16470: Ranking Bias, Playing Favorites—Or, Bias & BS.

 

Digiday Media’s Worklife published a report on the five most common biases prevalent in the workplace. While racial/ethnic bias and gender bias were noted in the opening, only gender bias made the top five list. This is sadly reflective of Adland, where White women trump racial and ethnic groups as a cause for committed concern.

 

Here are the five most common biases happening in the workplace

 

By Cloey Callahan

 

There are over 150 cognitive biases in the world. Out of those, there are around 25 that show up regularly in the workplace, including newer ones like proximity bias that surfaced after the hybrid work boom, and ones that we’re all familiar with like race and gender bias.

 

“When we hear bias, our minds immediately go to race, gender, maybe sexual orientation,” said Christy Pruitt-Haynes, global head of talent and performance practice at business and leadership consultancy NeuroLeadership Institute. “All of those are very real components of bias, however it’s really important for everyone in the workplace, especially leaders, to learn there are other types of bias as well that go beyond race and gender.”

 

There are five biases that are top of the list in terms of how pervasive they can be if they aren’t identified and mitigated as soon as the bias starts to happen. Yet, not all managers and executives are aware of all five and how frequently they impact the workplace. That’s why diversity, equity and inclusion leaders are calling for education and training around these biases.

 

“What’s interesting about cognitive bias is you can’t get rid of it completely,” said Tom Kilgore, senior director of DE&I at eCommerce fulfillment solution provider Radial, which hosts regular internal training sessions around bias in the workplace. “There’s no remedy, no pill. But you learn how to live with them and how to actually address them. By doing that, it can have a positive impact.”

 

And it’s something that people might have put on the back burner during the pandemic, but DE&I leader Jen Mahone Rightler says it’s important now more than ever to educate people around the different kinds of biases.

 

“There was such a focus on trying to figure out what the virtual space was going to look like that we relaxed a lot of the training around certain cultural nuances,” said Mahone Rightler. “We’re finding that as we’re coming back into the workplace, there are so many things we forgot about.”

 

Here’s a roundup of the five most common biases happening in the workplace, including what they are and how to mitigate them.

 

1. Affinity bias

 

Affinity bias is when someone has a natural affinity to someone. Kilgore says this unconscious bias shows up most frequently during the talent recruitment process. Someone might notice that the person went to the same university, is from the same state, or has similar hobbies, and then choose to hire that person instead of someone who might be a better fit for the job but doesn’t have any similarities to them.

 

“All those data points give us this huge endorphin rush every time when we connect to them,” said Kilgore. “Our brain starts to have this affinity towards that prospective candidate. As a result, when we talk about diversifying the workforce, you often hear ‘we are looking for someone who will be a good culture fit.’ And what happens is that you get clones of yourself.”

 

One way to mitigate affinity bias is to make sure that you are intentional with interview panels that are diverse, which would then help choose candidates that vary across race, age and gender.

 

2. Gender bias

 

Gender bias is one that people might be most familiar with. “It’s always going to be a big one,” said Mahone Rightler.

 

This bias can play out in multiple areas of the business, from hiring to project management. Kilgore says that an employee might see projects consistently assigned to men instead of women, which leads to a gap in representation.

 

“As we start to see that pattern unfold, we need to actually call it out,” said Kilgore. “It’s really important that we create a safe space where there is psychological safety where people feel compelled enough to do so.”

 

Bias disruptors are extremely important in the workplace, and can help someone realize they are leaning into an unconscious bias even if they don’t realize it themselves right away.

 

3. Recency bias

 

As the year winds down and performance reviews might be happening, leaders should be especially mindful of recency bias. Kilgore says that this is a hot period in which recency bias can thrive. While a leader is supposed to assess an employee for an entire year, they might focus just on the end of the year – the most recent events.

 

One of the easiest ways to mitigate this is to lean on technology’s help. Have a management tool to track employees’ work across the entire year, rather than just focus on the past few months.

 

Pruitt-Haynes says that this can also happen during the hiring process as well, where someone who is interviewing candidates might rate the person they interviewed last very highly because it was the most recent one.

