16693: MullenLowe’s Highs & Lows.

 

In October 2023, The Drum published a story on the “highest internal priority” at MullenLowe: to promote more people of color to positions of power.

 

The “solution” involved a standard heat shield designed to provide junior and mid-level non-Whites with special guidance for advancing in a predominately White workplace.

 

A MullenLowe mouthpiece dubbed the initiative a sponsorship program versus a mentorship stunt, as if there’s a discernable difference between faux sponsors, pseudo mentors, or embryo facilitators.

 

In April 2024, Advertising Age reported new hires at MullenLowe West resulted in a very diverse leadership team—although the content did not connect the moves with the “highest internal priority” mentioned in the previous performative PR.

 

In June 2024, Mediapsssst at MediaPost reported IPG nixed an offer from a Russian advertising agency executive seeking to acquire MullenLowe. So, it looks like a historically White advertising agency embraced diversity—and IPG considered sending the culturally competent crew to Siberia…?

 

Content from The Drum:

 

MullenLowe U.S. Hopes a New Take on Career Paths Can Put More People of Color in Charge

 

The agency’s newly appointed chief culture officer walks us through the plan to upend the structural prejudice that plagues US advertising agencies.

 

By Sam Bradley

 

US agencies don’t promote enough people of color into positions of power. Research published recently by the 4A’s found that the proportion of agency leaders identifying as white increased to 90%, compared with 73% in 2021.

 

According to Kelly Fredrickson, the agency’s newly appointed US chief culture officer, promoting more staff of color is the agency’s highest internal priority.

 

“Jobs that have been created in the US since the social justice movement following George Floyd’s murder have been predominantly filled by people of color,” she explains. “But we realized we’re hiring in the junior and mid-levels. What we need to do now is promote and create opportunities for people to develop.”

 

To achieve that goal, Fredrickson says the agency must “unlearn” practices that uphold structural prejudice inside the business and create means of developing and promoting staff hired into lower-level positions.

 

This week, it’s set to launch a pilot ‘sponsorship’ scheme developed between management and staff-run employee resource groups (ERGs). The program lasts a year and will take six candidates from across MullenLowe’s US business and train them for future leadership and management roles. Each ‘protégé’ is paired with a senior sponsor who helps forge connections within the company, increase the candidate’s profile at MullenLowe and “personally invest in the advancement of their career,” according to Jacqueleen Johnson, development and inclusion director at MullenLowe US.

 

Fredrickson says it’ll mean the agency is more active in career progression than usual. “We’re specifically calling it a sponsorship program, not a mentorship program. A sponsor is somebody who can advocate for you in the rooms that you’re not in, who can actively help your career move forward,” she says.

 

The scheme is also intended to boost MullenLowe’s own staff retention rate. She says she’s witnessed Black colleagues leave the agency in the past when faced with a shortage of progression opportunities. “One of our most talented strategists left the agency because she got a call from a Black female president. She said, ‘I’ve got to go – when am I going to get this call again.’”

 

She reasons that if staff in junior and mid-level roles see that there are chances to move into higher positions down the line – even if it might take years to get there – they’re more likely to stick around.

 

“That intentionality from leaders is going to make the difference for people of color in the ad industry,” she adds.

 

Fredrickson previously served as president of MullenLowe Boston, after rising through the ranks at both brands and agencies. She began her career as a ‘floater’ providing vacation cover for any position going before working as a producer for the best part of a decade. She shifted into management when family responsibilities began to curtail the constant travel associated with shoots.

 

“The things you learn as a producer have served me so well. Bringing teams together toward a common goal or helping people to stay on track, on budget and on time. Managing through the mini-crises of production helped me manage through real ones as a leader later on.”

 

That experience – and the memory of how teams actually gel on the ground – means she expects to spend time listening to staff concerns and working with ERGs rather than “approaching from the heights.”

 

“Culture isn’t in the handbook; it’s in the employee making the right decision when nobody’s watching. It’s in the 1,000 decisions everybody makes every single day,” she says.

