Friday, March 31, 2017

13617: Google Doodling Diversity.

Today’s Google Doodle was created by a 15-year-old student who sees a future of peace and diversity. For Google—as well as the advertising industry—the future is far, far away.

13616: Addicted To Controversy.

Adweek spotlighted a campaign from VML in Kansas City that asks, “What if we treated people with cancer the way we treat people with addiction?” Not sure why the White advertising agency sought to spike the controversy in the commercial by casting the family as interracial. Oh, and the comments at YouTube show people are not exactly buying the overall premise.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

13615: Black, White And Grey.

A White advertising agency named Grey produced a Black commercial for Pantene, including a patronizing video claiming the new products were created by Black scientists. Looking forward to a Black inventors advertisement from Pantene next year during Black History Month. In the meantime, how many of the responsible Grey peeps are Black? Oh, and the commercial—especially with its “Strong Is Beautiful” tagline—comes off like a typically contrived and clichéd Black hair care spot.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

13614: Overreaction Of The Week.

Adweek reported Crayola will retire one crayon color from its famous box of 24 this week. According to Adweek, “The current 24-box line up is: red, yellow, blue, brown, orange, green, violet, black, carnation pink, yellow orange, blue green, red violet, red orange, yellow green, blue violet, white, violet red, dandelion, cerulean, apricot, scarlet, green yellow, indigo and gray.”

Hey, if Crayola follows the lead of Madison Avenue, the eliminated color will be brown or black. White is safe, of course.

13613: V&F Is B&S.

Adweek published a lengthy piece on a Grey London stunt intended to spark industry-wide diversity. What’s the breakthrough concept? Rename the agency after its founders—two White men of Jewish descent—who opened the flagship New York shop in 1917 when anti-Semitism was prevalent. Okay, but in that very same year, Blacks held a silent march in Harlem to protest getting lynched, beaten and burned. Lawrence Valenstein and Arthur Fatt feared their names could cost them business. Blacks feared their skin color could cost them their lives—and it would take 30-40 years before Blacks would actually be hired at New York advertising agencies. Oddly enough, the Grey London scheme is intended to woo racial and ethnic minorities. So to perhaps offset all the Old White Guys imagery, the bold initiative includes minority scholarships and high school outreach efforts. Gee, how original. Sorry, but even in 2017, White men of Jewish descent have a much better and easier chance of landing jobs at Grey London than racial and ethnic minorities—and this would still be the case if the shop suddenly hired Gustavo Martinez as its CEO.

Grey London Renames Itself Valenstein & Fatt, After Grey’s Jewish Founders, in Call for Diversity

Office will take the name for 100 days, urges industry to change too

By Tim Nudd

Grey London is using the agency’s own 100-year-old origin story as a springboard for an industry-wide call to embrace diversity and acceptance via a self-branding campaign, launching today, in which it will rename itself, for more than three months, as Valenstein & Fatt, after its Jewish founders.

It’s 1917. New York is booming. Two young Jewish entrepreneurs, Lawrence Valenstein and Arthur Fatt, set up a company. But anti-Semitism is rife. Their names could cost them business. So they call it Grey, after the color of the wallpaper.

The London office will fully operate as Valenstein & Fatt—changing its office signage, stationery and business cards, answering its phones that way, even operating under that name in pitches—for the next 100 days.

The initiative is happening just as the British government is triggering Article 50 and begins the process of disconnecting the U.K. from the European Union. It is also launching as “xenophobia is raising its ugly head once more, along with political isolationism,” the agency adds.

Also, the symbolic gesture of the name change is being backed up by more concrete plans, including the following steps, in the agency’s own words:

1) We are publishing our diversity data. Progress cannot be made without clear measures and transparency about who we are today. Our new study is independent and in-depth and is based on the voluntary responses of 305 individuals, which represents over 60 percent of the agency and reported according to standards set by the British Office of National Statistics (ONS). Research developed in partnership with PSB examines roots, identity, education and lifestyle. It will be measured and shared annually and we are encouraging other agencies to take it up as their methodology.

2) We are launching a cross-industry taskforce to identify the barriers to recruitment and retention of talent among ethnic minorities. The first gathering will be co-chaired by Trevor Philips OBE and CEO Leo Rayman, and we are inviting leading organizations in this space and the most progressive agencies, including chairwoman of Mediacom, Karen Blackett, to join us in agreeing industry-wide initiatives and targets. We will also commit to targets for our advertising output, to ensure that it is nationally representative.

3) We are launching the Valenstein & Fatt Bursary to pay a year’s rent for up to two young people from ethnic minority and disadvantaged backgrounds. To qualify, candidates must have been offered a job at Grey, be state educated and live outside of greater London. Applications are open from this summer.