 

“Have a set of criteria when you’re making decisions,” said Pruitt-Haynes. “If it’s a hiring decision, have a rubric that says we’re looking for these things, and take notes on how closely each of those candidates match up to what you’re looking for. That moves us away from making a gut decision, which can be influenced by bias, and shifts our decision making to fact-based qualities we can really measure.”

 

4. Contrast bias

 

Often common with learning and development goals, contrast bias is when managers compare employees against each other, even if said employees need different things to succeed. “A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work with learning and development,” said Kilgore.

 

The solution here is for managers to understand that everyone works differently, and to not fall down a path in comparing employees. Kilgore says that if leaders do this, it becomes a bandwagon effect that can have a larger impact.

 

“If you’re constantly comparing two people, you minimize one person’s contributions,” said Kilgore. “Then other leaders will adopt the same perception of that person and spread a false stigma that could stunt their growth within the organization and lead to a lack of upward mobility.”

 

5. Fundamental attribution error

 

This is a tendency to explain someone’s behavior based on internal factors like personality traits, while underestimating the influence of external factors.

 

And the external factors could be plenty, especially with the rise of remote work. For example, an employee might not have their camera on frequently during work calls. Someone with fundamental attribution error might say that person is quiet, shy, and not a team player. However, the reality might very well be that this person is dealing with taking care of their multiple kids during the call, or have other things going on behind the scenes.

 

“But you’ve created the perception that this person isn’t a team player,” said Kilgore.

 

Thankfully, this can be easily mitigated through things like one-on-ones with team members, using intentionality to ask what’s going on in people’s outside lives. That might also mean paying attention to nonverbal cues and opening up for an honest conversation.

16395: Recommending—And Commending—The Black Experience In Design.

The Black Experience In Design reportedly started as a concept for a special issue journal. Yet it quickly grew into a global chorus of creators expressing provocative perspectives, personalities, practices, and politics.

 

Even attempting to review the book is a daunting task, given the extraordinary breadth and depth of its creative content. Indeed, calling it a book feels… insufficient. It’s an indescribable, incredible, and thoroughly original work.

 

Experience The Black Experience In Design.

16276: Introspection On Intersectionality.

 

Adweek published a perspective from Omelet CEO Thas Naseemuddeen, who presented an interesting interpretation of intersectionality in Adland. Given all the varied takes on the topic, perhaps it should be renamed splintersectionality.

 

The Important Role of Intersectionality in the Ad Industry

 

Omelet CEO on why lived experiences and identities are what make incredible storytelling

 

By Thas Naseemuddeen

 

AAPI Heritage Month is an interesting and reflective time for many of us who exist within the community. It’s special to hear the voices and stories of folks who are doing incredible things for the community and culture at large.

 

It can also be a really interesting time to take a deeper view into the construction of identity.

 

Lived experiences

 

Identity is something that took me some time to fully wrap my head around. I’m Sri Lankan (Canadian). And like many first-generation kids, assimilation into the broader Western culture was my starting point.

 

In the past few years, thanks to a lot of work by a lot of wonderful people, I have been able to feel more comfortable in the multiple parts of my cultural identity. I’m not just a female leader. I’m not just a South Asian person. I’m not just a first-generation kid of incredibly hard-working immigrant parents. I’m not just Muslim. But the aggregation of these things and many many more, make me uniquely who I am.

 

And that doesn’t fit neatly into the box of expectation. I am by definition a bit messy. As a CEO, I feel even farther away from the truths of what I’ve been taught to expect to see in a CEO: the emotionless strength, poise and formality we’ve been taught to seek in leaders. I’m a strange, a little awkward but fully passionate being who brings myself in all my quirky glory to everything I do.

 

I believe this is a part of the conversation that’s often missing or misunderstood when it comes to DEI or JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) and how it shows up in our work. It’s too easy to revert to box-checking of the many spectrums of diversity. But without understanding the nuance of real human stories that underlie every intersection, it’s hard to truly feel seen by advertisers and brands. The manifestations of experience that come from crossing some of these lived experiences and identities are what makes incredible storytelling.

