16824: Cyrus Mehri Continues To Campaign For DEI.

 

Fast Company published a perspective from Madison Avenue Project Mastermind Cyrus Mehri, emphasizing why DEIBA+ is important for businesses and democracy.

 

Mehri noted that DEIBA+ progress can be thwarted in closed societies. His experience with Adland’s exclusivity certainly corroborated the perspective.

 

Why DEI is important for both businesses and democracy

 

The architect of the Rooney Rule explains why—and how—leaders must respond to anti-DEI backlash.

 

By Cyrus Mehri

 

Since the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in 2023, leaders have struggled to respond to the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). 

 

As the nation inches closer to election day, there are two sides to the DEI debate: One values democratic ideals of equal opportunity, and the other bestows strong autocratic tendencies while peddling the anti-DEI backlash. In this complex environment, anchoring our work in the vision and values of fairness and open opportunities is the best way to advance DEI and our democracy. And business leaders have an important role to play. 

 

Even though the majority of Americans support DEI and there is significant evidence that DEI efforts advance innovation and business goals, some companies, publicly or privately, are retreating from their pledges to advance workplace inclusion. Many of these unwarranted retreats overlook that employment laws on the book remain strong notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on college admissions last year. 

 

Still, many leaders have caved to the anti-DEI movement. Rather than operating out of blind fear, leaders can look to our democratic values to keep their commitment on track in the face of the anti-DEI backlash. And there are concrete steps leaders can take to improve their workplaces to make their organizations more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. 

 

Why DEI is an important part of Democracy 

 

Fortunately, there are steps we can all take to promote DEI, advance equal opportunities, and strengthen our democracy. In Fareed Zakaria’s recent book, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, Zakaria posits that the struggle of our time is less about contrasting visions of democracy versus autocracy but instead of contrasting visions of open versus closed societies.

 

Closed societies are xenophobic, close borders, restrict commerce, fear progress, and resist innovation. Open societies cherish pluralism and religious tolerance, and embrace immigrants, new ideas, and both republican and liberal democratic values. 

 

Today’s DEI backlash follows a tumultuous recent history. Conservative-led book bannings have become rampant. And xenophobia has manifested in many ways including the vilifying of legal immigrants. Former President Donald Trump has even threatened to enact mass deportations if he is elected president. Trump and his allies have also supported efforts to ban DEI at state universities, and the shutting down of modest efforts to open doors to those excluded from capital. This is the playbook of closed societies. If we allow these exclusionary practices to endure, it will diminish the promise of equal opportunity and progress toward a strong and inclusive economy. 

 

DEI advocates can and should champion DEI because they are ultimately derived from principles of an open society, because they are crucial to a democracy, and because they are good business. I’ve seen many of these policies in theory and practice throughout my career. 

 

I’ve represented employees, women and people of color, at companies such as Texaco, Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Ford Motor Company and many other organizations who were completely boxed out of the upper-level management positions, which came with higher salaries, access to stock options, and decision-making power. We championed “open society” reforms. These changes made decisions fairer and more transparent, opening doors of opportunity to our clients. These changes also improved opportunities for white and male employees who didn’t have the connections to succeed under a regime of favoritism and subjectivity. 

 

How to achieve fair competition for opportunities 

 

A few key reforms can break down barriers which keep many employees from competing fairly for promotions—and keep future top talent undiscovered. The first is to open up promotions to fair competition and more transparency. We need to replace “tap on the shoulder” promotions with job posting systems that allow employees to learn about and compete for positions. Job selection criteria can be too narrow, exclusionary and off target, so teams should expand job selection criteria to ensure that they are attracting a wide range of applicants.

 

The second major strategy that can promote fair competition is the use of diverse interview slates. This reform ensures women, people of color, and other overlooked or underutilized candidates can compete for top jobs. 

 

This is a policy my colleagues and I helped enact at the National Football League when we created the Rooney Rule, a diverse slate requirement built on these early initiatives to transform the NFL. It led to record numbers of minority head coaches, general managers, and, more recently, club presidents. In the wake of the Rooney Rule, a head coach or general manager of color led their team to the Super Bowl 10 times. Last year, all of the NFL teams with African American head coaches advanced to the playoffs.