4) We will inspire the next generation, by working with 100 primary and secondary schools to introduce students to a career in the creative industries. Working with exec head Michelle Williams and education therapist Jodie Cariss and starting with the New Wave Federation primary schools in London’s Hackney, we will offer a tailor-made program for the schools involved, from assemblies to full-day workshops, coaching and agency open days.

5) We will develop our diverse talent. Recognizing that recruiting people with different start points isn’t enough, 50 individuals identified as ones to watch will be matched and formally mentored by our executive and senior leadership. In parallel we will run community mentoring workshops open to any member of the agency who wants to participate.

[This video explains more about the project.]

Adweek spoke to Sarah Jenkins, chief marketing officer at Valenstein & Fatt, about the initiative.

Where did this idea come from?

We’re an agency that is feeling the craziness of the last 12-18 months. The world feels a little bit uglier. A little bit less welcoming. So we wanted to make sure we were celebrating difference. And getting diversity right into the heart of our organization. Coincidentally it’s a big year for Grey this year—100 years old. So the Valenstein and Fatt story feels relevant and meaningful in the context of business and society today. Subsequently celebrating them, and telling their story, was the right way for us to make a definitive statement about our diversity commitment moving forward.

While a great gesture, this idea will also clearly cause confusion here and there. Is dealing with that confusion an embodiment of the kind of hard work needed to commit to diversity?

It’s definitely got some risk, but good ideas are hard work and generally require a healthy kick of bravery. Which is a lovely parallel with the spirit of our founders. It definitely helps that we are in the communication business, so hopefully, for the vast, vast majority of the time, we can avoid confusing people.

Tell us why the concrete steps you are also taking will make a difference.

We should first talk about what we are going to get wrong. Diversity is complex, nuanced and gnarly. So they might not all make the difference we are wanting. We’ll fail fast and go again and tell everyone what’s gone wrong, so they don’t make the same mistake.

That said, we have worked hard to get our first initiatives right. We have talked to some brilliant and smart organizations like Channel 4 and the Social Mobility Foundation. Progressive agencies like Mediacom. People who have spent years thinking about the problem and the solutions, like Trevor Phillips. And we’ve backed our own instincts.

When you break down the initiatives, it’s hard not to see them working in some form. One-hundred schools. That’s at least 1,000 kids we are going to hang out with, possibly closer to 5,000 or even 10,000—how can they not help inspire kids to stay curious and think about a career in our industry?

A bursary to help kickstart your first 12 months in—how can they not help us attract some of the best state-educated kids in the country?

Dedicated time and investment to ensure all our diverse talent are able to develop and a clear leadership program to ensure all the glass ceilings are smashing and stay smashed—how can that not inspire the next generation of young leaders, no matter what their background and who they are?

Working with the best agencies and businesses in our industry to push the diversity agenda, so that the smartest, most creative minds are applying themselves to a big gnarly comms and behavioral challenges—how can that not shift the diversity dial in ad land?

What metrics will you look at to gauge the improvement in diversity, both at Grey and across the industry?

As an agency, we will gauge success by seeing more diverse talent coming into the building. And that is any diverse talent. We would love to encourage more people from BAME backgrounds. And more people who are state-school educated. To have more diverse talent identified as future leaders. Future leaders we then keep in our agency, or at the very least we keep in the industry.

As an industry… for agencies to stop fudging their diversity numbers and realize that diversity is a genuine commercial win, not a marketing headline or some weird, point scoring exercise. For advertising to be seen at the forefront of diversity in business, particularly in attracting the best young talent. I mean, fair play to the accountancy firms for leading from the front, but surely, with our insane communication and creative skills, we should be helping them set the bar, not be running behind them.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

13612: Dawn Chambers, Endangered Species.

Advertising Age reported on figures from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission showing there are less than 100 Black women executives in adland. The report made no mention of the number of Black male executives in the field. If anything, the EEOC total underscores that the current diverted diversity drive—with everyone jumping onto the White women bandwagon—is the greatest example of unconscious bias today. That is, the industry pats itself on the back for promoting White women under the notion of gender equality while true diversity remains a dream deferred, diverted, delegated and denied. If the advertising industry stays true to form, expect the following solutions to ignite in the years ahead:

• Categorize receptionists, administrative assistants and cleaning ladies as executives

• Offer more Global Creative Director roles to female hip-hop artists

• Increase the number of Chief Diversity Officers

• 4As to launch MAEP—Multicultural Advertising Executive Program

• Cannes to introduce the Dawn Chambers Lion

There Are Fewer Than 100 Black Women Execs in Adland

IPG and Ad Club of New York Hold Summit on What to Do About It

By Lindsay Stein

The Advertising Club of New York and Interpublic Group are hosting the first Summit on Black Women in Advertising to start a discussion and figure out solutions around the fact that there are fewer than 100 black women executives in advertising, PR and related industries across the country.