 

Sense of belonging

 

All to say, living on the outside of things can be a strangely lonely place to be. I’m grateful for my own tribe of weirdos who find themselves in a similar (but different) space. In a way, I love being an outsider because it provides a perspective that I believe is valuable in our business of folks who are insiders; it’s forever a healthy distance.

 

It can feel really detached and somewhat negative because in many ways, I haven’t connected in the same ways that others can or let down a certain kind of wall. I’m sure in some of those spaces, I can appear kind of sullen or withdrawn, but it’s not out of anything but not quite knowing if and where I belong. And I’ve felt that way in so many spaces that are built to be welcoming and filled with wonderful people, but it’s that nagging voice that says “They all belong. What on earth am I doing here?”

 

The idea of community, as a result, can feel like a far-away concept. Even when it is built for folks like myself. This makes me remember just how important the nuance of intersectionality is to all of these conversations and the spaces we build to come together.

 

A herculean task

 

Creating cohesion across cultures and identities is a herculean task. Watching events like the Goldhouse Gala a few weeks back and all the activities around AAPI Heritage Month is mind-blowing and underscore the power of community that encapsulates a huge number of intersecting identities and extraordinary humans.

 

Creating a space that holds so many is seemingly impossible. The API community is so faceted, covering an enormous chunk of the earth’s surface as well as its cultural footprint. Goldhouse specifically has done an incredible and mindful job of supporting and celebrating the intersections and interconnectedness of our communities.

 

Intersectionality is an important part of these conversations. Understanding what connects and bonds us and acting on it with specificity. When we see the nuance of intersectionality represented in media and culture (and also in how we gather), it has the power to shift things even more profoundly.

14742: Finland Frantically Finding Friendly Females For Foreigners.

In Finland, Mannerheim League for Child Welfare seeks volunteers to befriend “immigrant women”—which is probably code for women of color. It’s enough to inspire a mass migration out of the country.

14682: Torn On The Fourth Of July.

Time published the Independence Day musings of Frederick Douglass—“an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more…”

14679: A Look At “The Look” Doesn’t Earn A Like.

At More About Advertising, Stephen Foster looks at The Look—Procter & Gamble’s latest divertisement—and doesn’t seem too impressed by what he sees.

Is P&G’s new purpose ad ‘The Look’ really a cop out?

By Stephen Foster

Here’s another much-trumpeted dollop of purpose from P&G, ‘The Look’ from the Saturday Morning collective.

Showing a black man and his child being given the cold shoulder (or look) by white folks. P&G is trying to appeal to black consumers as well as do good — by the way.

So what’s not to like? Apart from the intention, it’s a well-made film too – maybe too glossy.

But, and I’m not American, do people in these places in the US really behave like this towards black people? In a posh clothes shop? They’d be all over a serial killer to get a sale surely.

And isn’t it a cop out to reveal the black guy as a pillar of the (mostly) white establishment? If he was a bus driver it would surely be more powerful.

Is this adland’s glossy version of discrimination?

MAA creative scale: 3.

14426: You People Who Eat At Nando’s Should Boycott.

M&C Saatchi Abel is responsible for this Nando’s campaign featuring a video focused on the phrase, “You People.”

You people in South Africa are pathetic.

13925: 4A’s Diverted Diversity Webinar.

The 4A’s is presenting a free diverted diversity webinar titled, “Preventing Discrimination and Harassment in the Creative Workplace.” Um, the 4A’s has generations of failure preventing racial and ethnic discrimination in the advertising industry—so why is the trade organization suddenly an expert at helping allegedly beleaguered White women?

13896: Rewriting Reality.

Advertising Age published diverted diversity droning from The Female Quotient CEO and Founder Shelley Zalis, who managed to type roughly 900 words on diversity without a single mention of race and ethnicity in the workforce (she only referenced race once, when discussing casting for ad campaigns). Zalis’ opening line underscores her primary focus on promoting White women: “When it comes to diversity in marketing, we’ve come a long way—but we still have a long way to go.” No, when it comes to diverted diversity, Madison Avenue has come a long way. But for true diversity, the advertising industry has gone a long way backwards. Racial and ethnic representation is downright Googlesque—after 60+ years of openly recognizing the issue—and Black representation has actually declined. Zalis’ second sentence explains the phenomenon: “Marketing has a unique role to play in rewriting the rules on diversity in business.” Yes, adland has managed to rewrite the rules on diversity in business—by rewriting diversity to mean gender equality first and foremost.

