Advertising Age published the
Letter to the Editor below. A brief MultiCultClassics response immediately follows…
One Club not cutting back on diversity efforts
RE: “Too Few Diversity Dollars on Mad Avenue” (AA, March 29)
MARY WARLICK, CEO, THE ONE CLUB
I am writing in response to Ad Age’s recent article on diversity in the advertising community. Your article implies that our organization, The One Club, has ceased all diversity programming. While it is true that our program “Adversity” was discontinued late last year, it does not mean that The One Club has discontinued all diversity-outreach efforts. On the contrary, The One Club has grown our diversity outreach and programming to promote diversity across all creative fields in the industry.
This past January, we introduced a new generation to the many opportunities in the worlds of advertising and design when we launched “Creative Boot Camp” at CUNY Macaulay Honors College here in New York. Students from local universities and community colleges attended a four-day workshop led by creative directors and designers from around the U.S., to introduce students to the art of creating advertising for clients from initial concepting through to the final pitch. Workshops were lead by some of the industry’s top names including: Joe Duffy, Kash Sree, Dave Holloway, Francois Grouiller (GSP), Stuart Brown (GSP), Niklas Lilja (GSP), Shameka Brown Barbosa (Y&R), Joanna Jenkins (Global Hue) and Joseph Duffy (Duffy & Partners).
We provided each of the Creative Bootcamp students with a complimentary one-year membership to the One Club. This keeps them connected to the industry through free admittance to One Club events, access to our members-only portfolio reviews, discounted ticket prices to our award shows, free copies of the One Show Annuals and a subscription to our industry publication One.A.magazine.
The top five students have been offered the opportunity to compete for an exclusive internship at Global Hue. They were all also given tickets to attend the 2010 One Show Awards Ceremony.
We’re in the midst of planning Diversity Boot Camp programs in Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles and second one in New York.
Prior to the boot-camp program, The One Club attended career fairs at Brooklyn College, Kingsborough Community College and Hunter College, where we hosted two separate panels with creatives from agencies such as McCann, Y&R, Global Hue, Wieden & Kennedy and Uniworld. These sessions provided the attending CUNY students, who had creative skills but had not thought about advertising as a career path, with insight and information on what a career in advertising looks like and how to get started. It also provided an open forum for them to mix and mingle with top creatives from New York advertising agencies and ask them any questions they had about the current state of the advertising industry.
We pride ourselves and constantly challenge ourselves on how best to reach young students and professionals of all backgrounds and skill levels. It is our goal to promote the creative fields not only within our own community, but across all fields. We could not agree more with Nancy Hill’s comments in the story—we are simply not just “throwing more money at diversity” programs—we are making coordinated efforts to work directly with young people from diverse backgrounds.
Editor’s note: Ad Age in no way implied that The One Club is ceasing diversity activities. From the original story: “One Club President Kevin Swanepoel attributes that split to tough economic times, though he says other diversity programs are under way.”
The One Club CEO Mary Warlick seems overly defensive, especially given the fact that Advertising Age did not imply what she inferred. Perhaps she realizes that while her club has allegedly “grown our diversity outreach and programming,” it’s all still woefully inadequate, poorly conceived and patently bullshit.
The One Club positions itself as being among the
elitist elite creative organizations. Yet its solutions to diversity center around contrived and clichéd youth outreach initiatives. This type of lazy thinking wouldn’t even nab a local Addy. Plus, it’s peculiar that The One Club would acknowledge dumping Adversity—which focused on youth—then turn around and brag about its enhanced efforts to woo students.
Ms. Warlick’s references to partnering with GlobalHue tell the story quite clearly. First, she doesn’t spell the agency’s name correctly. Second, has GlobalHue
ever won a Pencil of any hue or metallic makeup? Third, it’s somewhat counterproductive to diversity to offer minority students an internship at a minority agency. Like it or not, the end result perpetuates the unequal segregation of the industry—and certainly doesn’t bring inclusiveness to predominately White Madison Avenue shops.
Warlick declared, “We pride ourselves and constantly challenge ourselves on how best to reach young students and professionals of all backgrounds and skill levels.” Funny, she didn’t mention anything targeting skill levels beyond, well, the unskilled. Hey, it’s so much easier to heroically lift minority kids from the ghetto and college ranks. It makes for better PR too.
On an interesting side note, Ms. Warlick served as Executive Producer for
Art & Copy, a movie about advertising that unintentionally revealed the industry’s dearth of diversity by spotlighting White folks who have dominated the scene. Perhaps Warlick can turn The One Club’s diversity programs into a BET sitcom. She’s got plenty of laughable material right now.
