Today is Native American Heritage Day—or for White advertising agencies, it’s Black Friday.
After all, Native Americans are woefully underrepresented in Adland. And in recent years, their stereotypical images have been erased as brand mascots.
The chances of appointing a Chief Diversity Officer are highly unlikely too.
Today is Black Friday.
For Adland, there will be no acknowledgment of Black culture or Black Lives Matter. There will be zero recognition of the Blackfeet Nation, despite a Presidential Proclamation urging all citizens to celebrate November 24, 2023, as Native American Heritage Day.
Over 24 hours, Adland will ignore all things Black—as well as historical references for Black Friday—opting to embrace the popular belief that the day’s name derives from businesses staying in the black.
For sales and profit, Adland is operating at full tilt today—and extends the event well before and after the actual date. For diversity, equity, and inclusion, Adland is taking the day off—and the next 365 too.
The White House proclaimed this month is National Native American Heritage Month.
In Adland, it’s November—and there’s more interest in Movember. That is, even during National Native American Heritage Month, Native Americans are relegated to the proverbial bottom of the totem pole.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month has been around since 2004; however, the event feels like yet another diversionary stunt to avoid addressing racial and ethnic equality—and it probably receives far more attention than Black History Month, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and National Native American Heritage Month combined.
Oh look! Advertising Age managed to squeeze in a relevant and authentic cultural perspective before the end of National Native American Heritage Month. Kudos to Redline Media Group Founder and President S. R. Tommie for penning the piece. Of course, Ad Age illustrated the content with royalty-free stock photography.
How This Agency’s Native American Heritage Helps Create An Engaging Workspace
4 ways to empower teams with a sense of tradition, community and culture
By S. R. Tommie
As employees continue to return to the office post-pandemic, readjusting to the “traditional” working environment has proven to be an ongoing challenge. As many of us adapt back to the typical work structure, the office environment itself has had to make modifications to accommodate this change in mindset.
The average full-time employee works approximately 40 hours per week, totaling more than 100,000 hours in their lifetime. Because we spend most of our time at work, the office environment has a direct impact on our quality of life. Maintaining a healthy and safe workspace promotes good mental health and efficient workflows, but you’ll also find that including fun activations and creative workspace elements stimulate a deeper commitment and dedication toward projects that are above and beyond expectations.
As a Native American-owned agency, we’ve found that leaning into tradition, both our cultural and company heritage, has helped foster an environment that is empowering, inspirational and efficient. In observance of Native American Heritage Month, we share our strategies here:
Create designated areas for brainstorming
Native American culture has historically relied on storytelling as the principal means of passing down vivid narratives that document tribal histories, rituals, customs and legends. In the modern-day office setting, brainstorming and collaborating is a way of calling back to the creativity found in Native American storytelling. By creating spaces for team members to gather, they’re able to easily collaborate and bounce ideas off one another in a way that can’t be replicated through email communication. Establishing “Think Tanks” equipped with whiteboards for jotting down notes and snacks to fuel ideation is a great way to inspire creativity in the workplace. These designated areas give our creatives room to breathe and the opportunity for their stories to come to life.
Teamwork makes the dream work
The traditional Native American ideal of the shared strength of community can serve as an invaluable foundation for creating a strong, cohesive team. Hosting annual events to honor holidays and celebrate milestones help to establish traditions within your organization and provide a healthy way for team members to get to know their peers outside of work projects. Small gatherings can be as simple as singing “Happy Birthday” to celebrate a team member or creating special moments during holidays with shared meals and decorations. This furthers a sense of community and culture, helping to increase communication and encourage collaboration as team members continue to get to know one another and recognize each other’s strengths. As they continue to work together, they’re also able to learn from each other, connect and grow.