 

The third open society reform leaders should consider is to make DEI data and progress more transparent—such as the use of a “racial equity assessment” like the one my colleagues at Working IDEAL co-created. Every major company should use independent equal opportunity assessments to identify new ideas, innovations, and strategies. 

 

Above all, DEI advocates need to hold their heads high during our tumultuous times. Most Americans want to see fair processes and fair competition for advancement without artificial barriers and preconceived notions of bias. Workplaces can come together on values of fair competition through an open society mindset that brings credibility to inclusive practices—and ultimately innovation, more productivity, and new ideas.

16686: Adland’s Systemic Racism Repeats In New York, New York.

Mediapsssst at MediaPost spotlighted a report from the Center for an Urban Future (CUF) in New York City, presenting proposals to expand access to careers in Adland for New Yorkers of color.

 

Has this organization contacted the New York City Commission on Human Rights for a few pointers?

 

With all due respect, the CUF report reads like a student essay compared to the work done by the New York City Commission on Human Rights, along with Cyrus Mehri and the Madison Avenue Project.

 

Hard to imagine CUF will fare better than the aforementioned entities—who only achieved temporary success at best—as systemic racism has proven to be a powerful force in Adland. Plus, CUF is not being nearly as assertive in its ambitions. Time will tell.

 

Report: How To Fix Madison Avenue’s Diversity Problem

 

By Richard Whitman, Columnist

 

A new report from a New York City thinktank indicates that the advertising industry remains one of the least diverse sectors in the city.

 

That’s not new. The city has been complaining about poor Adland diversity numbers for decades.

 

What’s interesting about the report is some of the ideas it offers to improve the situation.

 

The report, from the Center For An Urban Future, recommends that city and state leaders expand access to advertising careers in New York City through a series of investments, including an “Advertising Talent Pipeline,” modeled on the successful Tech Talent Pipeline.

 

And the report also gives a shoutout to some programs that appear to be working like the 4A’s Foundation’s Multicultural Advertising Internship Program and “promising steps” taken by Horizon Media to combine career exploration in high schools with paid internships that lead to jobs.

 

The city and the industry should redouble efforts to “promote, replicate, and scale up industry efforts that are already working,” like the above-referenced efforts, per the report.

15722: Super Bowl Commercials Represent Super Bullshit—And Systemic Racism.

Advertising Age published a looooong report—definitely not worth reading in its entirety—on how the annual Super Bowl commercials showed limited progress in terms of diversity and inclusion. The opening sentence says a lot:

 

“As Madison Avenue approaches year two in its commitment to create a more diverse and inclusive ad industry, most Super Bowl advertisers are either still struggling to create commercials that depict true representation or don’t appear to be trying at all.”

 

Um, why the fuck would Ad Age state that Adland is approaching “year two” in the quest to reach DE&I nirvana?

 

For starters, the lack of color in Super Bowl spots has been officially recognized since at least 2010, when Cyrus Mehri sought to bring legal action against the industry. The scenario, incidentally, was reported by Ad Age.

 

In 2020, it was recorded that divertsity—ie, the prominence and promotion of White women in Super Bowl advertising—had spiked. The second scenario, incidentally, was reported by Ad Age and the same reporter behind the latest revelation.

 

Madison Avenue’s “commitment to create a more diverse and inclusive ad industry” is not approaching year two—it’s closer to year twelve. And that’s just in regards to acknowledging the exclusivity prevalent in Super Bowl campaigns.

 

If you examine the complete history of systemic racism in Adland, the total jumps to at least 60 years. That’s year LX, to use the Super Bowl’s lexicon.

 

Madison Avenue is an undisputed discrimination dynasty.

 

Super Bowl Ads Show Limited Diversity And Inclusion Progress

 

While some advancements have been made, representation is hard to quantify

 

By Jeanine Poggi

 

As Madison Avenue approaches year two in its commitment to create a more diverse and inclusive ad industry, most Super Bowl advertisers are either still struggling to create commercials that depict true representation or don’t appear to be trying at all.

