10618: IAB, ANA, AAAA BS.

 

The Drum reported on the ANA and 4As condemning IAB CEO David Cohen for criticizing the data privacy movement. Cohen’s remarks and the trade organizations’ response—which can be deciphered below—deserve a whoop-dee-damn-doo.

 

According to The Drum, the ANA and 4As contend that Adland can handle data privacy matters via “responsibility” and “self-regulation.” Um, responsibility and self-regulation are the tools that the industry has used to address DE&I goals—with almost zero success.

 

The ANA and 4As took offense to Cohen being critical. Yet they don’t see that defending a business consistently failing to act responsibly and regulate itself is being hypocritical.

 

ANA & The 4A’s condemn IAB’s ‘acerbic’ anti-privacy stance in damning statement

 

By Kendra Clark

 

The two organizations have issued a collective statement condemning recent comments by David Cohen, CEO at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, who last week criticized the growing data privacy movement.

 

Two advertising industry trade organizations, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), today issued a joint statement in response to comments made by David Cohen, the chief executive at another trade body, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) last week.

 

In particular, the ANA and the 4A’s take issue with Cohen’s decision at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting last week to employ political rhetoric to criticize policymakers and tech companies like Apple who are advancing various consumer data privacy initiatives. Cohen used inflammatory language, calling privacy industry leaders “extremists” and likening data privacy to a war, saying that privacy proponents are “attacking” the marketing and advertising sector “from the inside out.”

 

Data privacy has become an hot-button issue in the industry in recent years, with tech giants like Google and Apple responding to consumers’ demands for greater control over their information with new policies that limit advertisers’ ability to track user behavior across the open web. Meanwhile, lawmakers in Europe, the US and other international markets are increasingly introducing – and enacting – laws that give consumers more say in how, when and why their data is collected, stored and sold. In the US alone, five new state-level data privacy laws are slated to go into effect this year and officials at the Federal Trade Commission are in the process of creating new privacy rules for businesses.

 

Advertising industry bodies including the ANA and the 4A’s have largely proven supportive and receptive to such changes, advocating for innovation on both the brand and agency side to help create new privacy-respecting tech and modes of ad targeting and measurement.

 

In response to Cohen’s incendiary language last week, the ANA and the 4A’s said they “do not believe that the IAB’s posture is sufficiently balanced.” They called Cohen’s remarks “a tirade against the forces that disagree with our industry” and said that they “reject the acerbic tone, texture and prescriptions offered by the IAB” at its Annual Leadership Meeting.

 

The two organizations suggested that Cohen’s arguments favored “the short-term sugar highs of polarizing political rhetoric” over “the art of nuance and listening” on the issue of consumer data privacy. They condemned the demonization of lawmakers and privacy industry changemakers.

 

Instead, the ANA and the 4A’s called for more productive collaboration and problem-solving around the issue. In their statement, the groups pointed to “examples of leadership” – including the Media Ratings Council, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance – that have proven useful in tackling other challenges facing the industry through “responsibility” and “self-regulation.”

 

The ANA and the 4A’s said they recognize that the ad industry is “far from perfect,” and made the case for future-looking, collaborative problem-solving. “As responsible marketers, we need to continue to put forward reasonable recommendations that provide balance for marketers, agencies, platforms, media, ad tech and… consumers. We can’t just duck our heads and hope that no one will notice. That is most relevant with respect to the issues surrounding privacy.”

 

The groups continued, saying: “The road is long on these issues and alienating the very parties that we need to work with to achieve balanced consensus is not the path to take. At the end of the day, members of Congress and regulators are doing a hard job to the best of their ability and are seeking to find harmony amongst a lot of competing interests. Demonizing them does us no favors. To that end, let’s work constructively within our industry and with those in the regulatory and legislative arenas while simultaneously turning down the heat on the rhetoric. Instead let’s focus on cultivating real solutions and meaningful allies.”

 

In response to the joint statement, IAB’s Cohen said in a statement shared with The Drum: “Rather than be divisive, the goal of my opening keynote was to rally the industry and instill a sense of urgency so that we can work together to build a healthy and sustainable ad-supported digital industry. It was also to accurately reflect the interests of our members which now include all sides of the digital ecosystem.”