According to new statistics from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, only 93 black female executives are in advertising, PR and related agencies with more than 100 people, out of 8,734 total executives. Additionally, of the 8,734 executives, 7,651 are white and 3,037 are white women.

The idea for “Their Truth: The Summit on Black Women in Advertising, Marketing and Media,” which will be held March 27 at The Paley Center in New York City, came from the fact that the industry doesn’t have any large scale focus on women of color, said Heide Gardner, IPG’s chief diversity officer. Ms. Gardner, who previously served as senior VP of the American Advertising Federation and was the founding executive director of The AAF Mosaic Center on Multiculturalism, said ColorComm has an emphasis on women of color, but it’s a young organization. The Ad Club of New York and IPG will also be supporting their efforts going forward.

“Women’s experience in the industry and the narrative have come primarily from white women in senior roles, but no one has provided a platform for us to hear from really accomplished black women and those are the stories that make all this real,” said Ms. Gardner.

She added that what shocked her the most from the recent findings is that there’s about 50 black women executives in creative agencies, 14 in PR and some disciplines that have zero. “We all know we have a challenge, but I don’t think people really know and the industry hasn’t generally followed the data,” said Ms. Gardner, “It’s important to bring this forward, and if they didn’t know before, now they will know.”

The EEOC research also showed that black women have the lowest upward mobility among other major demographics groups in advertising, PR and related fields, while black women in other professional services industries, such as legal, accounting and management consulting, have higher executive representation in leadership roles.

At the event, Tai Wingfield from the Center for Talent Innovation will present current research about black women professionals, and a panel will include black women trailblazers, such as Pam El, CMO of the NBA; Vita Harris, chief strategy officer at FCB; Jeanine D. Liburd, executive-VP of corporate communications and corporate social responsibility at BET Networks, and more. The event will also be streaming on Facebook Live for those who can’t attend.

“Obviously, we want to bring forward the issue and expose the industry to these amazing women and their stories, but we don’t want to just leave it at that,” said Ms. Gardner. IPG and the Ad Club New York is working with the Center for Talent Innovation to provide some solutions and a toolkit to the industry that “looks at key issues and specifics that can be undertaken by any organization, leader, manager and the talent themselves,” she said.

More importantly, Ms. Gardner said she thinks this event will “open the door to having discussions” with other holding companies and agencies to help figure out how everyone can work together to make a difference.

Monday, March 27, 2017

13611: Hubba Hubba, Diversity Hub!

Campaign Asia created Diversity Hub to collect all the diverted diversity content that ultimately prevents true diversity. The hub creates a hubbub of hubris for the White women’s bandwagon.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

13610: Exclusivity Research.

Campaign reported on a diverted diversity diagnosis via “Exclusive Research”—which really should have been titled “Exclusivity Research”—from a gender equality study conducted by Campaign Asia-Pacific and Kantar. Not surprisingly, while the presentation was made at a Campaign360 event in Hong Kong, the female factoids were delivered by a White woman from Australia. Also not surprisingly, the data showed White women in the advertising industry fare better than their peers in brand or technology companies. And totally not surprisingly, no one acknowledged that White women globally enjoy waaaaay more opportunities than racial and ethnic minorities. Unfortunately, there are no exclusive studies being done to prove the true and persistent inequality in adland—probably because it’s all common knowledge. Plus, White women are taking a “ladies first” approach to diversity.

Agencies better for gender equality than brands: Exclusive research

Women are more equal in the agency environment than they are within brands or tech companies, according to Campaign Asia-Pacific and Kantar’s inaugural gender diversity study.

Agencies provide a better experience in terms of gender diversity than brands or tech companies, according to Campaign Asia-Pacific and Kantar’s 2017 Gender Diversity study, which was revealed at today’s Campaign360 event in Hong Kong.

Anne Rayner, global head of communications research at Kantar-owned TNS, laid out the inaugural Gender Diversity study in partnership with Campaign Asia-Pacific.

The research found that women still have less access to opportunities. The crucial point, though, is that this is not related to their performance, but perception and unconscious bias.

“If you’re a male leader, you might not see this around you, it might be invisible,” she said. “But just because you don’t see this with your own eyes, it doesn’t mean this isn’t felt by the women in your organisation.”

The research also revealed that 35 percent of women at non-agencies say they spend their time in meetings dominated by men.

“Unconscious bias is a real barrier for women,” Rayer emphasised. “Agencies are doing a somewhat better job, but there’s a lot more to go. Good intentions are not enough, we need to be much more interventionist.”

The report, which in February surveyed 630 media and marketing professionals—394 women and 236 men—across 21 countries in Asia-Pacific, found that women felt more respected and credible at agencies than brands.

Eighty percent of agency respondents said men and women were equally credible to top management, compared to 62 percent of non-agency respondents. Moreover, 73 percent in agencies said women and men equally respected by top management, versus just 56 percent in non-agency companies.