 

MullenLowe’s ERGs – the agency boasts five, run independently from management – were major partners in designing the new sponsorship scheme. Fredrickson says: “It sounds so trite, but it is really about being open. I think the listening part of my job is probably the most important part.”

 

Despite the creeping return among agency competitors towards mandatory office presence, she says MullenLowe doesn’t plan to roll back its current flexible policy.

 

“We need to stay open to it. People have set up their lives since the pandemic,” she says. “The fastest way to create a culture is to hire really smart, curious people that share your values. With people who share your values, you know, you can trust that they’re going to get their work done.

 

“When we have a new business pitch that requires people to come in and work together, they do. Or if there’s a client presentation or something, they come in. We don’t have to tell them.”

 

Corporate fears that remote working is too generous are unfounded, she says. “It’s a rare, rare person – I’ve yet to find them – who would abuse the privilege of having a hybrid work arrangement.”

 

Content from Advertising Age:

 

MullenLowe West Shakeup—new President Named And Creative Leaders Exit

 

Jenn Wong joins as president from SoundCloud in one of the first big moves made by MullenLowe U.S. CEO

 

By Brian Bonilla

 

Major executive changes are underway at MullenLowe West as the Interpublic Group of Cos. agency installs a new president and seeks a new top creative team.

 

The shifts mark one of the first big moves made by MullenLowe U.S. CEO Frank Cartagena, who took on the role in November.

 

Jenn Wong has been appointed president of the West region, which consists of MullenLowe’s Los Angeles office, after most recently serving as the head of global brand marketing at SoundCloud. Wong has also held lead marketing roles at Curaleaf, Beats by Dre and Gap, and worked at agencies including TBWA\Chiat\Day and Wieden+Kennedy.

 

She replaces Javier Passerieu, who had been promoted to the role from managing director in September of last year. Passerieu did not respond to a request for comment.

 

Earlier this month, the office’s two executive creative directors, Carlos Alija and Laura Sampedro, resigned and will depart in May “to ensure a smooth transition,” said Sampedro.

 

The search for a new creative leader is ongoing and Cartagena will fill those roles as needed in the interim.

 

Wong was hired to help the Los Angeles office become more of a “modern marketer” for its clients, said Cartagena. While the agency has strong capabilities in PR and design, Cartagena is hoping to work more on social and digital offerings for clients for the office, which he felt had “pigeonholed” itself into doing more TV advertising.

 

“I saw us in danger of becoming one-dimensional, and that’s the worst place to be,” Cartagena said. “The reason I brought Jenn in is because she speaks two languages. She speaks client and she speaks agency. So she’s going to be able to come in with both perspectives … and help dive in with me to create a situation for our current clients and future clients that brings the best possible creative solution to their business problem that’s beyond TV, and we do TV really well.”

 

Cartagena said the goal isn’t just to do more digital work but also to explore experiential and AI solutions. He pointed to MullenLowe’s recent campaign for Change the Ref which utilized AI to create deepfake voices of gun victims, as an example of the type of modern work he wants the agency to put out.

 

“One area that I’m looking towards is how we tackle some of the innovations that are happening right now,” Cartagena said. “That’s my next order of business is how do we use AI to optimize, and I don’t mean optimize operationally,” he said. Rather the focus is on, “How do we use AI to help us out with ideas or help us make the best creative ideas in the industry?”

 

In the U.S. MullenLowe also has offices in Boston (its largest office) and New York (its third largest behind Los Angeles) The U.S. network overall has about 400 employees. MullenLowe West clients include Acura, Corona, Grey Goose, Patron, Hawaiian Airlines and Ghirardelli, which it won in December.

 

The Ghirardelli win is part of an ongoing strategy to have both offices involved in more pitches. Previously “[MullenLowe West] focused on solidifying the clients that we had, making sure they were happy and making sure that they were growing organically so while there hasn’t been an external growth our clients have grown internally,” said Cartagena. “Now we’re in phase two and we’re actively pitching from both regions.”

 

While the East and West regions will remain as is, Cartagena is also looking to have the different offices work closer together in the future.