 

Cohen assured that the IAB has “deep respect for Congress and appreciate all the work going towards national privacy reform.” Still, he raised issue with what he called “a perception issue,” arguing, “The negativity around the technology sector fueled by select viewpoints has the potential to adversely impact us all.”

 

He said he endorsed lawmakers’ efforts to pass a federal privacy bill – a goal they inched closer to achieving last fall but that has since stagnated. “The industry must all work collaboratively to ensure we get a rational and sound national policy on data use,” Cohen said. “We look forward to working with legislators and regulators as well as the ANA, 4A’s and others over the coming months to develop solutions that work for all constituents: consumers, regulators and industry.”

13302: AOL IAB WTF.

Advertising Age reported on the inclusivity initiatives of AOL and IAB, spotlighting an iDiverse event where AOL CEO Tim Armstrong referred to the efforts as the “Olympics of Diversity.” The tech industry is hosting the “Olympics of Diversity,” while the advertising industry makes Eddie the Eagle look like Simone Biles—although Eddie would have a much easier time landing a job on Madison Avenue than Simone. Then again, both the tech industry and the advertising industry industry deserve Gold Medals for decades of playing games with exclusivity.

AOL, IAB Lead Effort to Combat Prejudice in Tech Industry

Tim Armstrong Calls Initiative the ‘Olympics of Diversity’

By Garett Sloane

Speaking at a breakfast devoted to diversity issues Wednesday, one AOL employee stood up to raise what he thought was a persistent problem facing minorities in the tech and advertising industries: mistaken identity.

He recounted one time his colleagues mistook him for the Chinese food delivery man. He’s of Asian descent, not an underrepresented minority in tech, but still facing a culture that can sometimes feel unwelcoming to anyone who is not white or a man.

“I’m 46 years old. I close $30 million deals, and I’m still seen within my peer set, by my colleagues, as somebody who is the delivery guy,” the AOL employee said. He asked that his name be withheld from the story for privacy reasons, but he was attending an iDiverse event hosted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at AOL’s headquarters in Manhattan.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was in attendance. He’s one of the CEOs coming out of Silicon Valley looking to shake up how the industry—and his own company—hires. The goal is to become more inclusive.

Mr. Armstrong called the effort “the Olympics of diversity.”

“What if we said that only certain people could compete in the Olympics and only certain people, depending on their backgrounds, were allowed to get in the starting blocks,” Mr. Armstrong said, relaying what he’d have to tell his children if his industry didn’t become more inclusive.

Mr. Armstrong, IAB and other organizations have teamed up on an education initiative committed to growing 10,000 new jobs in tech and advertising for minorities by 2020.

Companies like AOL are committing to contributing to the goal without disclosing exactly how many people each individual company will hire.

The issue of workplace diversity, whether it’s regarding women or minorities, has become an important issue in Silicon Valley and on Madison Avenue. Just this week, Facebook’s admitted struggles to diversify were highlighted in a Wall Street Journal article.

Facebook’s workforce is 2% black, 4% Hispanic and 33% are women, according to the article. Those are typical workforce numbers for top internet companies.

The IAB breakfast featured Freada Kapor Klein, an investor and co-chair of Kapor Center for Social Impact, who outlined the most prominent obstacles to achieving diversity. The pipeline is part of the problem, where Silicon Valley is reluctant to hire anyone outside Harvard or Stanford.

However, even when minorities get the dream job, they face unfair treatment such as mistaken identity and other slights that demotivate the employees, Ms. Kapor Klein said. “We see biases and barriers all across the pipeline,” she said.

Often the hiring managers don’t even know they hold a bias, but Ms. Kapor Klein can prove they do. Studies have shown that investors were twice as likely to fund a startup when seeing a pitch video narrated by a man compared to seeing the same video only narrated by a woman.

People say things like: “We only fund the best and the brightest. We don’t care who you are. We only want the best ideas. But the data doesn’t support it,” Ms. Kapor Klein said.

The group is trying to come up with new industry practices that would truly enable blind hiring methods. Also, IAB Education Foundation, of which Mr. Armstrong is the chairman, partnered with community colleges to develop programs to train minorities in internet and advertising jobs.