Agencies are also more than twice as likely to have a female CEO than the other types of companies, the study found—although the numbers in both instances remain low.

Another key finding was that of preconception issues for women in the media and marketing industry. The study found that men feel they are judged more on what they have done—their track record and experience—whereas women feel they are appraised on who they are—their age and gender.

In addition, the research showed that men have access to more opportunities than women in the workplace: 43 percent of women surveyed said they had missed out on opportunities because of their gender, compared to just 16 percent of men surveyed.

Strikingly, given the intensity of the debate around gender diversity in the industry, an enormous 75 percent of men surveyed said gender doesn’t matter anymore in the workplace, while 51 percent of women believe it still does.

To help address these and many other issues highlighted by the report, both men and women felt the two most important areas to address are development opportunities and flexible working. It is also vital for organisations to have more female leaders in senior positions.

“The study shows that although women aspire to leadership just as much as men, there is still a glass ceiling of unconscious bias firmly in place in our industry,” Rayner said. “This means that women are often less respected than men in their workplaces and miss out on opportunities because of their gender. The study also shows that good intentions are not enough to challenge unconscious bias; we need to be more proactive and interventionist to create change.”

Saturday, March 25, 2017

13609: Airbnb Honcho Airs Grievances.

Campaign reported Airbnb Chief Marketing Officer Jonathan Mildenhall continued publicly questioning the dearth of non-Whites at Cannes, tweeting about the lack of color among speakers slated to pontificate at the exclusive event. A Cannes Lions spokeswoman replied, “Diversity is a priority across the entire Festival. Cannes Lions is a global event and people from all around the world attend, enter, judge, work and speak at it. … When organisations apply to speak on one of our stages, we actively encourage them to embrace diversity when considering individuals to put forward.” Well, diverted diversity is clearly a priority, given all the attention, action and awards addressing the promotion of White women. But to say, “Diversity is a priority across the entire Festival,” could be categorized as a scam statement. Meanwhile, Mildenhall ought to directly discuss diversity with Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy, as the old man’s office is now available via Airbnb. Any conversation would clearly show Mildenhall the cultural cluelessness at the highest levels of the industry.

Airbnb’s Mildenhall hit outs at Cannes Lions again over lack of ‘brown faces’ among speakers

Jonathan Mildenhall, the chief marketing officer at Airbnb, has hit out again at Cannes Lions organisers for “only three brown faces” being among this year’s speakers.

By Omar Oakes

Yesterday Mildenhall said it was “not cool” for the organisers of this year’s International Festival of Creativity to include only three non-white people among the 102 speakers it had lined up this year.

He tweeted: “I’m confused are we a GLOBAL festival of creativity?”.

The chief marketer also posted a link to the Cannes Lions website, which advertises 102 confirmed speakers at this year’s festival. Mildenhall did not specify who among them were the “brown faces”.

This year’s speakers include leading industry names such as: WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell; Procter & Gamble chief brand officer Marc Pritchard; and Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. Non-industry figures include Russian protest pop-group Pussy Riot and movie director Jason Reitman.

Mildenhall’s diversity-conscious reproach follows a series of complaints he made on social media in January about the festival’s first 16 jury presidents containing no “dark-skinned” people. Two of these jurors were of Southeast Asian-Chinese descent (Ogilvy’s Tham Khai Meng and Dentsu’s Ted Lim).

Last month, Mildenhall was named president of this year’s creative effectiveness Lions jury at Cannes. He said at the time that, while marketing industry is becoming “more inclusive”, it still has work to do. Mildenhall added: “diversity informs everything I’m part of and I want to accelerate that change further.”

A Cannes Lions spokeswoman said: “Diversity is a priority across the entire Festival. Cannes Lions is a global event and people from all around the world attend, enter, judge, work and speak at it.

“When organisations apply to speak on one of our stages, we actively encourage them to embrace diversity when considering individuals to put forward.”

Friday, March 24, 2017

13608: ANA GEM BS.

Advertising Age reported the ANA is seeking to make its Gender Equality Measure an industry standard element in testing advertisements. Nice. Promoting White women receives multimedia campaigns with technological innovations, while promoting minorities gets segregated awards, crumbly colored committees and an unarmed army.

ANA Aims to Standardize Gender Equality in Ads

By Jack Neff

In a bid to strengthen its #SeeHer gender-equality push, the Association of National Advertisers is making the ad-scoring system behind it available for any copy-testing service, meaning it could become a standard module in the software engines by which analytically inclined marketers evaluate ads.

At the same time, the ANA’s Alliance for Family Entertainment has completed testing the 200 most-watched TV shows using its Gender Equality Measure, with an eye toward providing those ratings to advertisers that want to align their gender-conscious ads with like-minded TV buys. “The reason we’re testing both advertising and media is that context matters,” said Shelley Zalis, a co-developer of #SeeHer, founder and CEO of the Girls’ Lounge and former CEO of research firm OTX.