 

“What I don’t want to do is change any of the culture” between the offices, Cartagena said. “What I want to do is open up for clients the ability to pull the good that’s happening in all the different offices and flex up and down for them and really use our full offering. It’s not for everybody at all times, but more so when they need it.”

 

MullenLowe East’s president is Jordan Muse, the son of advertising legend Jo Muse, who led the multicultural marketing movement. Between Cartagena, Wong, and Muse, MullenLowe’s U.S. executive team has become significantly more diverse in a short amount of time. Cartagena touted MullenLowe West’s diversity and highlighted its multicultural work for Corona as an example of the “diversity of thought” the office has available.

 

Content from MediaPost:

 

Report: IPG Says ‘Nyet’ To MullenLowe Sale

 

By Richard Whitman

 

Interpublic was reportedly approached about its interest in selling its global creative agency network MullenLowe.

 

But according to a report by Campaign, the holding company has no interest in selling the network and turned down the offer.

 

The publication indicated that the offer came from a Russian agency executive who previously served at a long-time joint venture partner of the holding company in Russia. IPG pulled out of the operation shortly after the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 

Word of MullenLowe approach surfaced within days of a Wall Street Journal report that IPG is interested in selling its pioneering digital agency and design consultant R/GA and that Tata Consulting Services may be the buyer.

 

IPG doesn’t comment on what it calls rumors or speculation about it in the press.

15697: Adweek Studies ADCOLOR® Study In Defective Ways.

 

Adweek apparently—and apparently because actually viewing the content is not worth the subscription fee—spun the ADCOLOR® study slightly differently than Ad Age. As the image above displays, “Adcolor’s Latest Study Reveals Effective Ways To Retain Diverse Talent.” Is it correct to use “Reveals” for stating common knowledge and common sense?

 

Ad Age listed the “Effective Ways” revealed by the ADCOLOR® study as urging White advertising agencies to: 1) provide mentors of color; 2) establish heat shields like ERGs and; 3) publicly publish diversity data. Um, ADCOLOR® Founder Tiffany R. Warren showed sycophantic support when her former employer—Omnicom—repeatedly refused to share EEO-1 data for years.

 

If ADCOLOR® really knew the secret formula for bringing DE&I progress to the industry, wouldn’t they have transformed Adland at least a decade ago?

 

Sorry, but the “Effective Ways” have historically proven ineffective—and ADCOLOR® continues to resemble the enterprise described by Nathan Young.

15636: Oh Look, A New Mentorship Program.

Advertising Age reported on yet another mentorship program invented to spark diversity in Adland—this one from the Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA). Of course, major corporate sponsors are on board, undoubtedly offering tax-deductible support. Yet it all begs the question as to why there are so many mentorships, but no significant progress with representation figures. Clearly, mentorships can’t beat dictatorships.

 

Black Advertising Execs Launch Mentorship Program

 

The new ‘BECA Playbook’ program will offer 25 Black marketers coaching, experience and networking opportunities to propel their careers

 

By Ethan Jakob Craft

 

The Black Executive CMO Alliance today announced a new two-year mentorship program for up-and-coming Black marketers that represents one of its first concrete steps toward furthering the ad industry’s diversification since the group was established earlier this year.

 

Called “The BECA Playbook,” the extensive program will offer its inaugural class of 25 mid-career Black advertising professionals one-on-one coaching with C-suite leaders, networking sessions with many of the world’s top Black marketers, and custom-curated learning experience to fill gaps in the participants’ résumés.

 

More than a dozen companies have signed onto BECA’s new mentorship program to lend support and resources, including General Motors, Deloitte, Starbucks, ViacomCBS’s BET and WPP-owned agency GroupM.

 

Pay it forward

 

“The BECA Playbook embodies one of our four pillars—pay it forward—to which our members and sponsoring organizations have wholeheartedly shown their commitment. In supporting our mission, they have committed their time and resources into building a stronger pipeline of Black leaders ready for the C-suite,” said BECA founder Jerri DeVard, whose career has included chief marketer roles at Citibank, ADT and Nokia.

