Adweek published subscriber-only content titled: Where Brands’ DEI Pledges Stand 5 Years After George Floyd.
No disrespect to the investigative reporter, but why would anyone want to pay for such common knowledge?
Here’s a more provocative and precise headline: After 5 Years, Brands’ DEI Pledges Are Deader Than George Floyd.
To commemorate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Peacock presents performative programming.
But if you want Hawaii Five-O, you’ll have to go with Paramount+.
This promotion for Campaign’s Inspiring Women Awards is uninspiring and unworthy of awards. It appears to be stereotypical stock imagery too.
Despite that, the event will probably draw plenty of entrants seeking performative prizes, as well as generate profit for the publication.
Goodby Silverstein & Partners celebrated International Women’s Day by gushing over performative promotional work produced for its client, Argent, featuring a film written by Jeff Goodby.
Okay, just to clarify, International Women’s Day was saluted by a White man who waited over three decades to grant a White woman partnership at his White advertising agency.
Feels like perfectly patronizing performative PR.
Chicago Advertising Federation celebrates Women’s History Month by spotlighting women serving as judges for its annual trophy show. Now that’s award-winning performative PR.
Havas celebrates International Women’s Day, Women’s History Month, and DEIBA+ initiatives—and promotes its Superwomen report to boot. That’s checking lots of boxes at once.
Why is a variation of this L’Oréal advertisement appearing on the back cover of the September/October 2024 issue of Essence magazine? Perhaps it’s residual reparations for the Munroe Bergdorf misstep.
Also, how many oh-so-committed L’Oréal Groupe brands are partnering with White advertising agencies—where DEIBA+ is a dream deferred, delayed, delegated, and denied? The percentage is probably much closer to 100% than 0%.
The few White holding companies and White advertising agencies that commemorated National Hispanic Heritage Month delegated the duties to resident Latino ERGs. ¡Ay, caramba!
Here’s an additional reaction to the Women’s Equality Party advertisement spotlighted in previous posts.
Did Mars—manufacturer of Snickers—approve and support the concept? Or does the company have grounds for a copyright infringement lawsuit?
Then again, Mars and Snickers once staged a patronizing promotion in 2010 to address hunger in America, as the following CBS News report revealed, ridiculed, and ripped…
Feeding America One Snickers at a Time: Mars’ Ridiculous Anti-Hunger Promotion
By Melanie Warner
Snickers is teaming up with celebs like David Arquette and NASCAR driver Kyle Busch to launch an absurdly ill-conceived promotion aimed at helping alleviate hunger in America -- a problem that isn’t ever going to be solved with candy bars.
It’s hard to understand why Mars, which owns Snickers and a dozen other candy brands, chose to adopt hunger as its cause when there are so many other worthy and meaningful charitable endeavors that don’t come with boatloads of irony and contradictions. Maybe they just couldn’t resist the punny appeal of the “Bar Hunger” tagline.
The problem with a candy company professing to care about something like hunger is that the people in America who are considered “food insecure” these days (the government stopped using “hungry” in 2006) are also the same people who are eating too many Snickers and other ultra-available, non-nutritious snacks. As cheap, quick, calorie-dense food has become more and more ubiquitous, it has fueled a seemingly contradictory phenomenon in which the Americans who suffer the most from hunger are also the fattest.
This strange correlation plays out in places like the South Bronx, where people can’t afford and don’t have easy access to the right kind of food. “Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,” Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger told the NYT. “Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.”
How people can eat too many calories and also be hungry is still something of a mystery to nutrition researchers, but the prevailing theory is that diets high in junk food deprive people of nutrients, leading their bodies to crave more food in an attempt to get the nutrition it needs.
In other words, the last thing someone who’s overweight and food insecure needs is a Snickers bar.
The marketing staff at Snickers seems to be oblivious to this. Working with the non-profit group Feeding America, Snickers says it is giving away 3.5 million meals, which means Mars is donating funds to the organization and then translating that into equivalent meals. As part of the promotion, David Arquette will appear in GQ touting Snicker’s efforts and Kyle Busch now rides a SNICKERS ‘Bar Hunger’ race car.
