Advertising Age published a looooong review spotlighting the alleged progress made by advertisers and White media firms who pledged to increase their investments in Black-owned media.
The fluff piece allowed certain executives to gush about sorta delivering on their promises—or even claim to being ahead of schedule and exceeding expectations. Keep in mind, the schedules were mostly self-imposed timetables, and the expectations were likely below low. In short, the inmates designed the asylum activities.
In contrast—or in honest reality—Media Mogul Byron Allen declared the following:
“They’re all behind and they’re all guilty. None of their numbers are defensible. … Black people represent 13% to 14% of the population, we should have at least 15% of your budget for all the years we were excluded, for all the years of zero. … And pay me more than the White guys for all the years you didn’t pay me.”
Sounds like the headline and body copy for Allen’s next full-page ad—to run in White-owned media.
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Having been lured into both General Motors’ and Coca-Cola’s diversity summit scam events, let me fill you in on how each of the scams mentioned in the AdAge article work.
• The only way for Black-owned anything (media, business, etc.) to get ahead and get paid serious money by brands and agencies is to be owned by a celebrity. You dance, sing, pass or shoot, you get paid to play by corporate America, same as always. Nothing new here, and still no meaningful support for the Black business community. If anyone bothered to do any digging they'd find out that almost 90% of all corporate "diversity" spending is going to Magic Johnson Enterprises, because he stocks them with napkins and other paper products.
• “Coca-Cola said in June that it would nearly double its media spend with minority-owned companies over the next three years” is a useless statement, because they count white women as minority-owned. And boy do they count them and drive work to them.
• “In May, McDonald’s promised to more than double its U.S. investment in diverse-owned media companies, production shops and content creators by 2024” is a useless statement, because McDonald’s also counts white women as minority-owned. And boy do they count them and drive work to them, too. Plus this kind of open ended statement allows them to now spend $150k with a white woman owned billboard company, $3k on a corporate video made by a production company owned by a Black woman, and $1k split between an Asian American beauty blogger, an LGBTQ food blogger and a Latino produce blogger (and they are definitely now pouring money in the $1k range to bloggers galore) and claim diversity victory.
• “Ad agencies have committed to uplift BIPOC-owned businesses in the media world, with many prominent holding companies and their lengthy client rosters vowing to increase their annual spend with Black media” already spawned a workaround. The agencies bent over to help Instagrammers and celebrities set themselves up as solo owned businesses, and are shoving some pocket change their way. It looks good as PR and no one ever asks if and where actual dollars are going (they’re not going anywhere, because they don’t spend significant dollars with BIPOC-owned companies, just social media individuals and celebs).
• “Mediabrands is also planning a second edition of its so-called “Equity Upfront,” the first iteration of which was hosted in March for minority-owned media companies that are often overlooked in upfront dealmaking,” is also an empty statement. BIPOC-owned media outlets show up, get their photo (or now their Zoom screenshot) taken for PR purposes, and are sent on their merry way without contracts in hand.
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