 

Ahead of this year’s Big Game, Ad Age asked every advertiser with plans to air in-game commercials about how they prioritized diversity and inclusion in the creation and production of their ads. This included how they approached casting, diversity within the agencies they worked with, and the makeup of those working on the production. While some brands had very clear action steps and outlined ways they implemented these practices in the conceptual and production phases of their ads, many could not provide specific details on the makeup of who worked on their ads. Others continued to provide cookie-cutter DEI mission statements that simply said they support the cause without disclosing much detail.

 

While a majority of the brands with planned Super Bowl ads participated in this article in some way, Toyota, Crypto.com, Procter & Gamble’s Gillette, Turkish Airlines, and Colgate-Palmolive’s Irish Spring declined to participate in the story. And WeatherTech, Kia, Carvana, Salesforce and Rocket Mortgage did not return multiple requests to comment before publication.

 

One of the biggest issues in attempting to measure diversity and track progress both in front of and behind the camera involves guidelines that prevent requiring crew members or cast to disclose information around accessibility status, with multiple brands, including Pringles parent Kellogg, crypto trading platform eToro, and BMW citing these guidelines as hurdles to providing detailed data.

 

“We are at the starting point in corporate America where companies recognize the need for that data and we are helping them navigate it,” said Rich Ferraro, chief communications officer, GLAAD. “We are starting now to help agencies ask those questions, and while participation needs to be totally optional, the ad industry isn’t doing it.”

 

[Feel free to read the full report here.]

15624: It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like White Christmas.

 

Campaign published a perspective from Engine Creative Senior Strategist Alpesh Patel—and although Engine is based in the UK, Patel’s rant reads like it could’ve been drafted in and for the US advertising industry.

 

For starters, the piece opens with a likely unintentional nod to Wieden + Kennedy Cofounder Dan Wieden, declaring that cultural cluelessness in the UK ad industry is “fucked up.”

 

Next, the editorial presents the racial/ethnic composition of creative teams behind the latest sleigh load of Christmas campaigns—clearly exposing White exclusivity—which virtually mirrors a report on the creators behind Super Bowl advertising that was delivered by Cyrus Mehri and The Madison Avenue Project in 2010.

 

The viewpoint also veers into a contemporary critique, noting how the spiked inclusion of non-White characters in advertising campaigns doesn’t even accurately reflect the racial/ethnic figures of society at large. That is, the rush to appear anti-racist is producing a false picture of reality. The reparations don’t match the representations.

 

So, the sad story is repeated like a classic holiday tale—except it’s not a wonderful life for people of color in Adland. It will be interesting to see Patel’s fate, provided he isn’t totally ignored. Will his bold voice be revered or reviled—and will he experience the common backlash that other revolutionaries have received before him?

 

How is it still a White Christmas?

 

By Alpesh Patel

 

It’s fucked up that Christmas blockbuster ads came out on Diwali.

 

Experiencing this exclusion first-hand had me asking how adland managed to overlook the largest visible ethnic minority population in the country.

 

Had the agency teams asked any British Indians about the date, or even Googled it? It made me curious about the diversity of the teams behind this year’s crop of Christmas ads.

 

Adland rightly celebrates the brilliance and craft that goes into every ad created for the season. But there is an elephant in the room, and it’s about time to point it out.

 

It doesn’t take much to see on social media how our “inclusion”-infused Christmas work lands with the nation. It brings out the “I’m not racist but” brigade, who ask “Why, when black people make up 3% of the UK, are they in about 80% of the ads?”.

 

The answer is clear. We’re firmly in the middle of change in representation. The Black Representation in Marketing group (BRiM) found that 58% of marketers made decisions that have increased black representation in marketing in the past year.

 

On the other hand, Facebook for Business also published a report revealing that 54% of minority ethnics don’t currently feel represented in advertising.

 

When questioned on this representation gap, our defence as an industry tends to be to point to improvement in on-screen “inclusion”. The problem with this is that, at worst, we’re solving racial diversity issues in casting and passing it off as “inclusion” and, at best, we’re making our own interpretation of how a minority might feel. I am not saying Engine is perfect either, no agency is. We all collectively have a long way to go to reach the truly diverse workforces envisioned by BRiM and other outreach initiatives.

