The Harvard Business Review excerpt depicted above emphasizes it’s important to “Admit Your DEI Blunder” to everyone within an organization.
Imagine if Adland admitted its DEIBA+ blunders vs dodging accountability via performative PR, heat shields, and assorted propagandistic schemes.
White advertising agencies refuse to pay the price of admission.
Advertising Age offers an introductory subscription rate of $134 per year. Adweek print and digital goes for $199 per year. Harvard Business Review delivers Premium content for $15 per month. The Wall Street Journal presents print and digital for $49.99 per month. In contrast, Digiday charges $395 annually—or two years for $649…? Gee, how much is the publisher paying confessors for content?
Harvard Business Review published a report titled, “Women of Color Get Asked to Do More ‘Office Housework.’ Here’s How They Can Say No.” It’s more confirmation that the alleged drama White women face in the advertising industry is not nearly as bad as the indignities experienced by women—and men—of color.
Harvard Business Review published a report titled, “Beating the Odds”—an analysis of women of color who reached corporate levels including chair, CEO or C-level executive. The report opened with the following:
Any list of top CEOs reveals a startling lack of diversity. Among the leaders of Fortune 500 companies, for example, just 32 are women; with the recent departure of Ken Chenault from American Express, just three are African-American; and not one is an African-American woman. What’s going on?
Hey, take a look at the advertising industry, where there are less than 100 Black women in executive roles.
The HBR report presented this conclusion:
When African-American women are underrepresented in an organization’s senior leadership roles despite robust academic credentials and work experience, their struggles often suggest a broader problem: a workplace that fails to offer every employee equal access to opportunities for growth. Much of the narrative about women and African-Americans in corporate life focuses on derailment, plateauing, and off-ramping—and that’s doubly true for African-African women. As the women we interviewed demonstrate, that narrative need not be the rule. However, it takes extraordinary ability, perseverance, and support to transcend it. The insights gleaned in our study are important not just for African-Americans and women; they’re essential for any manager who recognizes what research has shown over and over again—that an organization’s diversity is its strength.
In adland, Black women must exhibit super-duper-extraordinary ability, perseverance and support to overcome the divertsity and exclusivity—unless they’re willing to settle for a Chief Diversity Officer position.
Harvard Business Review published “Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage” to advocate for hiring people affected by autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia, ADHD, social anxiety disorders and other conditions. Look for the advertising industry to jump all over this, as it presents yet another opportunity to avoid dealing with racial and ethnic diversity. Hey, Digiday is already on it—including an illustration (depicted above) featuring a White head. Perfect.
Wanted to elaborate on the Harvard Business Review navel-gazing by WPP Overlord Sir Martin Sorrell, as it serves as a classic case study on corporate cultural cluelessness in the advertising industry.
The title of Sorrell’s self-absorption—WPP’s CEO on Turning a Portfolio of Companies Into a Growth Machine—is extraordinarily accurate and appropriate. That is, WPP is a machine, and machines do not naturally incorporate the emotional components necessary for concepts like diversity. Hell, it could also be argued that Sorrell is closer to being a machine than a man.
The tale opened with Sorrell bowing to bankers over the company’s financial crisis. From the beginning, profit and revenue trumped people and resources. It was all about acquisitions in terms of companies versus communities, real estate versus real people. The glorified accountant devised a solution to create solvency, not serenity.
Give Sorrell credit for his financial success. But recognize that the man built a machine, and the beings within the machine are cogs. For starters, the overall acquisition scheme perpetuated sameness; that is, when you buy one White advertising agency after another, the end result is one White holding company. And when Sorrell discussed talent investment, he was only talking about cog collecting. As such, it made little sense for him to consider the uniqueness of the cogs; rather, it was just necessary to replace and replenish the cogs by acquiring them as efficiently as possible. In short, WPP drew—and continues to draw—from a White supplier program. And if the current cogs keep the machine running, there’s no need to change the system.
Yes, Sorrell announced that he’s also adding White female cogs to the mix, but it’s still a limited and exclusive supply chain. There is no demand to introduce diverse cogs. In fact, the existing machine might reject such an infusion. Ironically, WPP has produced and received praise for notable advertising that is pro-White women.
Compare the faux advocacy to advertising shat out for diversity, and the company’s priorities become clear.
Sorrell has openly acknowledged the dearth of diversity within his machine. Unfortunately, he hasn’t identified a financial or business need to alter the cogs. So, despite the public hand-wringing gestures, there is no imperative to actually act on the matter.
For now, until the bankers—or revenue-providing clients—demand that Sorrell rejigger the cogs, diversity will remain a dream deferred, delegated, diverted and denied. And WPP will fittingly remain an acronym for Wire and Plastic Products.
Addendum: Shortly after this post was written, WPP announced that former JWT Worldwide Chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez is still working for the enterprise, despite having resigned in response to a court case featuring accusations of sexual harassment, racism and other assorted bad behavior. This disturbing disclosure underscores that WPP is indeed a machine. Even if Martinez is found completely innocent of the charges against him, couldn’t the White holding company have waited for a rendered verdict before seeking to gain revenue by rehiring the defendant? Reinserting a cog accused of harassing women—while jumping on the White women bandwagon—sends contradictory messages. Which is a polite way of saying that Sir Martin Sorrell is a fucking hypocrite.
The July-August 2016 issue of Harvard Business Review featured “Diversity” as its cover headline; plus, the accompanying subhead declared, “Most programs don’t work. Here’s what to do about it.” The publication ultimately—albeit unintentionally—showed exactly why diversity doesn’t work, especially in the advertising industry.
For starters, Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius focused on content about fixing the healthcare system in his monthly editorial, completely ignoring the main cover topic. The broken healthcare system trumps diversity.
The diversity-related articles provided data to state that stereotypical tactics fail to foster change. Of course, the advertising industry has plenty of evidence to corroborate HBR’s findings. For example, forcing the ruling majority to attend diversity training and unconscious bias seminars inspires resentment versus revolution. Performance ratings get bad reviews. Grievance hotlines usually result in pissing off employees. On the flip side, the tactics deemed successful in most industries—including college recruitment, mentoring and diversity committees—have bombed on Madison Avenue. Has its long history of embracing exclusivity made adland inclusivity-proof?
Surprisingly, HBR saluted Coca-Cola as a diversity leader. The publication is seemingly oblivious to the hypocrisy of an allegedly progressive client conspiring with White advertising agencies where diversity remains a dream deferred, delegated and denied for decades. At some point, advertisers like Coke must stop settling for diversity supplier programs and start considering the diversity of suppliers—especially the White shops supplying branded marketing messages.
To top it all off—and relate matters directly to the advertising industry—the HBR issue also presented a self-absorbed piece by WPP Overlord Sir Martin Sorrell. The overpaid odious little jerk revealed how he erected a multi-billion-dollar dinosaur, emphasizing the imperative for cultivating and retaining talent. While Sorrell managed to mention diverted diversity directives to promote White women, he offered no insights regarding true diversity. For WPP—as well as its White holding company peers—true diversity is never part of the business plan.
If Harvard Business Review really wants a classic case study for failed diversity programs, the publication should review the business on Madison Avenue.
Harvard Business Review published the cartoon above in the monthly “Strategic Humor” section, which challenges readers to “test your management wit in the HBR Caption Contest. If we choose your caption as the winner, you will be featured in an upcoming magazine issue and win a free Harvard Business Review Press book.” Maybe the HBR editorial board needs a free book covering cultural cluelessness and insensitivity. Fuggedaboudit. Somebody call the Sons of Italy pronto.