 

The foundation of the alliance is rooted in four key pillars: “Share, learn, elevate, and pay it forward,” DeVard told Ad Age at the time of BECA’s launch.

 

Helmed by DeVard, BECA was established in March with a class of 26 Black creative leaders as the group’s founding members, including Netflix’s Global CMO Bozoma Saint John; Unilever executive Esi Eggleston Bracey; and Mars Wrigley’s North American President Anton Vincent.

 

Lack of representation

 

Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and multiracial individuals are still systemically underrepresented in the U.S. ad industry, according to the fourth annual diversity report from the Association of National Advertisers, which was published last month.

 

Black Americans, in particular, hold just 6.6% of the roles at ANA member companies, despite making up roughly double that percentage of the national population.

 

But the report did show some year-over-year progress: 13.7% of chief marketers say they’re a race other than white, up from 12% in 2020; the same is true for senior-level employees, with industry-wide diversity up to 28.5% from 26.4% last year, as well as those at the entry level, with diverse workers now comprising 33.1% of that sector versus 31.9% in 2020.

 

“This report reveals that [the] marketing industry is making important strides toward improving diversity among our ranks at all levels,” Bob Liodice, CEO of the ANA, said in a statement. “However, it also shows that we still have work to do to achieve a truly diverse balance in our workforce,” he added, urging the group’s members to continue to pursue fair and equitable workplace representation.

 

More information about the group and its new “BECA Playbook” program can be found on its website.

14624: Mentioning Mentors For The Marginalized. Meh.

Advertising Age published a perspective by Hill Holliday Chief Innovation Officer Mike Proulx, who revealed, “Why mentorships matter for the marginalized.” Um, haven’t initiatives like MAIP recognized such an obvious point for over 40 years? And technically, mentorships benefit everyone—regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, creed, class, political affiliation and any other category. Indeed, White people have dominated the industry by tapping like-colored mentors. One doesn’t need a Chief Innovation Officer to uncover a commonly known fact. Or maybe the culturally clueless do need innovative—albeit basic—enlightenment.

Why mentorships matter for the marginalized

A study shows the benefits of not going it alone

By Mike Proulx

We all know the discouraging stats when it comes to underrepresented groups in corporate leadership roles. Only 5 percent of the S&P 500 CEOs are women. There are just three black CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, the lowest figure since 2002, and only three CEOs from the LGBTQ community as of last July, according to the January 2019 Fortune 500 list.

As a gay C-suite executive, I consider myself lucky to work in an environment that celebrates diversity and inclusion. But I didn’t get here alone. Having strong mentorship early in my professional development helped propel me and prepare me for leadership in a way I couldn’t have designed for myself. One mentor, the late Don Harley, who had worked at the University of New Hampshire while I was a woefully unconfident sophomore there, gave me sage perspective whenever I failed, and kept me humble when I achieved. His fundamental faith in my nascent abilities ignited a self-reliance that laid the foundation of my career. And while I’ll always be a work-in-progress, I’m a far better leader because of the mentors, like Don, I’ve had along the way.

I’ve always believed in the old adage that success happens when preparation meets opportunity, and mentorship plays a big role in that formula. I was curious whether any correlation existed between feeling successful as an underrepresented leader and being mentored, so I worked with our in-house research organization, Origin, to field a study of more than 2,600 working Americans. After segmenting the results into various underrepresented groups (women, people of color and LGBTQ), a clear pattern emerged.

Women with mentors are more likely to hold senior leadership positions: In the study, 25 percent of female respondents who have had a mentor hold C-suite or senior management roles, versus only 10 percent of women who have never had a mentor. More women who have had mentors find purpose in their work (71 percent versus 58 percent of women who have never had a mentor) and feel accepted at their jobs (75 percent versus 59 percent). Additionally, 70 percent of women who have had a mentor believe that they matter at work, versus 53 percent of women who have never had a mentor.