 

This shortfall became obvious when I looked at the teams behind this year’s Christmas ads. Below is a broad breakdown of the diversity of the agency teams credited on 28 different Christmas ads. The data is limited by a binary interpretation of race.

 

 

After two years of “inclusion”, it is still firmly a White Christmas. We have only 9.9% diversity when it comes to delivering Christmas ads. It’s even more dire when you consider that London, where most of adland is based, has an ethnic diversity of 40.2%. It’s clear that representation is changing far faster in front of the camera than behind it.

 

There is a shameful irony in failing to have multi-ethnic teams delivering Christmas while still attempting to be authentically representative in the work. According to BRiM, 25% of marketers said they rarely or never take steps to ensure there is Black representation in key roles across the creative process.

 

It’s no wonder we make crude interpretations of how a different race might act or overlook important multicultural events for the launch of our Christmas ad. It’s not surprising when the rest of the nation questions our performative inclusion. The worst part is that we’re placing minorities as sitting ducks at the very front of the nation’s racist “culture war”.

 

It’s cool that it’s trendy to be “inclusive” but you should be disappointed at how little has changed in our industry. Christmas being launched on Diwali is a microcosm of a much bigger picture. While the industry is taking measures to be more inclusive, it’s incredibly easy to make exclusionary mistakes when you aren’t representative in the make-up of your teams.

 

Please don’t tell me you can’t find talent among minorities. If you can’t, maybe that says more about you than it does about minorities. Speaking to underrepresented people within agencies, they don’t just want to be the sounding board for performative inclusion, they want to be included in making great work.

 

It’s sad to see that the All In survey found 32% of Black, 27% of Asian and 26% of minority ethnic respondents are likely to leave the industry due to lack of inclusion.

 

Perhaps next Christmas, instead of a crude and tokenistic approach to diversity, try working with a diverse multicultural team. You’ll probably find more authentic insights, truth in your representation, and you’ll sure as hell avoid launching your Christmas blockbuster on Diwali.

 

Alpesh Patel is a senior strategist at Engine Creative

15180: Reopening The Case Against Cultural Cluelessness.

Adweek published a perspective by University of Tampa Associate Professor of Communication Christopher Boulton, who opined that successfully squashing the exclusivity and systemic racism in adland will require a major lawsuit. Boulton even suggested Cyrus Mehri as the lawyer to lead the charge(s).

 

Prompted by The Richards Group incident, Boulton thoughtfully examined diversity initiatives of the past decade, essentially expressing in roughly 750 words what Nathan Young covered in a 28-word tweet; that is, heat shields like ADCOLOR® have not inspired meaningful and measurable progress.

 

Yet Boulton declined to speculate on the potential legal position of a lawsuit. After all, Cyrus Mehri apparently abandoned his court action due to a weak—or at least difficult to prove—case. Could it be argued that White holding companies and White advertising agencies that now openly trumpet fresh heat shields to combat systemic racism are admitting guilt? Could staffers at The Richards Group, many of whom will likely lose their jobs as a result of client defections, sue Stan Richards for some form of negligence?

 

Hey, industry insiders should use their vaunted creativity to hatch ideas for viable legal filings. To spark interest, Cannes could introduce a special trophy—the Lawsuit Lion—honoring the top concepts.

 

The Richards Group Incident Is Advertising’s Diversity Déjà Vu

 

It’s time to sue for radical change in the industry

 

By Christopher Boulton

 

When Motel 6 fired The Richards Group and other clients cut ties over Stan Richard’s “too Black” comments, the 88-year-old founder quickly “fired himself” and his agency announced a new DEI plan. Cased closed?

 

Not so fast.

 

Where will these clients go? And what will they demand?

 

Back to the future

 

I began researching advertising’s diversity problem in 2009. It was an auspicious year. In January, Cyrus Mehri, in partnership with the NAACP, formed the Madison Avenue Project and released a 73-page report documenting the industry’s systemic under-hiring, under-utilization, and under-payment of African Americans. In March of that year, NAACP interim general counsel Angela Ciccolo sent a letter imploring the 25 top spending brands to use their combined client value of $52 billion to pressure their agencies to diversify. They did not.

