Advertising Age reported on a new ANA study indicating diversity in Adland dropped for the first time in years. Now, this is technically not a BHM 2024 event—but it is sad that the study results were released during Black History Month.
Although to announce diversity has dropped for the first time in years is slightly misleading, as everyone damn well knows that DEIBA+ experienced a momentary spike in response to George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement. The “drop” is nothing more than reverting to exclusive normalcy—a return to systemic racism.
More outrageous is that ANA once again conducted a study to reveal what has been common knowledge—and regularly verified via ANA surveys and reports—for a long time. Hell, ANA need only scan its own membership to expose reality. Instead, the trade organization prefers performative PR, inane videos, and heat shields promoting White women.
Ad Age opined that the figures are “potentially signaling an industry-wide deprioritization of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.” To underscore the point, it must be noted that the ANA has not yet acknowledged BHM 2024 through social media posts.
Diversity in the marketing industry drops for the first time in years
People of color made up 30.8% of industry employees in 2023, the ANA found, with some ethnicities being particularly underrepresented
By Ethan Jakob Craft
Diversity within the marketing industry dropped for the first time in several years, potentially signaling an industry-wide deprioritization of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, a new study by the Association of National Advertisers has found.
Across the board, people of color made up 30.8% of the marketing industry last year, down from an all-time high of 32.3% in 2022, according to the ANA’s annual Diversity Report for the Advertising/Marketing Industry, which was published this morning and is produced in tandem with its Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) and SeeHer divisions.
It is a critical reversal from recent trends, with diversity in the industry enjoying regular growth since it bottomed at 27.9% in 2019—the lowest since the ANA began conducting this survey six years ago.
“I think the headline this year is that diversity in the ad industry takes two steps forward and one step back. And unfortunately, 2023 is a step back,” said Bill Duggan, ANA group executive VP.
He pointed out that while the industry’s long-term progress on diversity in the past few years has been “a net positive,” this latest slip sets ethnic representation among agency and client teams back to 2021 levels.
“The population of the country is about 42% diverse, and ideally the ad industry should reflect that,” Duggan said, referencing 2020 U.S. Census data.
While the percentage of industry employees who identify as Black, 7.2%, remained unchanged in 2023 compared to 2022, most other groups listed in the survey, including Native Americans and those who identify as “multiracial,” saw a reduction in their overall percentage of the industry’s workforce. Hispanic and Latino employee representation registered the largest decline in 2023, dropping nearly 1.4 percentage points to 9.5%, with cuts seen across almost all seniority levels.
Citing AIMM hypotheses, Duggan reckoned there are a few core factors at play contributing to Hispanics’ representational decline, including a widespread focus on Black hiring and retention, possibly at the expense of Hispanic creatives, and corporate America’s “last in, first out” mindset that disadvantages newer hires during restructuring periods.
Conversely, Asians—a group that the ANA categorizes separately from Pacific Islanders—were the only racial demographic besides “other” that saw an uptick in their percentage year over year, climbing slightly to 10.3% of the industry’s employees in 2023 from 10.2% in 2022.
Despite the outlook that the industry may not be as full-steam-ahead on DE&I efforts as it was a few years ago—particularly given the Supreme Court’s recent move to end affirmative action and what the ANA report calls “transgender marketing dilemmas”—Duggan noted that there are “pockets of opportunity”—silver linings of the study that show progress is being made.
For example, diversity within senior-level marketing positions, which the ANA estimates as the top 5% to 10% of a company’s executive team, saw a marginal increase to 27.9% last year, up from 27.4% in 2022; diversity among ANA member chief marketing officers also rose nearly 3 percentage points, from 14.6% to 17.3%, year over year.
Gender breakdown
Women also remain disproportionately overrepresented in the ad industry workforce, accounting for an average of two-thirds of employees across all seniority levels.
Per the ANA study, women’s majority in 2023 skews to 68.9% of entry-level staff, while of the most senior roles, 57.7% are held by women, according to the study. Last year did not mark a representational record for women in either job level, though the most recent numbers are still up from 67.7% and 46%, respectively, when the ANA first began conducting this research in 2018.
There are a number of “macro issues” at play affecting this statistic, according to Duggan, such as the fact that far more females tend to enroll in higher education each year than males.
Additionally, this gender mismatch is also evident across some racial groups; in 2023, the ANA found that Black women make up a larger share of the marketing industry than Black men, 7.1% to 6.2%.
“I do believe the industry needs to do a better job of attracting and retaining men,” said Duggan, who added that women have been the industry’s dominant gender throughout his nearly quarter-century working in advertising. “Gender equity should be a consideration as well. That’s an issue that companies need to think about,” he said.
The core survey the report’s findings are based on was conducted between June and December 2023 of 88 ANA member companies, representing nearly 20,000 marketers in total.
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