Diversity and Inclusion: Rewriting the Rules for Marketing

By Shelley Zalis, CEO and Founder, The Female Quotient

When it comes to diversity in marketing, we’ve come a long way—but we still have a long way to go. Marketing has a unique role to play in rewriting the rules on diversity in business.

Numerous studies show that diverse teams deliver superior results. For example, recent research found that inclusive teams make more effective business decisions up to 87% of the time. Even more compelling, Deloitte’s most recent Human Capital Trends report found that companies with inclusive talent practices can generate up to 30% higher revenue per employee and greater profitability than their competitors.

Clearly, diverse teams operating in inclusive cultures can offer ideas and viewpoints that help drive innovation and effectiveness for the business. This is especially true in marketing, where a team that reflects the incredible diversity in the marketplace is much more likely to develop messaging and advertising that resonates. Yet, even with these clear ties to results, corporate America’s approach to diversity hasn’t resulted in dramatic advancements.

For marketing organizations—and businesses in general—diversity is important, but its benefits may not be realized without an inclusive culture.

Sadly, there’s no magic wand to wave. But every little step in the right direction gets us closer to where we want to be (and is 100% better than nothing). Here are some things marketing can do to promote diversity at every level:

Hire diversity of thinking.

Throughout the hiring process, it’s worth taking time to remind decision-makers about the business value of diversity and encourage them to embrace various backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, rather than gravitating to people who are similar to themselves, which is a natural human tendency. After all, a diverse team can be more innovative and effective. To reach diverse pools of talent, it may also be helpful to broaden your recruiting sources so that you are meeting the talent you need where they already are.

Tackle the “messy middle.”

When striving to improve an organization’s diversity, hiring is literally just the beginning. For many organizations, entry-level representation is often reflective of the available talent pool. Consider gender as an example. Research shows that, on average, entry-level representation is roughly 50% women compared to 19% women in the C-suite. This is especially true in marketing, where women are often a large proportion of the workforce at lower rungs of the ladder but a much smaller proportion at higher levels.

As with hiring, decision-makers should not only make a conscious effort to embrace diversity, but also model inclusive leadership behaviors. An organization’s culture is greatly shaped by the people at the top. We need to reimagine workplace culture to retain our best talent.

While education to build awareness can be helpful, it isn’t enough. Organizations now have the ability to make structural changes and implement transparent, data-driven solutions to make better decisions that lead to more diversity and, thus, better business outcomes, according to Deloitte’s 2017 Human Capital Trends.

Vote with marketing dollars.

Marketing is uniquely positioned to shape how people think and should use that position to create positive change. It’s not just about making sure ad campaigns feature different races, genders and ages; it’s about making sure that different kinds of people are portrayed in a fair, accurate and realistic way—instead of cynically or lazily relying on age-old stereotypes that prey on and reinforce society’s existing biases.

In June 2016, my company, The Female Quotient, partnered with the Association of National Advertisers and its Alliance for Family Entertainment to launch #SeeHer, an initiative to help achieve a more accurate portrayal of women and girls in advertising and the media. So far, more than 1,000 brands, with $40 billion of U.S. ad spend, have joined and signed up to use the Gender Equality Measure to assess and eliminate bias in their advertising. And more companies are signing up every day.

A way to take this a step further is to include explicit diversity requirements in RFPs and agency partners. To win work, marketers can look for tangible evidence that their agency is committed to hiring and developing a diverse workforce and fostering an inclusive culture. Not only is that likely to land a better result, it begins to set a standard of expectation beyond your organization.

The ultimate goal: Driving empathy, not sympathy

At the end of the day, good feelings and supportive words are nice, but to really make a difference, decision-makers should bring the rational decision of supporting diversity back to the human level through an inclusive culture. Supporting a culture of empathy is what we’re really driving at—so that we can understand people and different ways of thinking and truly value those for the insight they bring. When that happens, it is likely that inequality will begin to shrink and strength will begin to build as those numbers change throughout the ranks. After all, one person at the top of an organization has power, but a group of committed leaders has impact.