Create projects for team members to collaborate
As a matriarchal society, Seminole Tribal Citizens inherit an additional layer of kinship from their mother, referred to as their clan. Each clan is symbolic of elements in nature, and imbued with inherent obligations to family, earth and tribe, while possessing clearly delineated strengths and attributes from their namesake. These characteristics collectively contribute to the well-being of the tribe, family unit and surrounding communities.
As team members create healthy working relationships, they are exhibiting similar characteristics to Native clans, as they too are working toward ensuring the well-being of their colleagues and the work they produce in a collaborative way. While not every project needs group cooperation, some will require several great minds to work together. When collaborating, team members add elements from each of their suggestions and are able to elevate the project to further heights than if it were worked on by an individual alone.
Encourage ideas from anyone, anytime, about anything
There are eight Seminole Tribe of Florida Clans—Panther, Bear, Deer, Wind, Bigtown, Bird, Snake and Otter. The various attributes of these clans are a unique reflection of the Seminole Tribe’s tradition of diversity. A variety of perspectives can be the key to unlocking creativity. Good suggestions can come from anywhere.
Each team member has a distinct and different background, contributing from their own unique vantage point. Problem-solving for global markets requires global perspective and that perspective is fostered by diversity. While each team member may have their own specialty and job focus, having fresh takes for a campaign revamp or project suggestions provides the ability to see things from different angles.
Redline Media Group is a company founded upon and rooted in the traditional Native American ideals of character, shared strength of community, continuous improvement, appreciation for what one has and a dedication to supporting those in need. Collectively, we share the belief that our daily actions can have a significant effect on the world, and that it is our duty to improve it for ourselves and for generations to come.
“Love what you do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” takes on a new meaning when you consider many of us will spend more than 100,000 hours in the workplace. Recognizing and implementing traditions both old and new in the workplace can provide your team with a sense of community and culture, creating ongoing opportunities for them to feel empowered and inspired.
During National Native American Heritage Month—and on Native American Heritage Day—it seems fitting to spotlight the late Patrick DesJarlait, whose storied résumé includes U.S. Navy veteran, fine artist and adman.
DesJarlait was raised on the Red Lake Indian Reservation—now referred to as the Red Lake Nation—in northern Minnesota. The reservation is home to the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians (also known as the Ojibwe People).
In Adland, DesJarlait worked as a freelance and full-time commercial artist for midwestern White advertising agencies.
At Campbell-Mithun, DesJarlait hatched the Hamm’s Bear that starred in the famous Hamm’s Beer campaign for many years. The beer brand sought to project an image of the great outdoors via its theme: The Land of Sky Blue Waters. Drawing from his life at Red Lake—where bears roamed the area—DesJarlait designed the iconic character.
DesJarlait is also responsible for Mia, the Land O’Lakes Native American maiden. Despite the historical controversies and ultimate erasure of the figure, DesJarlait’s original intent was to honor Native Americans and forward a positive symbol—actually countering the stereotypical depictions and invisibility of Indigenous Peoples in advertising and media.
In short, DesJarlait leveraged his cultural experience to make significant and breakthrough creative contributions—proving the power of diversity. Yet the 2022 ANA Diversity Report recorded that American Indians and Alaskan Natives make up 0.4% of the industry—while accounting for 0.68% of the U.S. population. It’s another case of the underserved and underrepresented under the specter of systemic racism in Adland.
To extend the rant, the scenario also shows how minorities must perform at much higher levels than White counterparts to succeed in the field. After all, DesJarlait produced two classic campaign characters—in addition to being a military veteran, published author, educator and recognized fine artist with paintings in the permanent collection of the Minnesota Museum of American Art.
Meanwhile, Chief Diversity Officers and Human Heat Shields aren’t even trying to launch reservation recruitment schemes.
[Learn more about Patrick DesJarlait]
Advertising Age reported the Washington Football Team—formerly known as the Washington Redskins—will become the Washington Commanders. Well, at least they voted against the Washington Comanches—and opted not to announce the new moniker during National Native American Heritage Month.