People of color with mentors tend to believe their talents are being used:

Sixty-five percent of people of color who responded to the survey and have had a mentor agree that all of their talents are being used at work, compared to 45 percent of those who have not been mentored. They are more likely to believe management is concerned about them, feel they receive recognition for a job well done, and say their wages are good. In fact, 20 percent of people of color surveyed who have had mentors reported earning a salary above six figures, compared to only 8 percent who have never had a mentor.

LGBTQ employees with mentors feel more successful overall: Seventy percent of LGBTQ employees who have had mentors feel successful at work versus just 47 percent of those who haven’t been mentored. More say they receive more promotions (74 percent versus 49 percent) and feel valued at work (67 percent versus 45 percent). In fact, 38 percent of mentored LGBTQ employees hold C-suite or senior management roles, versus just 17 percent of those who have never had a mentor.

No matter how the data gets cut, underrepresented employees benefited from having had mentors, which highlights the need for companies to invest in mentorship programs that embrace diversity and inclusion.

Make it authentic

Yet despite good intentions, in my experience corporate mentorship efforts tend to fail if they’re overly fabricated, rigid or mandatory. A serendipitous mentor-to-mentee relationship is arguably far more effective than a forced one. And that’s why companies aren’t the only ones on the hook for this.

Some of the most authentic mentoring relationships happen when they’re organically initiated, either by the mentor or the mentee. Potential mentors should use their past experiences to nurture instinctive mentee matches by reaching out to underrepresented high-potential employees. And with a little courage, simply asking a respected leader to mentor them is the best tool for mentee hand-raisers to find their perfect match.

If ever the scales of representation in corporate leadership roles are to get balanced, it has to start with underrepresented leaders-in-the-making believing in themselves. And that’s why mentorship is so important. As my mentor, Don, once told me decades ago, “People need to believe that they matter. The good leader makes people transcend the feeling that they are just a cog in the wheel or a brick in the wall—they matter as part of the team.”

14113: Making Mindful Mentors.

Campaign reported on an organization—Creative Mentor Network—that connects diverse youth mentees with creative industry mentors. But in one critical way, the organization appears to be extremely different than most of the patronizing mentor programs that White advertising agencies use to feign commitment to change. Specifically, Creative Mentor Network requires that mentors undergo extensive training to qualify. It’s hard to determine exactly what is involved in the training, but the very idea sounds progressive. To recognize that mentors—especially those coming from exclusive environments like ad agencies—need education and coaching to successfully engage with minority youth is remarkable. Kudos to the CMN Team for such forward-thinking awareness.

How the Creative Mentor Network is helping advertising’s diversity problem

By James Page

The organisation visits Havas and other agencies to train creatives to become mentors for college students from diverse backgrounds.

The not-for-profit organisation, founded by former teacher Isabel Farchy, aims to connect creative talent with young-people from diverse backgrounds. Through this, Creative Mentor Network hopes to make the advertising industry more accessible as a career for rising talent.

Farchy said: “In the creative industry there is a habit of recruiting through networks, so it can just be a lot more opaque from the outside and a lot harder to infiltrate. I really wanted my students when I was a teacher, but also now the students we work with, to understand that there were real opportunities in the creative industries”.

The London-based network has worked with numerous agencies such as Havas to train employees to become mentors.

Elliot Harris, creative director at Havas who is mentoring a teen, said: “I would love to think that by the end of this course… that there is a much broader set of experience he has had that will allow him to make some choices before he moves into the next stage of his education”.

The mentors at Havas have introduced their mentees to different departments at the agency, allowing them to get a wider understanding of the advertising world.

Creative Mentor Network believes that the course is just as beneficial for agencies as it is for the college students. Farchy said: “Agencies obviously gain the opportunity to do something practical about the diversity issue and also to offer training and development for their employees”.

She added: “When our partner agencies are looking to recruit, particularly for junior roles and for internship roles and for apprenticeship roles, we’re able to put them out to our alumni and its a really amazing opportunity to recruit much more diverse talent”.

The organisation has an alumni of over 200 students.

13967: Four Lessons Not Learned.

