivity and discrimination, it appears that advertising agencies are unable and/or unwilling to solve the problems. Perhaps it’s time for the clients who ultimately bankroll the agencies to step forward and mandate progress.
Now that would be something worthy of hyping in the business publications.
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