 

So, in August, Sanford Moore wrote that only economic divestiture would have enough leverage to dismantle advertising’s cancer of anti-Black racism diagnosed by the New York City Commission on Human Rights (NYCCHR) as far back as 1967 and as recently as 2006.

 

Intrigued by the persistence of advertising’s race problem, I conducted focus groups, interviews and fieldwork inside three large NYC agencies during the summer of 2010, spending the next six years analyzing the data and publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals—in the hopes that an outside perspective would help them make the case for why increasing diversity in advertising was both urgent and necessary. Four years went by.

 

Crickets.

 

The long road

 

In the wake of this summer’s parade of performative allyship in advertising, the industry continues to look to legacy institutions like the 4A’s, MAIP, ADCOLOR and WAATBP—or even new radical upstarts like Allyship and Action for guidance. These groups are no doubt made up of earnest, well-meaning people who want to help advertising do the right thing. And their hard work is rewarded by grateful testimonials from Black talent who’ve blossomed under their support, mentorship, and career development.

 

But the plurality of anecdote is not data and these organizations and their supporters are in denial if they think that laudable and positive qualitative efforts will ever be able to meet the overwhelming quantitative scale of the disease.

 

For 50 years, advertising has demonstrated the chronic failure of internal inspiration, cajoling or even tough sounding self-regulation. And don’t hold your breath for clients to use their leverage. They’ve known all along. At this point, it would take boycotts to make Motel 6, Home Depot and Dr. Pepper walk their talk.

 

Unless, of course, their agencies became as radioactive as The Richards Group is right now.

 

Diversity’s new diagnosis

 

In 2019, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York University professor Pamela Newkirk published “Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise Of A Billion-Dollar Business,” a landmark survey chronicling how workplace diversity initiatives have turned into a sprawling and profoundly misguided apparatus that perpetuates and enriches itself while doing precious little to bring equality to America’s major industries and institutions. Newkirk found that most Chief Diversity Officers, despite their title and healthy salaries, consistently miss their goals because they are isolated from power and largely relegated to serving a public relations role for the company. Indeed, she cites how only 35% of Fortune 500 CDO’s even had access to their institution’s own diversity data and generally feel unsupported.

 

When asked in interviews to cite an example of a corporation that actually got it right, Dr. Newkirk points to Coca-Cola. In the early 2000’s, the company embarked on one of the most successful diversity transformations ever seen in corporate America. Coke granted broad monitoring powers to a seven-member external task force who made sure the company kept track of salary, promotion, and bonus metrics along race and gender lines and then took active steps to detect and disrupt patterns of bias in real time.

 

What inspired the Coca-Cola company to go down this path, you might ask? A class action race discrimination lawsuit brought by Black employees. And who negotiated the record-breaking $192.5 million settlement? You already know his name and may be hearing from him again soon.

 

Cindy Gallop thinks The Richards Group getting fired “sends a message to all agency executives” that the time for radical change is now. I agree and believe that it will take a lawsuit to make it happen. Agencies? Brands? I invite you to prove me wrong.

13670: Hilltop View.

Campaign reported on 4As President and CEO Nancy Hill’s farewell address delivered at the 2017 Transformation Conference, where the outgoing leader offered accolades and affirmations to the advertising community. Stressing that the industry should not be branded by the “alleged bad behavior we read about in the headlines,” Hill declared, “We are better than that. You are better than that.” Okay, but how much better?

Hill admitted that when assuming her 4As role in 2008, “We were already behind in technology, we were already behind in media and, we were clearly behind in taking a leadership role in the growing discussion on diversity and gender equality.” But she countered the confessions by claiming, “We have taken a front-and-center position on diversity and gender equality. We have built a media practice that benefits all of our members and has allowed us to take a stance on issues as wide ranging as trust and transparency, measurement standards, privacy, fraud and ad blocking. As well as SAG/AFTRA negotiations & patent trolling. And, we have become digitally centered with a mobile-first approach on every new product we develop.”