The Gender Equality Measure scores ads or entertainment on how prominently they depict women, amid a larger industry conversation about gender equality in both ads and the business itself.

It might seem unusual for competing copy-testing services to adopt a common methodology like the protocol behind GEM scores, but Ms. Zalis said copy testers tend to measure the same basic things, such as effects on purchase intent or likability, even if they get their scores in different ways or call them different things.

“One thing that’s very important for us is to measure what matters,” Ms. Zalis said. “One of the biggest problems we’ve had in our industry is that we don’t have accountability to measure progress.”

GEM already has been run on more than 17,000 ads, creating a “robust database,” said Stephen Quinn, the former Walmart chief marketing officer who chairs the Alliance for Family Entertainment.

While the ANA isn’t generally releasing the results publicly, both camps are privately asking for diagnostics to help improve their scores, said Mr. Quinn, who will be meeting with media companies on the subject this week. Since those GEM scores could ultimately find their way into standards or software that govern media buys, the stakes for media are potentially huge.

The Alliance for Family Entertainment also has developed GEM “bootcamps” to help advertisers understand and improve their gender-equality scores. Georgia-Pacific, marketer of such brands as Brawny and Quilted Northern, has fared well with GEM but was still the first company to participate in a bootcamp.

The top 10 ads by GEM score from the week of March 4 show that there’s no set formula. They include an ad from Procter & Gamble’s Swiffer showing a little boy cutting the hair of his stuffed animals and sister, and mom cleaning up. Another two are conventional beauty ads from L’Oréal USA for L’Oréal Paris and Garnier. Amazon’s Echo Dot fared well with two ads on the list featuring household vignettes with men and women. Coca-Cola made it with an ad featuring mostly male race car drivers plus Danica Patrick, while Geico appeared with arguably one of its least funny ads in years—albeit one with a man and woman getting equal face time.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

13607: The Whiteface Of Advertising.

Campaign reported on a stunt from Advertising Week Europe that revealed the “true face” of adland. Hey, this is exactly what MultiCultClassics pointed out when Benetton used the same data and technology to create models in 2016. Worse yet, an official behind the Advertising Week Europe stunt whined, “And it’s not just gender and ethnicity that’s an issue, our recent research on ageism in media revealed we are losing people over the age of fifty at a time when the population is living to a much greater age.” Great. The face will become older and even Whiter before it grows darker.

The ‘face of advertising’ revealed as a young white man

The average face of attendees at Advertising Week Europe this year is that of a young, white man, it has been revealed.

By Kate Magee

MEC UK created the average face by merging photos of delegates that attended Advertising Week Europe on the first day.

It is a visual representation of the lack of diversity in the industry.

As part of a diversity drive at the event, MEC UK also asked delegates to take Harvard University’s Implicit Associate Tests, which highlighted unconscious bias in the industry.

Here, Jason Dormieux, the chief executive of MEC UK, discusses the finding:

“Predictably, the Face of Advertising is a white twentysomething male. This clearly demonstrates the scale of the task ahead if the industry is to hit Campaign and the IPA’s 2020 targets of 15% of people in leadership positions from a non-white background and 25% per cent of new joiners from BAME backgrounds.

“And it’s not just gender and ethnicity that’s an issue, our recent research on ageism in media revealed we are losing people over the age of fifty at a time when the population is living to a much greater age.”

Of the Harvard tests, Dormieux said: “As more of us take the tests and become aware of our biases we can start to recognise where we as individuals can make changes. For example, when we are recruiting, questioning why we think a candidate is good. Is it because of their ability, or because they think like us?

“Even though as an industry we are behind many others when it comes to diversity, equally we know that bringing together more diverse teams results in better work, even if it makes life harder initially, because people from different backgrounds tend not to automatically agree with one another.

“While we can put processes and structure in place to help steer people in the right direction to be more inclusive, ultimately you can’t eradicate in built prejudices because it’s part of who we are. The key is to make people conscious of their biases and take responsibility for keeping a check on them.”

13606: C’MON WHITE MAN! Episode 50.

(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)

Campaign published White man bullshit responding to White woman bullshit—and the end result is a pathetic pile of White privilege poop. As a counterpoint to an anonymous White woman bitching about returnship programs, Crispin Porter & Bogusky London Chief Creative Officer Dave Buonaguidi shat out condescending crap including the following:

I have spent over 30 years in this business and am totally stunned that we are still in the dark ages. There are several hundred reasons why adland is still so old fashioned, the main one being that the people who run the business are predominantly white, middle-class, heterosexual males, a group that tend to be quite old-fashioned and mercenary in their views and behaviors.

The only way to change things is to stop talking about stuff and actually do something.

But still, all I see is bullshit headshots of the great and the good of adland moaning about a lack of diversity and not enough action.