Although [Feeding America] is a worthwhile organization that delivers a decent amount of non-junk food to needy families, Snickers’ Facebook page indicates that the promotion is all about selling more Snickers bars:
Every time you eat a Snickers, you can help us bar hunger in America. Just enter your wrapper code and we’ll donate a meal to someone in need. It’s the tastiest way to do some good.
Snickers marketing has long been about alleviating hunger of the more trivial sort, that grumbling in your stomach between meals. It should stick to that. When it comes the profound, interrelated problems of obesity and hunger, there’s no way Snickers is going to satisfy.
This National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India campaign is explained as follows:
The core theme of our Cover Design is based on Celebrating Indian women as the manifestation of Durga. Be it her nurturing the future generation of India, her strengthening its economic backbone or rendering her services on the highest posts, today's woman is an embodiment of Multi-tasking, much like the divine goddess.
While celebrating womanhood is at its core, the design also articulates inclusiveness which is evident through women garbed in various community attires.
Wow, that’s really milking it in terms of patronizing propaganda…
Adweek reported the Dove Global Chief Marketing Officer is ending a 28-year run at Unilever. Admittedly did not know (or care) that a key “architect” of the Dove Real Beauty campaign is a White man—who partnered with a White advertising agency likely led by White men to produce patronizingly propagandistic poop intended to revise women’s beauty standards. Unbelievable. Or not.
Machine in South Africa is responsible for this SASKO campaign celebrating Freedom Day with a limited edition Freedom Loaf—which featured white and brown bread together, prompting people to make Freedom Sandwiches. Here’s the explanation:
Sandwiches have been made the same way throughout the years. It’s always brown on brown, white on white, rye on rye, wholewheat on wholewheat. It’s as if the Group Areas Act* and Immorality Act** were in effect for bread.
On Freedom Day (27 April) 2024, a day commemorating 30 years of democracy in the country, SASKO encouraged South Africans to challenge the norm and free their taste buds. How? By making and enjoying their sandwich using both white and brown slices (or any other kind of bread, for that matter). We revealed a limited edition Freedom Loaf. It got dropped off with influencers and these influencers made Freedom Sandwiches, sharing them on social, encouraging people to make their own. There were 45 pieces of influencer created content, thanks to the Freedom Loaf, helping to increase engagement with SASKO online by 529%. The earned PR was significant and the Freedom Loaf was so well-received, people voiced on social media how they wanted it to become a permanent feature of the SASKO bread range.
*The Group Areas Act: an apartheid era South African law that ensured there were designated areas for a specific race to live and no mixing was allowed with other races.
**The Immorality Act: an apartheid era South African law that made it illegal for whites and people of colour (brown/black) to be in relationships (intimate or otherwise).
Gee, no one thought to create a Nelson Mandeli…?
Adweek published performative PR from the EVP Head of Advocacy at Deutsch LA, advising how White advertising agencies can help reduce the racial wealth gap in the US.
The self-promotional advertorial spotlighted the Blackness in Full Bloom program launched by Deutsch LA in 2020—which just so happens to coincide with the year that the White advertising agency hired its EVP Head of Advocacy.
The LA heat shield was preceded by the 2016 decision at Deutsch NY to no longer invest in diversity. Adding to the culturally clueless chaos and confusion, IPG pruned Deutsch NY in January of this year.
So, what’s the value of advice to help Black businesses succeed coming from an arguably failing White business—and one with a history of questionable DEIBA+ dedication to boot?
Ad Agencies Can Help Reduce Racial Wealth Gap in America—Here's How
Since 2020, Deutsch LA has supported local businesses through Blackness in Full Bloom program
By Ann Howze
In 2018, a Black-owned small business accomplished an incredible feat on Black Friday by selling $1 million of cosmetics in less than 90 minutes. The Box of Crayons product was also featured on Oprah’s Favorite Things list… twice. Founder Raynell “Supa Cent” Steward has since built a $50 million cosmetic brand without traditional marketing support.
While Steward’s success isn’t rare in the age of social media, it’s not the norm, especially for Black-owned brands.