The organization also launched a website, idiverse.org, to help match potential talent with tech companies.

“We were all brought up in an era of civil rights, women’s rights, equality, tolerance,” said Michael Theodore, general manager of IAB Education Foundation. “And if we, the best and the brightest, if we have the problems of diversity, with all the background and everything we experienced growing up. If we still have these problems in our industry. Well, then we have a real problem. We have a problem that points to a problem in the soul of our society.”

13161: IAB On Diversity.

A MultiCultClassics visitor pointed to IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg’s opening keynote delivered at the 2016 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, wherein Rothenberg declared, “[A]d-blocking is a war against diversity and freedom of expression.” The following excerpt from Rothenberg’s speech is particularly noteworthy—and cringe-worthy:

One of the most transcendent values to which you can devote yourself is diversity.

We are living in a period of racial, ethnic, and religious vilification unlike anything I have experienced in my adult life. Presidential candidates from a major party actually are calling for people to be segregated and penalized on the basis of their religion. Whole ethnic groups, particularly Latinos and everyone practicing Islam, are being demonized. Rules and laws are being proposed that would prevent these people from entering the United States, or staying here, based solely on their backgrounds, divorced entirely from their productivity or family ties here.

When you get back to your office, look around you at work, and pay attention. For these are your friends and colleagues who are under attack. Their skin is black, and brown, and ochre, as well as white. They speak Mandarin, and Spanish, and Hindu, and Farsi, as well as English. They celebrate Diwali, and Kwanzaa, and Ramadan, as well as Christmas and Chanukkah. And they are under assault.

And when they are under attack, you are under attack. For they are the future of the American economy. They are the future of consumption. They are the future of advertising and media. They are your childrens’ classmates, your in-laws, the parents of your future grandchildren.

Um, has Rothenberg visited a typical advertising agency in the past, say, 50 years? If he were to accompany any of the attendees back to their offices, and looked around, and paid attention, he’d see the friends and colleagues do not have black, brown and ochre skin tones. They do not speak Mandarin, and Spanish, and Hindu, and Farsi, as well as “urban” or Spanglish. They do not celebrate Diwali, and Kwanzaa and Ramadan—or even Black History Month.

Regardless, Rothenberg’s solution is to have the industry invest in iDiverse, the IAB’s culturally-clichéd smokescreen. Because, by golly, colored candidates require special training and tutoring in order to succeed in predominately White advertising agencies—where the majority of staffers were hired via nepotism, cronyism and other assorted isms. Sorry, but ad-blocking is not nearly as big a threat to diversity as adpeople.

13031: IABullshit.

Advertising Age reported on the latest diversity smokescreen from the IAB, another educational training program targeting minorities and women in college. When it comes to diversity, those who can, do; those who can’t teach—or they offer minority internships and scholarships.

IAB Looks to Recruit Minorities, Women and Vets Into Digital Advertising With College Partnership

Program to Train, Certify and Help Place Participants

By George Slefo

The Interactive Advertising Bureau Education Foundation and its iDiverse initiative said Monday that they are creating an entry-level training, certification and job placement pilot program for college students. Classes are expected to begin this spring.

The effort, announced Tuesday at the IAB Leadership Summit in Palm Desert, Calif., reflects statements the IAB made last year, when the group called on its members to hire 10,000 people with underrepresented backgrounds, including minorities, women, disabled individuals and military veterans, by the year 2020.

Students who complete the course and gain certification will meet with recruiters for one-on-one interviews to be matched with potential employees among the IAB. If hired, students will work in advertising operations, data analysis, sales support and marketing, the IAB said.

“Training is the first vital step in generating a more diverse workforce across the digital media and marketing arena—but we’re making sure that the iDiverse initiative goes much further,” Michael Theodore, senior VP-learning and development, IAB, and general manager, IAB Education Foundation, said in a statement. “By bringing entry-level education together with benchmark testing and hands-on job placement, we’re expecting that this pilot program will lead to expanded efforts and a real move towards increasing racial, gender, economic, and cultural diversity in our industry’s workforce.”

