13722: Experience Diversion.

Adweek reported on a Cannes study that showed “diversity of experience” trumps racial and ethnic diversity. It must be noted, however, that the study participants were 500 creative professionals. Um, polling members of an exclusive field on the topic of diversity is like asking the Ku Klux Klan to vote on inclusion. Diversity of experience prevents the experience of diversity.

Cannes Study Finds Diversity of Experience Is the Most Important Factor in Building Creative Teams

Ketchum and Fast Company call for ‘diverse voices’

By Patrick Coffee

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. The meteoric rise of social media and our own unconscious biases have created an echo-chamber effect that intensifies, rather than discourages, cultural and personal divisions.

The bubble narrative has grown increasingly popular after last year’s Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. But a new survey examining the phenomenon doesn’t touch on partisan politics—it’s about the creative work performed by industries like media, communications and advertising.

A majority of creative professionals (54 percent) participating in a study conducted by global PR firm Ketchum and media brand Fast Company agreed that such an echo-chamber effect exists in their fields and that it can greatly impede creativity.

The most significant finding in the survey, which involved 500 members of the Fast Company community and precedes a June 21 Cannes Lions panel moderated by editor Robert Safian, may be that diversity of experience is seen as more influential than ethnic or gender diversity when building an effective creative team.

Experience is the key factor

“The biggest wake-up call that sets this study apart from lots of diversity conversations is that so many participants say diverse life experience makes the difference: how you grew up, your socioeconomic background, whether you traveled, etc.,” said Ketchum partner, chief strategy and creativity officer Karen Strauss.

A whopping 87 percent of participants said “personal experience” is a formative factor in their ability to develop creative ideas. Work experience (70 percent) and personal experience (61 percent) were deemed to have the greatest effect on the judgment and selection of those ideas.

Despite the ad industry’s well-publicized efforts to achieve greater ethnic and gender diversity, respondents ranked those variables last when it comes to shaping creative product (25 percent for race and 26 percent for gender) and evaluating that work (11 percent and 15 percent, respectively).

This isn’t to say that gender and ethnic diversity are not important, that the ad industry has lived up to its own promises on those fronts, or that demographics don’t play a large role in shaping each individual’s personal experience. Simply that those who work in creative fields think hiring those with diverse backgrounds should be emphasized.

And gender blinders do exist. When asked which groups provide “braver” ideas, a majority of both men (61 percent) and women (65 percent) chose their own genders.

A resistance to true diversity

Strauss said the echo-chamber effect stems from “deriving, testing and suggesting ideas only with like-minded thinkers.”

“We think we are bringing in a range of views,” she added, “but we tend to hire people with particular types of experience who are hired through networking and referral, instead of those who have virtually no experience in the [particular] field or come from a very different background.”

A majority of respondents across age groups, disciplines and backgrounds agreed that this sort of approach is common and that it is detrimental to creative work.

Nearly everyone involved in this study (95 percent) said interacting with others who challenge their beliefs and assumptions is a crucial part of any creative endeavor. And while 71 percent of respondents believe their organizations respect such diversity of thought, an overwhelming 85 percent said more needs to be done.

The message is clear: Agencies, media companies and marketing organizations draw too heavily from the same talent pools. But at least they’re aware of the problem.

“The survey respondents see that working alongside people just like themselves limits creative potential, and to get outside our bubbles, we have to build teams from varying socioeconomic, educational and geographic backgrounds,” Safian said.

Marketers failing to work with target audiences

The tendency to work only with those who think like we do also applies to market research.

According to the survey, only 9 percent of creative professionals always work directly with members of their target audiences when developing campaigns or related projects. A near majority of respondents (48 percent) said they never do so, relying instead on third-party research for the ideas that eventually shape their creative work.

“We were shocked that only 9 percent tap the target audience when they test an idea,” Strauss said, adding, “If you bring them into the process, then eureka—you’ve already diversified it.”

The overwhelming influence of seniority in agencies and related organizations also diminishes creative work, according to the survey. While 73 percent of those who participated said younger employees tend to submit “braver” ideas, nearly as many said the responsibility for choosing which ideas will prevail overwhelmingly goes to those with 10 or more years of experience.