This could be the start of a major positive trend, and marketing is at the heart of the action. To change how people behave, we need to change how they think. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what marketing is all about?

Shelley Zalis is CEO and founder of The Female Quotient. Launched in 2013, The Female Quotient emphasizes collaboration and mentorship to activate change in advancing gender equality in the workplace. It leads The Girls’ Lounge, a destination at conferences, companies and college campuses where women connect, collaborate and activate change together. The Girls’ Lounge has become the largest community of corporate women and female entrepreneurs transforming workplace culture. Deloitte Digital and The Female Quotient have joined forces to deliver joint programming that continues to promote equality and inclusion in the workplace, and the shared belief that they aren’t a social imperative—they’re a business imperative.

13667: The Hypocrisy Of DNA.

Prince Ea presents a compelling take on the true importance of race via “The Poetry of DNA” for MyHeritageDNA. However, the message was hatched by Berlin Cameron, a White advertising agency whose leadership underscores that race does matter in adland.

13656: Shea It Ain’t So!

First, Pantene wooed Black women, despite historically and predominantly targeting White women. Now, SheaMoisture is reaching out to White women, despite historically and predominantly targeting Black women. Advertising Age reported on the SheaMoisture campaign and the associated hair-pulling backlash.

Slammed on Twitter, Shea Moisture Pulls Ad Seen as Moving Brand Away From Black Women

By Jack Neff

The idea that women of all races should love their hair may seem non-controversial. Forget that.

Shea Moisture, a brand long marketed primarily to African-American women, got a social-media smackdown Monday afternoon that made it the top U.S. Twitter trend with nearly 33,000 tweets as of 5 p.m. Tweets objected to new advertising that reaches out to white women and equates the “hair hate” they face to what black women encounter. By 6 p.m., the brand had pulled the ad.

Commenters saw the ad as an effort by Shea Moisture to move away from its core consumers toward white women, some of whom are depicted in the 60-second video as using Shea Moisture products. A tweet by Nana Jibril, who describes herself on LinkedIn as a freelance social-media expert and former social-media manager at her alma mater Old Dominion, appears to have started things.

Other tweets included satire—one depicting an ugly desegregation confrontation as white women clamoring for Shea Moisture.

In another, Rachel Dolezal, the former Spokane, Wash., NAACP president who is white but said she “identifies as black,” expressing an interest in the brand.

“At the core of it is that the African-American community has over time seen many brands that stood for them not stand for them,” said Richelieu Dennis, founder and CEO of Sundial Brands, which markets the Shea Moisture and Nubian Heritage brands. “And they’re very concerned that a brand that has meant so much to this community will no longer stand for them. The reality is that we’ll always stand for them.”

The ad from VaynerMedia is part of a campaign that features a diverse group of 40 women, focusing on “the different challenges in society around hair and beauty,” Dennis said. “Knowing the ethos of the brand and where it started, we know better, and we should make sure our core African-American consumer always feels represented in everything we do, because we are not moving away from her.”

The ad, since pulled, was part of a broader campaign created by a collaboration of in-house and outside agencies.

Haircare brands that appeal to predominantly white women—such as Unilever’s Dove and Procter & Gamble Co.’s Pantene—have reached out to African-American women and other ethnic groups without major recriminations. Dove did so with ads and products focused on curly hair, without making them overtly about any particular ethnic group. Pantene in March launched a campaign in March aimed at combatting bias against African-American hairstyles.

13353: A Different Dumbness.

Campaign dumped different diverted diversity dookie, as Global Editor-in-Chief Claire Beale declared the imperative to add people with disabilities to the discussion. “Diversity has become a fashionably hot topic in our industry with regard to gender or sexuality,” announced Beale. “But we’re lagging on the subject of disability.” Actually, we’re lagging on the subject of true diversity. Whining about the oh-so-awful plight of White women—and generously mixing in the disabled—is switching the topic, ultimately dodging any accountability or responsibility for the real problem. It’s astounding that idiots like Beale have the audacity to pontificate on diversity without a single mention of race and ethnicity. Beale boldly advocates for more people with disabilities to appear in advertising, yet where was she when studies exposed the deliberate exclusion of minorities in U.K. adverts? Beale closed her bullshit by typing, “Fundamentally, with all types of disability, as with other aspects of diversity, our industry and our work are richer and more rewarding if we embrace difference.” Hell, Beale can’t even embrace difference in her own office. She displays chronic symptoms of diversity disabilities.