The program’s four-month curriculum will be created in partnership with the San Mateo County Community College District, and Oasis Learning, a competency-based curriculum provider and technology platform, according to the IAB, which said it will also reach out to members to inform the effort.

Students can take the courses in person at San Mateo County Community College or online through Patten University. In addition, Oasis Learning will work with the IAB Education Foundation to license the curriculum to colleges around the country.

Once students finish their courses, they’ll be asked to complete the IAB entry-level digital advertising certification exam. The test covers a broad range of topics that include media mathematics, compliance standards, policies and basics regarding the digital advertising ecosystem such as executing and research a campaign, generating tags and troubleshooting discrepancies.

Students will be recruited through non-profit organizations such as The Mission Continues, Women in Technology, Marcus Graham Project and the Association of University Centers on Disabilities.

Lauren Wiener, president of buyer platforms at video ad network Tremor Video and the the newly appointed chair at the IAB, recently told Ad Age a more diverse workplace is beneficial for companies as it allows them to get better insight into the audiences they are trying to reach.

12881: IAB AOL BS.

A MultiCultClassics visitor pointed to a MediaPost column by Richard Whitman, examining the new diversity initiative from IAB and AOL. IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg gushed, “The IAB is the natural choice to lead these efforts because we know exactly what the digital technology, media and advertising companies are looking for. Our certification programs have, in the space of just a few years, taught and credentialed thousands of experienced sales and ad ops people. Now we will be able to help an even larger number of people from diverse backgrounds obtain similar credentials and qualify for entry-level positions in one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.” And would Rothenberg’s contention be based on the diverse makeup of the IAB Board of Directors or the Agency Advisory Board? Hell, digital hasn’t even managed to integrate into White advertising agencies—so what makes IAB think it can crack the code for cultural diversity?

IAB Teams With AOL Chairman Tim Armstrong to Tackle Diversity

By Richard Whitman

Well, this is cute. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for diversity in advertising. Except when the industry launches program after program after program and nothing ever changes. Sadly, every diversity-in-advertising effort is just one failure after another.

And so pardon me if I don’t get all that excited about the latest effort—a partnership between the Interactive Advertising Bureau and AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong. Together, we now have the IAB Education Foundation, “a new nonprofit organization to increase racial, ethnic, gender, and economic diversity and improve peoples’ skills in the digital media and advertising industries.”

Armstrong will lead the endeavor as Chairman of the Board.

Of the foundation, Armstrong said: “The IAB has a nearly 20-year history of solving the industry’s biggest growth challenges and will now focus on perhaps the most overlooked and untapped opportunity—recruiting and growing the talent and skill sets we need in our industry. We need a dedicated organization to focus solely on building a trained and professional workforce that includes all constituencies, many of which have been left behind through much of the digital revolution—minorities, women, the disabled, the economically disadvantaged, and military veterans and their families. Under the leadership of Randall Rothenberg, the IAB Education Foundation will be positioned at the forefront of helping solve this issue that confronts our industry. I couldn’t be more pleased to help lead this effort.”

For his part, Rothenberg added, “The IAB is the natural choice to lead these efforts because we know exactly what the digital technology, media and advertising companies are looking for. Our certification programs have, in the space of just a few years, taught and credentialed thousands of experienced sales and ad ops people. Now we will be able to help an even larger number of people from diverse backgrounds obtain similar credentials and qualify for entry-level positions in one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.”

The foundation will launch with a cross-country “town hall tour” to listen to various constituencies within the digital advertising and media industry with the aim of gaining insight about how to improve diversity in digital media, marketing and advertising.

“We are calling this town hall listening tour ‘Voices United,’ because we want to hear from all constituencies, not just the department heads or top executives,” said Michael Theodore, Vice President, Learning and Development, IAB, and project head of the foundation. “The new curriculum and certification programs can introduce many new faces to our industries, but unless there are transparent paths toward upward mobility, true diversity will remain unrealized.”

The foundation’s first partner is the Year Up program, a national nonprofit organization that provides skills training to disadvantaged young adults and places them in Fortune 500 companies. Year Up will work with the IAB Education Foundation to develop an entry-level ad operations training program.

I wish them well.