Really? Even the statement about becoming “digitally centered with a mobile-first approach on every new product we develop” is debatable—simply attempt to navigate the 4As website on any mobile device, and it will underscore that most advertising people have as long a way to go with digital as they do with diversity.

And as diversity remains a major concern for this blog, MultiCultClassics will critique Hill’s contentions on the topic.

First of all, despite anything that follows in this post, MultiCultClassics salutes Hill for having attempted to bring about change in the area of diversity. Unfortunately, a trade organization does not have the power and authority to mandate—or for that matter, even influence—new industry practices, attitudes or behaviors. Regardless, Hill took on the challenges better than her predecessor, O. Burtch Drake—although that’s like saying Lloyd Christmas is smarter than Harry Dunne. In short, Hill cannot force anyone to change, especially when the people who must change have steadfastly refused to do so for over 60 years.

Hill believes, “We have taken a front-and-center position on diversity and gender equality.” Around 2008, the New York City Commission on Human Rights, Sanford Moore and Cyrus Mehri were speaking out, condemning the discriminatory conditions that persist on Madison Avenue. Today, the protestors are virtually invisible, as White women have leapfrogged over racial and ethnic minorities to take a front-and-center position in the diversity discussion. The 4As jumped on the gender bandwagon with the rest of the industry too.

Since 2008, the advertising industry has made little progress in the area of diversity, and it’s actually regressed with certain segments. There’s little evidence of anything being better—except perhaps the smokescreens and shields created to conceal the truth.

Nancy Hill’s farewell: ‘We’re better than that’

By Douglas Quenqua

In a tearful address, the departing 4A’s president urged the agency community to look beyond salacious headlines and focus on progress.

Nancy Hill, the departing president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, delivered a tearful farewell address at the group’s 2017 Transformation conference in Los Angeles on Monday, assuring the agency community that it is not defined by the “alleged bad behavior we read about in the headlines.”

“We are better than that,” she said to applause. “You are better than that.”

Which is not to say Hill doubted the behavior exists.

“I know that sexual harassment happens,” she said. “I know that racism and sexism both exist. I know that there are probably some bad actors out there that maybe aren’t as forthright with their clients as we’d like them to be.”

But the agency world has much to be proud of, including “talent that creates work that moves brands, moves markets and moves perceptions,” and “work that influences culture, shapes the conversations and changes lives,” she said.

Hill, who was elected president in 2008, has overseen a tumultuous era in the agency business that’s included the Great Recession, existential challenges to the agency business model, a number of high-profile sexual harassment scandals, the erosion of trust between agencies and brands, and accusations of dirty dealing among media agencies.

But rather than taking the tough love approach, as she did at least year’s conference, Hill used her opening remarks on Monday to reminisce about her journey in the industry and encourage its members to focus on the progress they’ve made.

“Thirty-five years ago, when I started as a traffic coordinate at W.B. Doner in Baltimore, I would have never, ever imagined myself up on this stage in front of all of you,” Hill began, pausing midway to joke about the tears she was already shedding.

“The odds on when this was going to happen were not this early,” she said.

Though the 4A’s faced intimidating challenges when she took the job in 2008—“We were already behind in technology, we were already behind in media and, we were clearly behind in taking a leadership role in the growing discussion on diversity and gender equality”—the organization and its members have come a long way in addressing them, said Hill.

“We have taken a front-and-center position on diversity and gender equality,” she said. “We have built a media practice that benefits all of our members and has allowed us to take a stance on issues as wide ranging as trust and transparency, measurement standards, privacy, fraud and ad blocking. As well as SAG/AFTRA negotiations & patent trolling. And, we have become digitally centered with a mobile-first approach on every new product we develop.”

Marla Kaplowitz, CEO of MEC North America, will assume the presidency when Hill steps down in June.

Before taking the position in 2008, Hill served as CEO of Lowe New York and EVP and managing director for BBDO New York after working at Doner, TBWA/Chiat/Day and Goldberg Moser O’Neill, which became Hill Holiday in 2001.