We must celebrate difference

With all types of disability and diversity, our work is richer and more rewarding if we embrace difference.

By Claire Beale

As I write this, Mars’ brave work for Maltesers using disabled actors and themes hasn’t even aired on TV yet, but I’ve already had someone email me to complain that the ads are not diverse enough. “Not enough men in them,” they whined.

I think it was a joke. But it does highlight that some people will look for faults even when (or perhaps exactly because) the original intentions are of the very best. Once the ads have been unleashed on the public, there will certainly be a whole panoply of reactions, and not all of them will be positive.

The Maltesers work, by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, was created in response to a competition from Channel 4 to normalise the portrayal of disabled people in ads. Diversity has become a fashionably hot topic in our industry with regard to gender or sexuality, but we’re lagging on the subject of disability. Still, Channel 4 deserves very real credit for inspiring advertising creatives and marketers here. The broadcaster’s superb “superhumans” commercials have done so much to erase taboos and there’s been a noticeable increase in the casting of disabled actors in ads over the past few years. Most importantly, often the actors have not been cast because disability is a theme of the script but just because, well, some of us are disabled. More of this, please.

But while we’re inching (far too slowly, of course) towards a more positive position on visible disability, we’re still way behind when it comes to dealing with invisible disabilities and tackling the taboos there. OK, hidden disabilities are hard to embrace through portrayal in ads, but let’s at least begin by acknowledging the issue within our own industry.

It’s worth noting that one of the pieces in this week’s Campaign was supposed to be a very honest, brave and immensely insightful and important article on mental illness in the ad business. Unfortunately, the article was withdrawn at the eleventh hour, not because its author had second thoughts but because the author’s agency requested it should not run. Perhaps there’s a perfectly reasonable and sensitive reason the agency requested its withdrawal, I don’t know. But I do know it’s a real shame that you can’t read it. Of course, some disabilities are actually hidden work weapons. As our article highlights, conditions such as ADHD and Asperger’s can heighten creative intelligence; in an industry that lives or dies on its ability to touch people through brilliant, surprising creative thinking, being able to see the world through a different lens to the rest of us can be a phenomenal asset.

Fundamentally, with all types of disability, as with other aspects of diversity, our industry and our work are richer and more rewarding if we embrace difference.

13307: RushCard To Judgment.

From Adweek…

These Clever Mobile Ads Challenge People’s Perceptions of Black Men and Police

RushCard pushes the boundaries of tech and tolerance

By Marty Swant

With the flip of a phone, a mobile video debuting today challenges viewers on how quickly we judge strangers not just by the color of their skin but by the context of their clothing.

The video begins with a black man in a white tank top standing in front of a black backdrop. He speaks straight into the camera, candidly but earnestly.

“This morning before I hit the door to leave the house, my spouse stopped me and told me to please be careful,” he says. “Lately she’s been extra prayerful that I make it through the day. She know how these streets play, and she say because of the way I’m dress makes me target for public disdain.”

But when watching it on a smartphone, flipping the video from vertical to horizontal at any moment tells a different story. In its place is the same man, wearing a full police uniform speaking the same words. Regardless of what he’s wearing, the monologue continues.

“And my kids stomach this pain too because the TV entertains you with story after story of how men who look like me don’t make it home, may even have to listen through the lens of somebody’s mobile phone, all because my life is prone to strike this tone of fear because somehow I appear to be your enemy, your adversary, or too aggressively dangerous or scary that you find it necessary to take my breath away.”

The video—along with a second featuring a different person in the same clothing reciting a different monologue—is the first in a series sponsored by RushCard, the pre-paid credit card company founded by hip hop mogul Russell Simmons. The series, titled Making Moves, is part of a larger ad campaign rolling out this month. The campaign was created by Narrative, an agency also founded by Simmons. (The videos only work on mobile devices.)