CPB has the same values that I do. We only want to employ great people, irrespective of color, sex, religion or status, and as I stated previously the Creative Equals initiative is a great step in the right direction.

Wow, Buonaguidi comes off like a stand-up guy and equality champion. Technically, the industry is not “still in the dark ages”—rather, things are still in the White ages. But Buonaguidi’s culturally clueless bullshit can be sniffed out with a peek at the CP+B London staff, which mirrors every exclusively White advertising agency in adland. Expect a follow-up where Buonaguidi bemoans the awful ageism aimed at Old White Guys like him.

C’MON WHITE MAN!

Dave Buonaguidi replies to ‘This is bullshit,’ an open letter to adland by a working mom

By Dave Buonaguidi

Dave Buonaguidi, the chief creative officer at Crispin Porter & Bogusky London, replies to the letter writer who took a swipe at the returner scheme his agency has signed up to.

Dear Anon,

I am sad that you got so angry when you read the article.

I have known Ali at Creative Equals for over ten years and I think getting mums back into business is a really good idea, and so it was something that we at CPB got behind.

I have spent over 30 years in this business and am totally stunned that we are still in the dark ages. There are several hundred reasons why adland is still so old fashioned, the main one being that the people who run the business are predominantly white, middle-class, heterosexual males, a group that tend to be quite old-fashioned and mercenary in their views and behaviors.

The only way to change things is to stop talking about stuff and actually do something.

But still, all I see is bullshit headshots of the great and the good of adland moaning about a lack of diversity and not enough action. (This week has been an exception, where it seems everyone is doing great work in the area, but I suspect that’s just positive press.)

What the Creative Equals initiative is doing is a great start, and if it helps encourage mums back into this archaic industry, brilliant, and if one mum can get an opportunity and then convert it, then it has been a huge success.

Sarah is a very good writer. She accepted a paid opportunity to work full time in our creative team developing and pitching ideas, something she hadn’t done a lot of for a long time. For her to have an opportunity to retrain on the job with live briefs made a lot of sense to me. Her six weeks has turned into nearly five months to date as testament to her talent. Initially we paid her as a ‘Returner’, taking into account her seniority and expertise, not an ‘Intern’. And after the official returnship period, she has stayed with us at an industry standard freelance rate.

I can’t think of any business on earth where you could take a ten-year break and then return on the same salary.

If there is one, tell me, I might try it.

I am very passionate about changing this industry and I find it as frustrating as you seem to.

But I have always put my money where my mouth is. In the mid 90’s I co-founded St Luke’s, a co-operative ad agency where everyone, even mums, were equal shareholders. I wonder why has no one followed suite and done that again? I also founded Karmarama in 2000, an agency based on doing the right thing, with a no wanker hiring policy, (that included mums,) and employed a mum of four and made her an equal shareholder.

CPB has the same values that I do. We only want to employ great people, irrespective of color, sex, religion or status, and as I stated previously the Creative Equals initiative is a great step in the right direction.

It sounds like you need a new home, not a new challenge.

Try CPB.

You might enjoy it.

We are pretty modern.

We are not a sweatshop.

We are an arsehole-free zone.

We happily work with mums and embrace the way they want to work.

And we won’t even call you a “suit”.

Besides, who even does that anymore?

Feel free to get in touch direct, and save paying the headhunters fees.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

13605: 25% Off 100% Offensive.

Wow, JWT is going all out to deflect attention from the Gustavo Martinez-Erin Johnson affair, and the White advertising agency might even nab a Glass Lion or ADCOLOR® trophy for its propaganda. Hell, it looks like Martinez was the copywriter for this campaign. And it all brings a whole new meaning to “scam ads.”

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

13604: Failing The Image Test.

Master Comunicação in Brazil created The Image Test to expose institutionalized racism. Not sure the exercise really presented anything new or surprising. And it’s not clear why all the Brazilian “HR Professionals” appeared to be White. The accompanying blurb on YouTube (copied below) claimed that—thanks to The Image Test—“a debate began in the country.” Began? What the hell took so long?

On the Black Consciousness Day, the Government of Paraná in partnership with NGOs of racial equality, released a video. An experiment called The Image Test, where real human resource professionals were divided into two distinct groups. The first group were showed pictures of white people in everyday situations. The second group were showed pictures with identical situations, only with black people this time. The result? White people pictures were described as successful people while the images of black people were always attributed to be underemployment or even worse, vandals and thieves.

The video went viral and in less than 24 hours more than 15 million people watched it and more than 400,000 shared it on Facebook. The video was commented on all TV channels, newspapers and magazines. And, more importantly, a debate began in the country.

13603: Shafting Diversity & Inclusion.