‘Less cronyism; less hiring of sameness’

Given the near consensus that creative businesses need to encourage a greater diversity of thinking, one big question follows: What’s the best way to do so?

“One of the biggest answers involves hiring from outside your network and outside your industry—not the usual writers and designers,” said Strauss. “Another is prioritizing people with diverse socioeconomic, family, religious, ethnic and gender backgrounds.”

As one survey participant put it, “Don’t hire for portfolio; hire for curiosity.” But it’s one thing to talk about diversity of experience and another thing entirely to hire a junior art director who has no training in the advertising field.

“You can’t hire only green talent,” Strauss acknowledged, adding that many of those polled suggested a move toward more blind hiring to facilitate “less cronyism [and] less hiring of sameness.”

“It’s a very quick fix,” Strauss said.

At the same time, multiple executives speaking on background have told Adweek that blind hiring can shrink an organization’s diversity totals by focusing more on the very factors the study downplays—where you went to school, where you interned, who mentored you, etc.

Ketchum itself addressed this challenge last year by creating a “gamified” internship opportunity called Launch Pad, a program that seeks to counteract unconscious bias by anonymizing submissions and allowing recruiters to pick candidates based on their “ability to solve fictional client challenges.”

Strauss said Launch Pad increased the ethnic diversity of Ketchum’s internship class by 17 percent over the previous year and that 25 percent of all successful applicants had no prior experience in communications or marketing.

Yet, Ketchum and companies like it still rely on standard executive searches to hire C-level talent. And diversity gaps related to race, gender, education and experience persist across creative industries despite the overwhelming call for change on all fronts.

On that point, Strauss believes the conversation should move away from the word “diversity,” which she said is too closely tied to demographics.

“Most organizations are visually striving to increase gender and ethnic diversity,” she said, “but that alone doesn’t eliminate the self-segregation that happens—or the groupthink.”

She called the entire process “a work in progress” and noted that while Ketchum does not have a specific blueprint, its research has identified some clear steps that need to be taken.

The most important idea to keep in mind?

“Seek out people who challenge your views,” Strauss said. Of course, as the study revealed, this is far more easily said than done.

13158: WPPathetic.

Advertising Age reported WPP lawyers flip-flopped on their position regarding a video depicting former JWT Worldwide Chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez allegedly making inappropriate comments during a company meeting. The WPP legal team wrote, “In light of the Declarations from women, minorities and others in the room that show that the comments on the Video were, in context, not offensive, the Video actually demonstrates the misleading nature of the allegations in the Amended Complaint.” Sorry, but affidavits from culturally clueless White advertising executives and one minority do not make Martinez’s monologue acceptable. Hell, why not ask the Ku Klux Klan to weigh in too? There’s really not much difference between the average Klansman and the average Mad Man.

WPP Drops Opposition to Entering Video Into Evidence in JWT Suit

Says Recording Reveals ‘Misleading Nature’ of Allegations Against Agency and Gustavo Martinez

By Maureen Morrison

For all the arguing that WPP has done over the last few weeks to keep an allegedly damning video under wraps, it’s now changing its mind.

In a filing Monday morning, WPP lawyers said they’re happy to see the video in evidence in Erin Johnson’s lawsuit against J. Walter Thompson and former agency chairman-CEO Gustavo Martinez, as long as other employees’ faces are obscured.

Ms. Johnson, chief communications officer at JWT, said in her original March 10 lawsuit that Mr. Martinez made multiple racist and sexist comments during his tenure, some of which were captured on video. Her lawyers sought to submit the video, of a company meeting in a Miami hotel, via an amended lawsuit on March 14.

After a judge ordered Ms. Johnson’s camp to send the video to the court and to JWT for review, lawyers for JWT and WPP filed a motion for a protective order to seal the video. They also filed a joint affidavit from several JWT employees, including New York President Lynn Power and Chief Creative Officer Matt Eastwood, saying Mr. Martinez’s comments at the meeting were not offensive.