Campaign published divertsity directives from Eleven Inc. Partner and Chief Growth Officer Michele Sileo, who presented “4 lessons” for White men mentoring White women. The generic lessons could be applied to any mentor-mentee relationship. And a peek at the Eleven Inc. team shows the place isn’t applying any of the basic lessons to achieve diversity—or even diverted diversity.

4 lessons for male mentors who work alongside women

By Michele Sileo

Without men, we can’t make our workplaces safer and more equitable for women, says Eleven’s chief growth officer.

Men are having a tough time in the news these days. We’re in the midst of a much needed reckoning where harassment, assault and disrespect of women are coming to the surface in unprecedented ways. And while the stories may differ in detail and degree, at the heart of these stories are women who were likely just trying to do their jobs well and respectfully.

We hope these men are the minority and there are as many, if not more, willing to push for change. Men who are genuinely concerned about making the workplace a safe, supportive environment where women can grow in their careers and move into positions of leadership themselves. These men get that this moment in history is not just about changing the conditions that have enabled harassment and assault, but also creating workplaces where women can thrive, advance and make a full contribution.

Some men want to make change because they believe making the workplace more equal for women is the right thing to do. Others are waking up to the fact that what’s good for working women is good for business—that ignoring the talents and contributions of half the population is a massive missed opportunity. We can’t make our workplaces safer and more equitable for women without these men.

I recently spoke at last year’s 3% Conference in November about the role of male mentorship. I was inspired to write about how I’ve been helped along the way by men who didn’t need to wait for a big public reckoning to see that women are worth investing in—and they themselves were more successful for it. Here are some lessons taken from what they did, that we can all learn from when working alongside women.

Recognize and acknowledge her strengths.

My first boss’s parting words to me after four years together were, “Trust your instincts. You have good ones and they will take you far.” These words had a tremendous impact on how I approach my work, and they still do. Though I wish he had said it a year or two earlier, it was incredibly reassuring to know that he’d been paying attention and had recognized something in the way I worked and made decisions. I was still in the formative years of my career, and he lit a spark of confidence in me that I could build on throughout my career.

Ask her opinion.

My second agency was Deutsch in NY. It was tiny then, about 90 people, and Donny was moving into a leadership role. Donny showed himself to be a good leader because he would always ask for the opinions of others in meetings—including younger employees, women and others who didn’t often have a voice. The first time he turned to me, I was speechless. I had been working in advertising for four years, and it was the first time someone important wanted to know what I thought.

Not only did this make me realize that my opinion mattered, it also inspired me to come to meetings prepared with ideas, opinions and a strong point of view. Expectations mean a lot, and I learned that I was expected to make a full contribution to the team, in spite of my young age.

Put her forward.

No matter how young, no matter how many more senior men might be able to do the job instead, look for opportunities to give young women a chance to show you what they’re capable of. I was put forward by male bosses at a few significant moments in my career, and I remember them vividly to this day. Each time it was scary and I was unsure of myself, but the experience was entirely worthwhile for both me and my team. For instance, I was given the chance to present to clients on behalf of the agency at several large and important meetings. Not only did this build my confidence, but it told the people around me that I mattered, that I had a voice on the team and that I was capable of leadership.

Create an environment of unconditional trust.

Our always-on industry needs to practice what we preach and get serious about de-stigmatizing and honoring flexible work schedules. Women, especially as they advance along in their careers, are jugglers. They’re handling work, maybe kids, partners, homes, hobbies, passions. They need you to trust that they can excel in their jobs, while also handling the rest of their lives. I’ve had the good fortune to work with some fantastic men who were empathetic and supportive.

In the 13 years I have been at Eleven, they have readily given me the trust and the space to get my job done while also living my life. There was never hesitation around my need to leave early most days, work from home, flex up or down as family needs evolved. The trust was felt and the trust was given without hesitation. In return, I deliver over and above in my work, with gratitude.

Our workplaces are evolving, and as the social conversations around women’s positions in the workplace grow louder, more big changes are sure to come. The male leaders who stand up and empower women to do their best work and to share in that power will be the ones who see their businesses succeed the most.