Washington Football Team Becomes The Washington Commanders
The team received more than 40,000 name suggestions from fans after axing its long-time ‘Redskins’ name in July 2020
By
The Washington Football Team, as the Washington, D.C.-based franchise has called itself since dropping its former “Redskins” moniker two years ago, today officially debuted a brand new identity: the Washington Commanders.
After months of speculation, the new name was confirmed this morning on social media, NBC’s “Today” show and at an event at FedEx Field, the Commanders’ home stadium. The club’s new look keeps the same burgundy and gold color scheme used by the Redskins for decades, but swaps the brand’s indigenous imagery for military-inspired flair, such as a band of stars.
The announcement closes a temporary, rumor-filled chapter of team history that had seen the Washington Football Team hint at its new identity for several months, including by releasing cropped images and teaser videos that gave fans a vague—but inconclusive—idea of what they could expect from the new look.
“As an organization, we are excited to rally and rise together as one under our new identity while paying homage to our local roots and what it means to represent the nation’s capital,” Dan Snyder, the team’s owner, said in a statement.
A year in the making
After initially refusing to consider any changes, the then-Washington Redskins made the call in July 2020 to abandon their long-controversial name amid mounting pressure and a wave of social justice protests in the U.S., with the team’s leadership committing to revamp its name and logo—both of which were considered by many to be offensive to Native Americans.
Last February, the 90-year-old team officially handed its rebrand duties to Stagwell Group’s Code and Theory, which was the incumbent agency that also crafted the franchise’s interim identity and its “No Name But Team” ad campaign that coincided with the NFL’s 2020-2021 season.
As part of the rebrand, the New York-based creative shop solicited public input for the franchise’s permanent identity, opening a “Brand Journey” webpage dedicated to the process that eventually received over 40,000 name and logo suggestions from fans.
Last summer, team CEO Tanya Snyder revealed on an ESPN podcast an unofficial shortlist of finalists that included the names Armada, Brigade, Defenders, Presidents and Red Hogs.
The new Commanders name “doesn’t seem to have a strong tie-back to the history for the franchise or the locale of the franchise, but I wouldn’t say it’s awful,” said Mike Carr, director and co-founder of branding firm NameStormers, which has helped develop names for clients including hard cider brand Angry Orchard and auto seller CarMax.
On the plus side, the revamped identity is uncontroversial and not politically incorrect—two major considerations for a team once decried as racist—and, importantly for Carr, it also follows two core principles of brand names: “It’s easy to say [and] it’s easy to spell,” he said.
Loose lips sink armadas
Despite earlier teasers—and assurance from the team’s president, James Wright, that additional names were still in play—the Washington Football Team appears to have gone to great lengths in recent months to conceal its new identity, which may have included using limited liability companies and registering in far-flung countries with obscure copyright databases.
It’s not an unheard-of step. In 2009, Apple filed its trademark application for “iPad” in Trinidad and Tobago with the owner listed as IP Application Development LLC, while Google originally filed the paperwork for its Pixel phones in Tonga. Even the Cleveland Guardians professional baseball team, formerly known as the Indians, filed in Mauritius before announcing its new name in July 2021.
But some keen sleuths seem to have predicted the existence of a “Washington Commanders” team in recent days.
Last week, a Twitter user by the name of Larry Legend mused that “commanders.com” had been transferred to MarkMonitor, a secure platform used by many NFL teams to manage their web domains. Joe Theismann, a former quarterback for the then-Redskins, also appeared to accidentally confirm the team’s adoption of the Commanders name in a CBS Sports Radio interview on Monday.
“I think the Commanders is a name that is going to be one that hopefully people like going forward,” said Theismann, who played for Washington in the 1970s and ’80s, noting that there are “a lot of commanders in Washington, D.C. and the Pentagon, and a lot of different branches of the service.”
“So to me, that’s the way I’m looking at it, as positions of leadership when it comes to the new name,” he continued, later suggesting to a Washington Times reporter that he had no advance knowledge of the new name.