Hill plans to consult and spend more time in Ecuador, where she volunteers and teaches, after she steps down in June.

“Thank you for letting me represent you for just a little while,” Hill said on Monday. “It’s been an honor and a privilege. Thank you.”

Kaplowitz is slated to take the stage at Transformation later on Monday, when she will share her vision for the future of the 4A’s in an interview with Bill Koenigsberg, Chairman of the 4A’s Board of Directors and President, CEO and Founder of Horizon Media.

13246: Odious Ogre Orlov Out.

Campaign reported RAPP Global CEO Alexei Orlov resigned, presumably in response to a lawsuit branding him a sexist, racist, harassing bully. Now, such character defects are hardly unique for the average honcho in the advertising industry. For proof, simply combine the RAPP debacle with the Campbell Ewald and Gustavo Martinez scenarios to complete a culturally clueless trifecta featuring the Big Three holding companies (Campbell Ewald represents IPG, Martinez represents WPP and RAPP represents Omnicom). WPP Overlord Sir Martin Sorrell probably breathed a sigh of relief to realize he doesn’t employ Orlov, as it would have demonstrated a pattern of bad boy behavior dating back to former WPP Worldwide Creative Director Neil French at least. But wait! Orlov was on the WPP payroll while leading Wunderman from 2000-2008—so it’s tough for Sir Marty to ignore the facts. Somebody please ask Cyrus Mehri to dust off the Madison Avenue Project.

Rapp global boss Alexei Orlov resigns amid racism, sexism claims

By Shona Ghosh

The global CEO was hit with accusations he’d derided women and Jews in a suit brought by former US President Gregg Anderson

Rapp’s global chief executive officer, Alexei Orlov, has resigned in the midst of allegations about bullying, sexism, racism and harassment.

Orlov is replaced by Marco Scognamiglio, considered his number two and formerly the agency’s president for EMEA, APAC and executive vice president for client relations.

Scognamiglio, a Rapp veteran of 17 years, will work closely with chief operating officer and chief financial officer Matthew Hafkin.

The agency is currently battling a lawsuit brought by former US president, Greg Andersen, who is suing for wrongful termination, retaliation and discrimination. Andersen claims he was sacked after complaining about Orlov to Rapp’s HR department.

His catalogue of claims against Orlov include the outgoing CEO’s alleged description of women as “fat cows” and stereotyping a Jewish colleague as “miserly.”

Sources have also pointed out to Campaign the long list of leavers from the Omnicom agency’s London shop, blaming wider bullying and abuse.

Rapp denied Andersen’s allegations in a statement filed to the LA Superior Court earlier this month, and described his sacking as “lawful and appropriate.” It has also denied the allegations made to Campaign about its London arm.

Neither the agency nor Orlov commented directly on the lawsuit, with the latter stating: “I am very proud that Rapp has grown in terms of clients and scope of work, which is a testament to our incredible talent.

“Marco and I have worked closely across a number of initiatives these past two years, and Rapp is in good hands.”

It is not known whether Orlov has a job to go to.

13209: Disputing Diverted Diversity.

From Advertising Age…

Black (Ad) Lives Matter: The Industry’s Biggest Diversity Problem

It’s Made Great Strides on Gender, but Not When It Comes to Race

By Ken Wheaton

It was a pretty impressive thing to watch. As the Erin Johnson-Gustavo Martinez case exploded over adland, an industry that often seems long on talk and short on action rushed to mobilize. At the annual 4A’s confab, rather than hide from this potential PR nightmare, those gathered rallied and planted a flag in the ground declaring that this sort of sexist, chauvinistic behavior will not stand.

Women must be respected, listened to and, yes, promoted.

But lost in all this were a couple of salient points.

While there was suddenly a lot of frank discussion about gender—indeed, the 4A’s added a panel to the conference at the last minute—and much of it was couched in terms of “diversity,” you probably could have counted the number of African-Americans in attendance on two hands.