Growing up in Inglewood, Calif., I would take walks with my mother and sister to our local beauty supply store to purchase anything from shampoo to hair oil to rainbow-colored beads for our braids. We’d then stop by the local ice cream shop and pick out our favorite flavors for the walk home.
These businesses served our community but weren’t a reflection of the community. These store owners invested our money into their neighborhoods, miles and miles away.
If I were to take that same walk today, I’d now find a Black-owned beauty supply store, ice cream shop, and a host of other Black-owned small businesses. While these businesses are creating new jobs and opportunities for the community, there is work to be done to ensure they receive the support needed to be successful in the face of gentrification, elimination of institutional diversity initiatives and other economic pressures.
Here’s how ad agencies can help.
Build with the business
As marketers, we develop strategies that help companies amplify messages, increase market share and drive sales. Our work creates connections and longevity for the world’s biggest brands.
These skills are invaluable, and it’s one of the many reasons why Deutsch LA created Blackness in Full Bloom, its free brand-building program for Black business owners.
Since 2020, Deutsch LA has provided local entrepreneurs with the tools and resources necessary to grow their brands. At a time when DEI commitments are under siege, Deutsch LA has reinforced its commitment by entering into its first partnership with Pharrell Williams’ Black Ambition, a nonprofit committed to closing the opportunity and wealth gaps through entrepreneurship.
The partnership expanded Blackness in Full Bloom’s reach beyond Los Angeles and has provided Black Ambition’s founders with free training and resources. To date, Blackness in Full Bloom has helped over 30 Black-owned businesses continue to build their brands.
According to a recent Brookings study, creating and supporting more Black-owned businesses is one step to reducing the racial wealth gap in the U.S. Black-owned businesses drive the highest percentage increases in employees, revenue and payroll, but only make up 2.7% of employers. The more Black-owned businesses there are, the better it is for everyone.
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management’s Gather Against the Gap report found that “the racial wealth gap for Black Americans remains significant, with a direct impact on social and economic growth in the United States.” The median wealth for Black households is roughly $20,000 compared to about $180,000 for white households.
So while the number of Black-owned businesses grew between 2017 and 2021, the overall share remained disproportionately low relative to their share of the U.S. population.
The role of ad agencies
In addition to internal programs like Blackness in Full Bloom, advertising agencies can also provide support by:
1. Evaluating supplier diversity: Create opportunities to support Black-owned businesses within procurement processes. Whether it’s as basic as coffee for the office or multi-pronged like allocating ad dollars with media companies, the intent shows a commitment to financial parity and equity. And the investment goes beyond promotion. This approach helps grow brands in a language that speaks to us all: dollars.
2. Leveraging relationships: We all know someone who knows someone. It’s time we use our professional and personal resources to connect founders to key decision-makers who can help these businesses grow and thrive.
3. Utilizing in-house resources: The most talented marketing professionals are housed within our agencies. It’s time we task small teams with implementing those brilliant yet shelved creative ideas in service of these businesses.
4. Spreading the word: Use your agency’s social channels to spotlight some of your favorite businesses, help raise their visibility and provide free marketing, particularly since many have low or no marketing budgets.
Best-in-class
Despite the undoing of diversity initiatives in corporate settings and beyond, Google’s annual Black-owned Friday campaign is one example of how marketers leverage craft to support Black brands through culturally relevant content, marketing toolkits for businesses and technology (via shoppable content).
Walmart’s Black & Unlimited marketing platform is another great example that supports founders and introduces innovative products to store shelves, a significant feat for any business. The initiative plays a role in sharing the inspirational stories of entrepreneurs and the creativity of Black creators.
In 2020, Groupon searches for “Black-owned” increased nearly 400%, according to a survey by Groupon and the National Black Chamber of Commerce. When the excitement faded just a few months later, so did searches and revenue.
The shift we’re witnessing around diversity efforts is also happening with Black-owned businesses. By educating ourselves, leveraging our innate knowledge and resources and encouraging decision-makers to assist in eliminating systemic inequities, we help contribute to a more just society with no racial wealth gap.