Campaign published updates on the discrimination lawsuit against JWT and WPP, with commentary from a collection of critics and critters. Of course, diverted diversity divas Kat Gordon and Cindy Gallop lamely lambasted the industry. A handful of anonymous ex-JWT executives weighed in too. Yet the arguably most peculiar—and seemingly contradictory—remarks came from 4As folks, and these statements warrant examination.

Outgoing 4As Chairman and CEO Nancy Hill said:

“There is license to have a lot of very honest conversations about the state of gender in the industry, and to a certain extent diversity in general. … This was something the industry needed to hear to wake up. Prior to this tipping point, there was a belief that there were a lot of isolated incidents, that this was not pervasive.”

So it appears that Hill believes Gustavo Martinez’s alleged words and deeds are symptomatic of a persistent problem. Hill’s experience with the trade organization—as well as her leadership roles in White advertising agencies—certainly adds credibility to her opinion.

Meanwhile, 4As Diversity & Inclusion Manager Taylor Yarbrough said:

“We have a lot of [MAIP] alums at JWT, and I haven’t heard them say they don’t want to work there. People look at it as an individual that made a mistake. It’s not like Uber, where so many individuals made so many mistakes that it must be a cultural thing. … It’s a larger societal thing that’s happening, especially after the presidential election. … This past Black History Month, so many agencies did so much more than I have ever seen. The whole office is having the conversation, not just the black affinity group. We’re seeing a shift in the way society is understanding diversity and inclusion and the problems of people outside of their communities.”

Okey-doke. Assessing these assertions requires deliberate dissection.

First of all, how many MAIP alums are employed by JWT? WPP Overlord Sir Martin Sorrell admitted women are underrepresented in leadership roles within his White holding company, while racial and ethnic minority representation is “unacceptably low.” So declaring that a miniature group of MAIP members has not complained about discriminatory working conditions at JWT ain’t saying much. Hell, it’s a safe bet that the entire staff is reluctant to voice an opinion right now. And perhaps JWT leadership has officially prohibited people from publicly speaking out—inviting them to use the awesome talk-to-me hotline for airing grievances instead.

Additionally, pointing to allegedly content MAIP alums hardly justifies proclaiming, “People look at it as an individual that made a mistake.” Keep in mind that outgoing Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy got spanked for taking such a position. Sorry, but JWT and WPP make Uber look like the ACLU.

Yarbrough also said, “This past Black History Month, so many agencies did so much more than I have ever seen. The whole office is having the conversation, not just the black affinity group.” Really? Based on MultiCultClassics’ annual review, Black History Month propaganda was at an all-time low in 2017. Plus, the overwhelming majority of advertising agencies don’t even have a “Black affinity group” because most firms don’t have enough Blacks to form a group.

Yarbrough’s quote ends by observing, “We’re seeing a shift in the way society is understanding diversity and inclusion…” Perhaps, but the societal shift is different than the adland shift—which is actually more of a shaft. In the advertising industry, diversity and inclusion has shifted into promoting White women first, followed by Old White people, LGBT White people, disabled White people, foreigners with visas and house pets. Racial and ethnic minorities have been lowered to below the lowest rung on the proverbial totem pole.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

13602: Translating Transformation.

Adweek reported Publicis Groupe announced SapientRazorfish—the mutant merging of SapientNitro and Razorfish—is designed to help “clients transform their businesses in a connected world.” SapientRazorfish CEO Alan Wexler explained, “Transformation today requires a new type of partner able to combine enterprise-wide connected digital excellence with customer journeys and experiences that drive future business strategies, culture and operating models.” Having a dictionary to interpret corporate jargon and bullshit is useful too. Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy added, “Today’s business leaders are realizing that a bifurcated approach of leaning on agencies to transform experiences and on consulting partners to transform business processes no longer works—it’s too slow, too fractured, organizationally unsustainable and most importantly, the focus on the customer gets lost in the complexity.” Lévy’s gobbledygook undoubtedly sounds more impressive when delivered with a French accent. However, today’s business leaders should think twice before partnering with SapientRazorfish, as the enterprise has not yet solved its own slow, fractured and organizationally unsustainable issues.

Publicis Groupe Reveals What Its Newly Formed Agency SapientRazorfish Will Do

6 key offerings to transform businesses

By Katie Richards

Late last year, Publicis Groupe merged two of its digital agencies, SapientNitro and Razorfish, into one. Today, the network announced some of the core offerings that the newly-formed agency, called SapientRazorfish, will have for clients. The goal, according to the agency, is for SapientRazorfish to help “clients transform their businesses in a connected world.”

“Transformation today requires a new type of partner able to combine enterprise-wide connected digital excellence with customer journeys and experiences that drive future business strategies, culture and operating models,” Alan Wexler, SapientRazorfish CEO, said.

In order to make that transformation tangible for clients, the agency announced six key offerings including digital business strategy and innovation, customer experience, data and artificial intelligence, marketing modernization, IT modernization and commerce.

Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy said in a statement that the market is in need of a “partner that drives real and sustainable business transformation for the connected age through an obsessive focus on the customer.”

SapientRazorfish is part of the network’s digital offerings, Publicis.Sapient. Moving forward the agency will work closely with other brands under the Publicis.Sapient name, including DigitasLBi and Sapient Consulting to fully deliver clients the promised “customer-centric digital transformation.”

Added Lévy: “Today’s business leaders are realizing that a bifurcated approach of leaning on agencies to transform experiences and on consulting partners to transform business processes no longer works—it’s too slow, too fractured, organizationally unsustainable and most importantly, the focus on the customer gets lost in the complexity.”

Saturday, March 18, 2017

13601: Bobbing For Applebee’s.

Adweek reported Applebee’s named its third White advertising agency in two years, handing the business to Grey, following a shootout involving other White advertising agencies. Interim Applebee’s SVP of Marketing and Culinary Jeannine D’Addario gushed, “In addition to their deep experience, capability and creativity, the team at Grey has a solid understanding of Applebee’s evolving consumer, the brand’s legacy and our goals to ignite change and deliver original and compelling work.” Wow, that’s about as standard as corporate jargon gets, served up with all the blandness of, well, any meal at Applebee’s. Grey New York CEO Debby Reiner vomited more jargon by stating, “We will be responsible for creative development, market strategy and brand positioning, crafting engaging campaigns that resonate with their customers nationally.” Imagine that. Grey will craft campaigns to engage and resonate with an audience. Has Applebee’s ever produced anything that would qualify as engaging or resonating—or even edible?

Applebee’s Picks Grey as Its Third Agency of Record in Less Than 2 Years

Chain named a new president earlier this month

By Patrick Coffee

Grey has become Applebee’s third creative agency of record in less than two years.

The chain, which identifies itself as “America’s largest casual dining brand,” picked Grey after a review that began last December, with a whopping 26 agencies responding to the initial RFP. Subsequent rounds cut the number of competing shops to six, with Grey beating BBDO San Francisco and Argonaut to win the business. The WPP network’s New York and Los Angeles offices will manage the account.

According to the latest numbers from Kantar Media, Applebee’s spent approximately $150 million on paid media in the U.S. last year.

“We couldn’t be more excited to begin working with Grey,” said Jeannine D’Addario, interim svp of marketing and culinary at Applebee’s who joined the company last summer after leading marketing and communications for Whole Foods. “In addition to their deep experience, capability and creativity, the team at Grey has a solid understanding of Applebee’s evolving consumer, the brand’s legacy and our goals to ignite change and deliver original and compelling work.”

Applebee’s and parent company DineEquity have been toying with the chain’s advertising efforts for some time. The client split with former AOR Crispin Porter + Bogusky in November 2015, citing a desire to “transform the marketing and advertising direction of the brand” and picking Kansas City’s Barkley to handle those efforts. One year and one wood-fired steak relaunch later, the business went through another review with the press release again stating that “Applebee’s felt the time was right to make a creative shift given the evolving restaurant landscape.”

DineEquity also named longtime restaurant industry veteran John Cywinski as Applebee’s new president earlier this month. The news marked a return for Cywinski, who previously served as Applebee’s CMO from 2001 to 2006 and led the “Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood” campaign created by FCB Chicago before leaving to hold similar positions at KFC and Chili’s parent company Brinker International Inc.

The parent company’s stock took a hit last December around the very time news of this latest review broke. At the time, analysts questioned DineEquity’s ability to counter “sluggish traffic and menu misfires at Applebee’s” caused, in part, by over-saturation as fewer guests visit each franchise location.

“We will be responsible for creative development, market strategy and brand positioning, crafting engaging campaigns that resonate with their customers nationally. Our integrated communications effort will launch in July,” wrote Grey New York CEO Debby Reiner in an internal memo sent to the whole staff this morning. She then congratulated, “all who worked so tirelessly on this,” citing today’s news and Grey’s role in a new $600 million global contract between WPP and Walgreen’s Boots Alliance as “proof we are at the top of our game.”

The chief executive concluded, “We’ll celebrate after the blizzard.”

Friday, March 17, 2017

13600: Chipping In Ignorance.

Stacy’s Pita Chips celebrates Women’s History Month with limited-edition bags, a donation drive and more. Goodby Silverstein & Partners created the campaign, which makes at least one bag’s proclamation—“Men Of Quality Do Not Fear Equality”—particularly pathetic and hypocritical. After all, GS&P originally and continues to ask, “Where Are All The Black People?” Plus, the 30-year-old White advertising agency only named its first female partner less than five years ago. For GS&P, cultural cluelessness is in the bag.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

13599: Annie’s Jumbo Shrimp Bullshit.

If you were hoping to give up Annie the Chicken Queen for Lent, forget about it. She’s hawking her Butterfly Shrimp Tackle Box right now, honey!