And some of the most heinous remarks allegedly made by Martinez had nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with race. Indeed, the closest thing to a smoking gun in the case so far is a video of Martinez at another confab in Miami addressing a team of J. Walter Thompson employees. Much has been made of the fact that he made a joke about rape. It’s a loaded word and one that automatically brings to mind gender. But the joke, such as it was, was actually made at the expense of African-Americans. And he followed up a comment portraying them as sexual aggressors with comments depicting them as thieves.

Yet the overwhelming majority of talk about diversity over the last few months has been about gender rather than race. Perhaps it’s easier to talk about because we can see some light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to gender issues—and because there are more women in the industry.

This isn’t to say there aren’t gender problems that need to be addressed. Women are still underrepresented in the C-suites and in the creative departments of ad agencies. They’re not paid as much as men. And something has to be done about family leave. Those are major faults that need fixing—and they’re among the harder ones to remedy. But as in much of the rest of the business world, the trends are fairly clear. Women have been and are on the rise.

What’s not happening is any appreciable climb in the number of African-Americans in the ranks of advertising agencies.

Consider this assessment of the ad business:

“Despite expressed intentions to reform, the industry’s past record cast doubt upon its willingness and ability to police itself. Spokesmen testified that … the industry and individual companies might be trusted to make the necessary changes without governmental intervention. But critics contended that the industry has forfeited the confidence of the minority communities, and that government agencies must step in.”

So wrote the New York City Commission on Human Rights in 1978 after finding that only 5% of the industry’s workforce in 1967 comprised black and Hispanic workers.

Fast-forward to 2004 and the Commission on Human Rights had to go after ad agencies again because little to no progress had been made. It took a two-year investigation and the threat of subpoenas and public hearings to get major New York agencies to agree to modest minority hiring goals. A little improvement ensued. On average, the 15 agencies involved set a goal of hiring 18% minorities and ended up hiring 25%. “But,” we wrote at the time, “it’s no secret that it was a specific lack of African-Americans in the agency world that drove the investigation. And a closer look at the numbers shows that of the total new minority hires, only about 30% were African-American.”

In fact, according to a 2008 study conducted by economist Marc Bendick Jr., while African-Americans would be expected to make up 9.5% of the professionals in advertising (a number even lower than the 13% in the general population), it turns out they made up only—wait for it -- 5.8%. On the executive and managerial side, African-Americans made up only 3.2% compared with an expected 7.2%.

That study was conducted on behalf of the law firm Mehri & Skalet, which had started to investigate the possibility of a class-action lawsuit. Discussing the industry’s attempts to remedy the problem with internship programs, in-house minority councils and job fairs, attorney Cyrus Mehri said at the time, “What needs fixing isn’t the African-Americans; it’s the white guy running the agency. We want to relentlessly focus on not the excluded groups but the excluding groups, the people who control the power and make the decisions. That’s where people are running into barriers. The leadership has to come from the top.”

I’ve been told plenty of times that it’s Ad Age’s responsibility to do something about the diversity problem. Over the years, we’ve covered it from a journalistic perspective, but after a while, we’re just writing the same story over and over again, complete with the platitudes and excuses.

We now include questions about diversity in our Agency A-List entries. But those numbers are hard to check, when they’re even given. A number of agencies hide behind holding company policies about disclosure of such things. Others like to talk about all the South Americans and Europeans they’re hiring.

And while we’ve made a concerted effort to include more nonwhite faces in our lists of honorifics and on stage at our conferences—and I think we are getting better at it—we’re still going to sometimes find ourselves with a group photo on the cover that doesn’t have a black face in it.

What’s to be done? I’m not quite sure. This is a case in which we don’t really need more data or frank discussion. We need action. Cyrus Mehri wasn’t the only person who’s said the solution has to come from the very top. 4A’s President-CEO Nancy Hill said the exact same thing at the conference this year. And leading female execs including JWT’s Tamara Ingram, Facebook’s Carolyn Everson and AMV BBDO’s Cilla Snowball are pushing forward on this front. There are a number of efforts underway to right this wrong, but this is the sort of problem that can only be fixed by those with the hiring power—and the budgets to do so.

And because they’ve been mobilized and because they’re changing the dynamics of companies and boardrooms, perhaps this new group of leading women—of any race—are the ones to succeed where so many men before them have failed.