MediaPost reported on the latest ANA study showing Black-owned vendors are still minorities in advertisers’ “supplier diversity” efforts—ie, the crumbs are not increasing. However, advertisers professed intentions to spend more with Blacks in the near future. Of course they did. Meanwhile, women-owned businesses—ie, White women—were still the overwhelming majority that benefited from “supplier diversity” efforts. Of course they did. ANA, incidentally, has annually conducted studies to uncover the same discriminatory data for over a decade—and will likely continue to do so with no success at affecting change. Of course they will.
ANA: Black-Owned Suppliers Still Are The Minority Of Ad Industry’s Diversity Mix
By Joe Mandese
When it comes to “diversity” spending by the nation’s biggest advertisers, Black-owned suppliers are definitely still a minority, according to findings of a just-released study by the Association of National Advertisers.
The study, the basis of the ANA’s “The Growth of Supplier Diversity” report, found Black-owned businesses account for only 10% of the suppliers receiving “most” of their spending, ranking behind women-owned businesses (accounting for 62% of diversity supplier spending), Hispanic-owned (11%) and small businesses (11%).
While Blacks account for more than 13% of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census, the ANA report notes they account for only 2.2% of U.S. business owners.
While Black-owned businesses lag among the ad industry’s top diversity suppliers, the ANA survey also projects they are poised to be the biggest beneficiaries in the near future (see below).
According to respondents, agencies account for the greatest number of diversity suppliers in their mix, followed by production companies, consultants, printing, research, media suppliers, promotion firms and auditors.
The "expectation" of spending with diverse suppliers is pure B.S. Here's what actually happens:
ReplyDeleteAdvertisers say they're going to spend big, but they just double down on the amount they already spend with the white women vendors already doing business with them.
Because no one ever looks at the expenditures, or holds them to their word, they issue soft diversity statements once a year like, "We spent $100 million with diverse companies!"
But if anyone were to dig into those statements, they'd find that the bulk of the spending goes to agencies, media buying companies or production companies either "owned" by white women, or the white wives or sisters or daughters of white guys who conveniently work at the advertisers doing the spending in the first place. Or companies that self-identify as diverse because some white Trumper guy claims their great-great-great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess.
With the Black and Latino agencies and vendors in particular, they'd find that the white holding companies actually own a chunk of them, which they go to great lengths to try and obscure.
The end result is white people circulating money to white people in their own circle, and trying to sell it as "diversity".
Completely agree, Anonymous. The other patronizing propaganda involves declaring a XXX% increase in spending with racial and ethnic minorities. For example, if you're currently only giving Blacks a dime, a 100% increase amounts to 20 cents. But the percentage declaration sure sounds like progress.
ReplyDelete