Today WPP’s attorneys said Ms. Johnson had addressed their initial concern, that the recording contained proprietary information about the agency’s internal work processes, by agreeing to exclude that part of the meeting. Their later effort to seal the video reflected only the desire to protect employees’ privacy, they said.

“In light of the Declarations from women, minorities and others in the room that show that the comments on the Video were, in context, not offensive, the Video actually demonstrates the misleading nature of the allegations in the Amended Complaint,” the WPP team wrote. “Accordingly, if the Court orders that Plaintiff edit out the faces of the people in the Video (other than Martinez), Defendants have no objection to the filing of the Video since they have argued from the outset that the words Martinez spoke on the Video are already in the Amended Complaint and they did not create a hostile work environment.”

Attorneys for Ms. Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

In their affidavit, the JWT employees said Mr. Martinez had made remarks that they would not have, but was only trying to lighten the mood on the morning after an allegedly rowdy party. “Given the content of the highly unusual events occurring at the hotel in the night before the meetings, combined with Gustavo’s lack of command of the English language and the fact that he was making a joke about himself, we did not find the comments he made offensive,” they said.

According to the original lawsuit, “The previous night, there had been a large party at the hotel’s night club attended by mostly African-American guests. At the start of his presentation, Martinez described the hotel as ‘tricky.’ He explained that he ‘found … different and strange characters in the elevator.’ He further explained, ‘I was thinking I was going to be raped at the elevator,’ but ‘not in a nice way.’”

Mr. Martinez resigned on March 17.

11018: BHM 2013—Retronaut.

Find the perfect BHM gift in the Catalogue of Official Robes and Banners for Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

8491: Vanity Insanity Plates.

From The New York Daily News…

Mississippi ponders putting KKK leader and Confederate hero Nathan Bedford Forrest on license plates

By Sean Alfano, Daily News Staff Writer

A new civil war is brewing in Mississippi over a proposal to put a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard on state license plates.

Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, notorious for leading a massacre of black Union soldiers and leading the KKK in its early days, would appear on the plates in 2014 if the group Sons of Confederate Veterans gets its way.

The organization is sponsoring a series of specialty plates over the next four years to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

This year’s plate features the last home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

The state’s chapter of the NAACP strongly criticized the call to honor Forrest, who led several battles in Mississippi during the war.

“He should be viewed in the same light that we view Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP in Mississippi, told The Associated Press, adding that the Klan was a “terrorist group.”

“The state of Mississippi should deny any vanity tags which would highlight racial hatred in this state,” he said.

Forrest was born in Tennessee and joined his home state’s KKK shortly after the war. Klan members were notorious for beating and killing blacks in the South, as well as intimidating black voters during elections.

The general has been hailed as a military hero and disgraced as a butcher leading a slaughter of black troops who had surrendered during a battle at Fort Pillow, Tenn. in 1864.

However, before his death in 1877, some historians claim Forrest softened his views on racial relations.

“If Christian redemption means anything — and we all want redemption, I think — he redeemed himself in his own time, in his own actions, in his own words,” Greg Stewart, a Sons of Confederate Veterans member, told the AP. “We should respect that.”

At least one black state lawmaker isn’t bothered by the group’s push to remember Forrest.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Rep. Willie Bailey said. “They have that right. We’ll look at it. As long as it’s not offensive to anybody, then they have the same rights as anybody else has.”

With News Wire Services

8349: Heating Up A Cold Case.

From The New York Times…

Reporter on Quest to Close 1964 Civil Rights Case

By Kim Severson

ATLANTA — Stanley Nelson writes for a small weekly newspaper in the Louisiana delta. For the past four years, he has been obsessed with one story: who threw gasoline into a rural shoe repair and dry goods shop in 1964 and started a fire that killed Frank Morris?

No one disputes that the death of Mr. Morris, a well-liked businessman who served both black and white customers, was connected to the Ku Klux Klan. The case is on a list of unsolved civil rights murders the F.B.I. released in February 2007, the day Mr. Nelson first heard of the story.

But for a lengthy article that appeared Wednesday in The Concordia Sentinel, Mr. Nelson, 55, put together what he believes is a key piece of the puzzle. He names the last living person he says was there that night.