Last night brought the most significant clue yet, when a local news helicopter making the rounds above FedEx Field—which is technically in Maryland, a few miles east of the nation’s capital—spotted a Washington Commanders banner inside the team store. Someone inside the shop allegedly dimmed the lights shortly after photos of the signage began circulating, making it harder to see, local media reported.
Unfortunately for Commanders fans, they’ll have to wait several months for the newly rebadged team to prove their mettle; while this year’s Super Bowl will see the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Los Angeles Rams on their home turf on Feb. 13, the Washington Football Team didn’t even make the playoffs this year, finishing the season with a paltry 7-10 record. It wasn't a shock for the team's longstanding fans. The Washington team, then the Redskins, last appeared in—and won—the Super Bowl in 1992.
Adweek spotlighted a campaign presumably produced to acknowledge National Native American Heritage Month—created by Wieden + Kennedy. The work features the term Indian Country to point out that all of America is Indian Country. Yes, all of America—except for Adland.
BTW, “Our history is American history” sounds just like the annual BHM line, “Black history is American history.”
One last note: Celebrate National Native American Heritage Month with a donation to the American Indian College Fund.
November is National Native American Heritage Month. Yet Adland presents no patronizing campaigns. No empty gestures. No hand-wringing confessions about more work needing to be done for marginalized reservations.
There are lots of Halloween campaigns versus Native American advertisements—despite having plenty of royalty-free stock images available.
Google acknowledges Native American Heritage Month by honoring Maria Tallchief. Do Native Americans appear in Google’s diversity charts—even as doodles?
In keeping with the arguably dumb decision to celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November with Thanksgiving, MultiCultClassics presents advertising and marketing featuring descendants of the true founding fathers (and mothers).
Ralph Lauren displayed cultural cluelessness in classic style.
Victoria’s Secret exposed insensitive ignorance on the catwalk.
Folks were not feeling happy with Pharrell and Elle.
Natural American Spirit appears to be smoking something strange by insisting the brand shows its Native American spirit via philanthropic support.
The Washington Redskins fumbled by saluting Thanksgiving, prompting a salute from MultiCultClassics.
The Land O’ Lakes Indian Maiden escaped one White advertising agency, only to be taken captive by another.
All of which warrants closing out with a little cry.
In light of the Washington Redskins Thanksgiving Greeting, it seems the team also has an opportunity to commemorate Native American Heritage Month.
Given that November is Native American Heritage Month, Thanksgiving seems like the appropriate day to acknowledge the honor. The Native Americans attending the original Thanksgiving feast were the Wampanoags, who ultimately helped the Pilgrim invaders survive in the unfamiliar land. Additionally, the main menu item was likely venison—provided by the Wampanoags—versus turkey (a delicacy that Native Americans also introduced to the Pilgrims). The Wampanoags were considered to be devilish heathens by the Pilgrims, which is ironic when realizing the Pilgrims probably would have died and gone straight to hell if not for the Wampanoags’ life-saving support. For many Native Americans today, Thanksgiving is the National Day of Mourning. Thankfully, the NFL didn’t schedule a holiday game featuring the Washington Redskins.
NM gal celebrates Native American Heritage Month with Rock Your Mocs Day
By Post Wire Report
A New Mexico student is celebrating Native American Heritage Month by following in her ancestors’ footsteps in the US.
Jessica “Jaylyn” Atsye, 21, a Laguna Pueblo member, designated last Friday as Rock Your Mocs Day — honoring the unique footwear of many American indigenous peoples by wearing moccasins.
“They show who you are,” Atsye said.
Moccasins historically were the footwear of many Native American tribes. The shoes’ decorative elements including beads, quillwork and painted designs used on moccasins varied among tribes.
“It’s like you’re wearing these pieces of art; they’re all unique.” said Jessica Metcalfe, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa from North Dakota.