According to Narrative CEO Tricia Clarke-Stone, the video is meant to create a discussion around the issues of racial profiling and violence that has swept the nation over the past two years. Future films will address issues faced by other minority groups, such as those who identify as gay, lesbian or transgender. However, she said RushCard noticed that its core customer base has been concerned with growing tensions in some areas between civilians and police officers.

“If you think about it, you can’t make moves if you’re inhibited by judgment, stereotypes and a lack of openness,” Clarke-Stone said.

Working with Narrative, the company wanted to lean into art and poetry as a means of addressing the subject in a way that was “really riveting and highly charged.” So they worked with Gillian Laub, an acclaimed filmmaker and photographer who’s spent her career documenting issues of race.

Clarke-Stone pointed out that people viewing a video on a smartphone usually start off vertically before turning from portrait to landscape to see a clearer picture.

“We said maybe this could work to show an actual shift in perspective,” she said.

To pull off the tech that allows for a seamless transition, Narrative’s engineers built a framework that leverages video tags and HTML canvas that allow for swapping between two videos based on the device orientation. Because this is usually easier for Android devices than for iPhones, Clarke-Stone said Narrative’s engineering team rendered the video through HTML5 canvas but then allowed for two videos in a queue that would bring up each video right at the point when someone flips the phone. They then had to figure out the weighing of phones, along with working with cellular providers to understand how the video would be served to each phone so that it wouldn’t be too large of a file. The videos, shot on an iPhone, were meant to capture the rawness of the spoken word.

Addressing race is a sensitive topic. So what made RushCard feel it had the authority to discuss it in an ad campaign? Narrative and RushCard wanted to drive conversation rather than to ignore an issue that’s important to its target market.

“My hope is that these videos will be a starting point for a nuanced discussion about issues that affect our community and the entire country,” Simmons said in a statement to Adweek. “I believe in the power of art to create change, and these films use art and technology to actually show that change taking place.”

12769: Good White Folks.

Recovering Artist/Writer/Adman Lowell Thompson is working on a sequel to his 1996 book, White Folks: Seeing America Through Black Eyes. The next book is titled Good White Folks—and its work-in-progress content may be previewed at Thompson’s associated blog now.

12762: The Origin Of RaceMan.

From South Side Weekly

12716: Presidential Debate.

Artist/Writer/Recovering Adman Lowell Thompson—aka RaceMan—will discuss President Barack Obama on June 27, 2015.

12713: Booking Lowell Thompson.

Artist/Writer/Recovering Adman Lowell Thompson is out on the street. 57th Street Books, that is. The original shirt-pocket edition of “RaceMan Answers” is back on the shelves of the iconic bookstore at 57th and Kimbark in Chicago. Pick up an autographed copy today.

12662: Black & White Cartoon.

Artist/Writer/Recovering Adman Lowell Thompson created the cartoon depicted above and is open to receiving comments from the culturally competent and critics alike.

12604: Memo On Multicultural Mess.

Business Insider presented: “Here’s the Starbucks internal memo showing the ‘Race Together’ campaign was always doomed”—detailing the obvious reasons why the effort bombed, despite the coffeemaker’s insistence that all was going as planned. What is it about race and diversity that compels typically sane people to do stupid things? It appears that Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz doesn’t even understand his own business model, believing the long lines of customers waiting for over-priced beverages could accommodate the added task of chatting about culture. Give Schultz credit for not pursuing the contrived and clichéd tactics of minority barista intern programs or tax-deductible donations to ADCOLOR®. But #RaceTogether became #RaceToFailure in record time.

Memo to Howard Schultz: There were better ways to leverage the Starbucks experience to engage audiences. Simply pushing the discussions to the areas where customers hang out versus the lines would have worked better. Or create a promotion whereby people standing in line could Tweet a diversity idea to receive a discount on their purchase. Invite local and national thought leaders to deliver speeches and hold community coffeehouse conversations. Introduce special, limited-edition coffees with inclusive theme names. The possibilities are as wide and varied as the Starbucks menu.

12600: Cultural Competence 101.

Artist/Writer/Recovering Adman Lowell Thompson asks, “What’s Your Racial IQ?”