In the article, both a son and a former brother-in-law of Arthur Leonard Spencer, 71, a truck driver from rural Rayville, La., say Mr. Spencer admitted to being involved in the fire. Mr. Spencer’s ex-wife, Mr. Nelson reported, said she had heard the same story from another man who was also there.

Mr. Spencer, by his own account, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. But in interviews with Mr. Nelson, he denied knowing or having been one of two men suspected of burning the shop in Ferriday, La., near the Mississippi border, the hometown of the famous cousins Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Rev. Jimmy Lee Swaggart.

Mr. Spencer has not been charged, and the F.B.I. has not said whether it is investigating him. However, he told journalists after the article appeared on Wednesday that the F.B.I. had interviewed him within the last two months.

Mr. Spencer could not be reached by The New York Times at his home or at Jimmy Sanders, a farm supply store where he works. His co-workers said he had gone to the hospital for blood tests.

Bettye Spencer, 67, who was married to Mr. Spencer at the time of the fire, said in an interview on Wednesday by phone from her home in Rayville that she had never heard anything about the case. The F.B.I. visited her a few months ago and she told them that she had been a young mother when Mr. Spencer left her for another woman. That woman and her son are both sources in the article linking Mr. Spencer to the fire.

Mrs. Spencer is still close to her former husband and said she talked to him early Wednesday. He was surprised that people were trying to connect him to the fire.

“I’m telling you he had nothing to do with this,” she said. “We’re just old country people and I don’t understand where this is coming from. This is 46 years ago and now people are digging up bones?”

Unlike many of the 110 civil rights murders being investigated by both the F.B.I. and journalists who operate under the umbrella group called the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, the story of Mr. Morris’s death stands out because it is one of a handful in which someone believed to be connected to the episode is still alive.

“The big concern about all of this is time,” Mr. Nelson said. “The time to solve these cases is maybe another year, or another two years maybe. People are dying.”

The F.B.I. investigated the killing of Mr. Morris, who was 51, twice in the 1960s, and took up the case again in 2007. Since the most recent investigation, The Sentinel and other organizations have criticized the speed with which the F.B.I. and the Justice Department have approached the old cases.

Cynthia Deitle, chief of the F.B.I.’s civil rights unit, told the newspaper that federal officials were actively working on the case and that she believed people were still alive who knew who killed Mr. Morris. She reiterated her agency’s dedication to what she called “one of the most horrific and troubling of all the F.B.I.’s civil rights era cold cases.”

The link to Mr. Spencer is based in part on the newspaper’s interviews with his son, William Spencer, known as Boo. William Spencer told Mr. Nelson that he was trying to turn his life around after getting out of prison and finding religion.

He said he heard his father speak of the fire more than once. The elder Spencer was one of at least two white men who headed there in the early morning hours, intending to burn the shop as a message to the black owner, whom Klan members believed was too friendly with white female customers. The men did not expect the shop owner to be inside, the son told The Sentinel.

“My dad said they could hear a stirring in the place, then a man came out,” William Spencer said. Mr. Morris apparently had come out of the store to find men splashing gasoline and was forced back inside. Burned so badly that nurses could not recognize him, Mr. Morris lived for four more days. He gave interviews to the F.B.I. but never identified his attackers.

“Son, it was bad,” the younger Mr. Spencer recalled his father saying. “I’ll never forget it.”

Read the full story here.

7920: Mad Men Mention.

The latest episode of AMC series Mad Men presented two race-related scenarios. One was blatant, while the other was probably unintended.

The blatant scenario involved a new art director whose reel included a commercial for Lyndon B. Johnson featuring the Ku Klux Klan.

The probably unintended scenario focused on Don Draper’s hiring of a talentless copywriter. The hack landed an interview because he was related to Roger Sterling’s wife. And Draper hired him after accidentally ripping off a headline from the rookie’s portfolio. The scenario demonstrated quite clearly that the advertising industry has forever awarded positions to unqualified candidates. To understand the race-related component, click here.

(Additionally, the scenario was a rip-off of an identical incident from short-lived TNT series Trust Me.