Advertising Age reported on the Chevy account shifting from Publicis to Goodby Silverstein & Partners, publishing a whining memo typed by Publicis chairman-CEO Susan Gianinno, as well as a story titled, “Behind the Chevrolet Shift: Publicis Didn’t Rate a Callback,” which offered behind-the-scenes details on the event.
Gee, this scenario really drives home the exclusivity and arrogance of Whites in the advertising industry.
Publicis is crying foul because new General Motors/Chevy CMO Joel Ewanick opted to dump them in favor of GSP—an agency that has produced successful work with Ewanick in the past—sans a review or even a courtesy phone call.
Oh, such horrors! Decisions are being made based on personal relationships and subjective preferences. To quote Gianinno’s silly memo, “How could this happen?”
Imagine if Gianinno were running a multicultural shop, and she had to accept GM’s decision to replace the minorities with a White agency. At least Gianinno was part of a straight swap—White for White. Gianinno shed no tears when GM screwed multicultural shops, and she likely didn’t feel remorse when her agency booted Campbell-Ewald, the incumbent for 91 years.
Additionally, GSP is a gazillion times better than Publicis in every way, shape and form. As White ad executives are quick to declare when accused of hiring discrimination, people in our industry are judged solely on talent. Nothing more, nothing less.
However, this declaration apparently doesn’t apply when the ones facing judgment are White people.
3 comments:
Since when is this a race issue? It was poor form on Ewanwick's part to dump them without even an informal notification. Furthermore, it reflects poorly on him for making a rash decision without weighing all of his options. If he were wise, he would do his due diligence and review the work that had been done, rather than blindly enlisting his BFF to start over from scratch. But then, he quit Nissan after 6 weeks so Publicis shouldn't be too surprised and they will recover. Such is life in the ad world...
Didn’t mean to imply it was a race issue. Rather, the “outrage” over GM’s decision to pull the work from Publicis seems silly. What GM did with its multicultural agencies—reassigning work traditionally slotted for multicultural agencies and giving it to White agencies—is poor and unfair. What it did with Publicis is common practice in the industry. A new CMO arrives and hires his own agency. Actually, it’s no different than what happens at advertising agencies when a new ECD or Account Director arrives.
I'll say it was a race issue because white agencies thin they're above this treatment when it's commonplace for black/ethnic shops.
Jeep just turned over its new launch from GlobalHue to WK. People been screamin gfor JEEP to only dump Globalhue but not to let any ethnic shop be AOR since GH won the acct last year. Then when the work broke people on and offline said the same thing "the work sucks, ethnic shops ain't qualified to do this work. Dump GlobalHue."
it's hypocrisy all the way around.
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