Michele Sileo is Partner and Chief Growth Officer at Eleven Inc.

12486: BHM 2015—Essence CARES.

Hey, the National CARES Mentoring Movement founded by Essence Editor-in-Chief Emerita Susan L. Taylor beats the hell out of the mentoring mumbo-jumbo from Esquire and modern Mad Men.

Donate $10 today.

12155: Examining The Mentor Act.

The Mentor Act warrants a closer examination, as advertising people are wont to judge the efforts of peers; plus, the endeavor is tied to the U.S. justice and jury system.

The overall campaign originally launched through a coalition between Esquire magazine and three White advertising agencies. As always, it was likely a well-intentioned and positive initiative, fueled by individuals actively seeking to promote change. The execution, however, raises a few questions.

For starters, does anyone from Esquire or the White agencies actually have any credibility or experience in the area of mentoring? Even a mediocre mentor is familiar with the common knowledge and principles behind the challenges our youth face in today’s world. From Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to UNCF, this ground has been covered—and in far more relevant, effective and provocative ways.

The Mentor Act itself seems a tad far-fetched and misguided. In a nutshell:

We created a bill that gives people who volunteer with an officially recognized mentorship program a legal excusal from jury duty. It’s a fully functional document and all it needs is sponsorship from a state representative to be on its way to becoming an actual law.

Um, do we really want our youth being mentored by douchebags whose primary motivation for giving back involves avoiding jury duty? 12 Angry Men do not necessarily lead to great mentorship. Does anyone even want such morons serving on a jury? Service is something that must be given freely, responsibly and with personal integrity. Sorry, but jury duty exemptions make it all feel uninspired and cheap.

Again, The Mentor Act is undoubtedly backed by caring people. Yet actions of the heart must also incorporate actions of the head. Right now, this bill needs to be repealed, rethought and rewritten. Ditto the advertising campaign.

12152: The Mentor Act Sucks.

This video introducing The Mentor Act is both contrived and crappy. Barton F. Graf 9000’s effort bears little resemblance to the f*cked up bullshit by 72andSunny or the relatively tame stuff from Makeable. The inconsistent messaging is probably the result of two facts: 1) Despite political nonsense like cross-cultural and total market, even the White advertising agencies are unable to professionally collaborate across offices and; 2) White agencies don’t know dick about mentoring. That the campaign failed to integrate non-White partners is painfully obvious—and obscene. An industry based on exclusivity, mean-spirited competition, nepotism, cronyism, racism and more has no business lecturing others on mentoring.

12071: Mentoring Campaign F*cked Up.

Advertising Age posted the print ads from the mentoring campaign hatched by Esquire magazine and three White advertising agencies. Sorry, but the art director and copywriter could benefit from some creative mentoring.

12063: Mad Men On Mentoring…?

The New York Times reported on a partnership between Esquire magazine and three advertising agencies to promote male mentorship. Honestly, what the hell do most White ad shops know about mentoring? The agencies—72andSunny, Barton F. Graf 9000 and Makeable—appear to be a standard collection of firms dominated by White males. Heaven forbid anyone would have thought to tap the Marcus Graham Project for insight and advice. Lincoln Stephens and his partners have done about a million times more with mentoring than all three of the White shops combined.

Esquire Partners With 3 Agencies to Promote Male Mentorship

By Stuart Elliott

ESQUIRE magazine is teaming up again with Madison Avenue for a new cause-marketing initiative, seeking to encourage more adult men to mentor boys and young men.

The initiative comes eight years after a collaboration between the magazine and an up-and-coming agency to raise money for clean drinking water in the third world. That effort proved successful enough to become a permanent Unicef fund-raising program — and helped the agency become better known.

This time, Esquire has recruited three agencies deemed on the cutting edge of creativity to produce multimedia campaigns to demonstrate how valuable mentors are to youth and the benefits to the mentors of helping out. The initiative begins with the October issue of Esquire, now making its way to newsstands and subscribers.

In addition to the 30 or so pages in the issue devoted to mentoring — focused on the theme “Who made you the man you are today?” — Esquire is creating content online and working with a social publisher called RebelMouse to invite readers to share their mentoring experiences through videos, photographs and posts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Esquire also plans to promote the initiative on the Esquire Network cable channel, a unit of NBCUniversal, and to involve other magazines like Popular Mechanics that are also part of Hearst Magazines.

The goal of the initiative, which includes a partnership with a national mentoring organization, Mentor, is to enlist 100,000 men as mentors by 2020.

“We’ve been concerned about the state of boys and young men, covering the way the education system and the criminal justice system fail them,” said David M. Granger, editor in chief of Esquire, which is based in New York.

“As we’ve talked to experts, we’ve found one consistent path to success is a relationship with a strong male role model,” he added, “so there’s a need for men, the next generation of mentors, to get interested in the idea of mentorship,” and a need to make it easier for them to volunteer.

To increase the appeal of mentorship to men in their 20s and 30s, “we wanted to make the idea more ‘sexy,’ ” Mr. Granger said, and make the word “mentor” seem less fusty.

Just as Esquire sought out the New York agency Droga5 in 2006 to create the effort to improve access to drinking water — originally known as the Tap Project and since rebranded as the Unicef Tap Project — the magazine decided to ask three agencies to develop campaigns to put more men into mentoring.

The intent was to find agencies that are filled with potential the way the now well-known Droga5 was eight years ago, said Richard Dorment, a senior editor at Esquire.

“When we worked with Droga5, it was before they were Droga5,” he said, laughing.

After considering a list of agencies considered fresh on the scene, Mr. Dorment and Mr. Granger reached out to Barton F. Graf 9000 in New York, which works for clients like GoDaddy; Makeable, formerly Poke, a New York agency that specializes in design and product development; and 72andSunny, a Los Angeles-based agency that works for clients like Samsung.

The campaign from Barton F. Graf 9000 is centered on a proposed Mentor Act, which would establish mentorship “as a legal excuse from jury duty.” A website explains the concept: “Stay out of the court system by helping young men stay out of the court system.”

Gerry Graf, the agency’s founder and chief creative officer, said: “I was pretty excited when they contacted us. I have, I think, three subscriptions to magazines, and Esquire is one of them.”

The campaign was developed by approaching the issue as “a standard marketing problem,” he said, adding: “How do you get people to try something? Give them something back. We thought, if you’re a mentor, there’ll be less reason for jury duty.”

The work by Makeable is focused on webuildmen.org, a website now under construction, offering potential mentors what the home page calls “the know-how, the people and the tools for today’s man to build tomorrow’s.”

Michael Kantrow, a co-founder of Makeable with Tom Ajello, said: “We’re all very busy. So we thought, let’s help guys figure out this mentoring thing in today’s world by giving them a tool kit, a platform we call the beginning of a community that would appeal to contemporary men.”

The campaign by 72andSunny, part of MDC Partners, suggests that by mentoring, men can have fun, tapping into their inner boys with their mentees, while doing something important. The ads use a censored version of a vulgarism in offering a phrase mentors can say when questioned about what they are doing; the expression is something like “Back off, I’m helping.”

The variation on the vulgarism is “not just glib,” said Matt Jarvis, partner and chief strategy officer of 72andSunny, but part of the agency’s attempt to “bring a populist sensibility” to mentorship and make it more accessible to more people.

“Our insight was that mentorship has an earnest, worthy sensibility to it, so much so that a lot of men feel they don’t qualify to be mentors,” Mr. Jarvis said. “So we say, ‘You don’t have to read Shakespeare together, you can eat hamburgers together, jump off a high-dive together.’”

Mr. Dorment and Mr. Granger said they intended to devote pages of the November and December issues of Esquire as part of plans to keep the initiative going into next year.

Esquire is not the only brand seeking to bolster the ranks of male mentors. The Dove Men-Plus Care line of antiperspirants and deodorants sold by Unilever is starting a campaign centered on mentoring through youth football.