17355: BHM 2026—Macy’s.

 

Macy’s has been consistent in its annual support of Black History Month, Black-owned brands, and UNCF scholarships.

 

Yet the 2026 celebration depicted above is a carbon copy of the 2024 version below.

16537: BHM 2024—Macy’s.

 

Macy’s has got all the BHM departments covered: 1) Supporting Black-owned brands; 2) Allyships with HBCUs, and; 3) Awarding minority scholarships. The iconic retailer has given over $3.1M to UNCF since 2021. Gee, what happened that year to inspire such cultural commitment?

 

14510: BHM 2019—Disneyland And Disney World Pale In Comparison To Wakanda.

Disney presents a Black Panther Black History Month with a $1.5 million UNCF donation and free movie tickets. Wakanda forever! Or at least through February.

13633: 75 Years Of Exclusivity.

Adweek saluted the Ad Council for 75 years of churning out PSAs for social change. Yet the philanthropic propaganda has featured a fair share of cultural cluelessness over the decades. Highlights include:

• Casting an Italian American to play an iconic Native American weeping over litter was a garbage move.

• Young & Rubicam, the White advertising agency that hatched “A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste” for the United Negro College Fund, also water-bombed Black protestors in 1966.

• “Love Has No Labels” advocates for love and inclusion, brought to you by R/GA, which can be labeled as a stereotypical White advertising agency that loves to include exotic dancers at company parties.

The Ad Council touts itself as a revolutionary champion for social change, yet its partnership with White advertising agencies perpetuates discriminatory exclusivity and stymies actual progress.

11004: BHM 2013—Ad Council And UNCF.

The Ad Council and UNCF took its old Black inventors ad and reinvented it into a new Black inventors ad.

9938: C’MON WHITE MAN! Episode 19.

(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)

Oops. MultiCultClassics was wrong to wonder why AMC series Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner tagged Y&R as racist. Turns out Weiner was historically accurate after all. Should have known better than to defend a White advertising agency. Consider the following an attempt to make amends.

Referring to the 1966 incident, Y&R Global CEO David Sable remarked, “Part of that story is sad but true—a few idiots dropped water balloons on protesters some 50 years ago. What I don’t know was whether or not they were fired. I certainly hope they were. Needless to say, their behavior was completely repulsive and not in line with the values of our company.”

Sable doesn’t know whether or not the culprits were fired? Please. If they had been axed, it would have been news—and the agency records would have noted the action. It’s a safe bet the morons were promoted.

As for the behavior being “completely repulsive and not in line with the values of our company,” consider the fact that advertising icon and Y&R alum Roy Eaton once declared, “I was the ‘Jackie Robinson’ of general market creatives. Starting at Y&R in 1955. I am appalled at the lack of progress that has been made till now. I have a presentation that I gave at DraftFCB and will be giving at my alma mater Y&R that addresses the action that must be taken on both sides of this equation. To continue the lie that ‘there just isn’t enough Black talent out there’ is a cover-up for an American malady that must be addressed.”

Remember too that Y&R essentially blackballed Harry Webber for having the audacity to expose Madison Avenue’s dirty little secret in 1969.

Most outrageous is Sable’s eagerness to brag about his agency’s creation of the classic UNCF campaign, “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.”

Sorry, Mr. Sable, but the water balloon scenario is hardly a first offense for Y&R. Your agency has essentially been turning the fire hoses on Blacks forever.

C’MON WHITE MAN!

9812: BHM 2012—Madison Avenue Ads.

If White advertising agencies produced self-promotional messages to celebrate Black History Month, the ads would probably look like these parodies.

9741: BHM 2012—Colgate.

Smile! Colgate-Palmolive presents the annual contribution to UNCF.

9234: Above The Influence Spot Is Brainless.

This Above the Influence commercial puts a literal spin on A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste. Dumb.

9191: Over 99 Billion Inner Cities Served.

Corny community outreach ad… or admission that the food at Mickey D’s is not very good?

8577: Y&R & UNCF Celebrate 40 Years Of Irony.

The Big Tent featured a column by Y&R Global CEO David Sable, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the iconic UNCF “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” campaign. Sable’s gushing included this quote:

“A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” has become emblematic of some of the best values of America—a belief in equal opportunity, in education, in human dignity and hope. And some of the best values in advertising, too: the timelessness of great emotional creative that’s rooted in insight, in emotion, in a great story that has the power to create a legacy.

OK, the campaign has accomplished great results and stands the test of time. Yet there is tremendous irony in the fact that at least two Black executives who served at Y&R—Harry Webber and Roy Eaton—have been quite vocal about the advertising industry’s dearth of diversity for over 40 years. And Webber actually worked on the UNCF campaign!

The way that Madison Avenue can create messages like “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” while showing complete cluelessness on cleaning up their own side of the avenue is enough to drive a person mad. Or as former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle said, “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind.”

8560: BHM 2011—Ad Council And UNCF.

The Ad Council and UNCF scooped up this ad again—which has a 2008 copyright. Time to invent a new Black inventors message.

7969: Insuring Clichés.

Allstate supports historically Black colleges and universities with historically clichéd stock photography.

5798: A Cliché Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.

The United Negro College Fund presents the Black Inventors concept. Wonder if a Black advertising person invented this overused idea.

Essay 4996

From The New York Times…

-----------------------

Revising a Name, but Not a Familiar Slogan

By DOUGLAS QUENQUA

MORE than 35 years after its debut, the slogan for the United Negro College Fund, “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” remains one of the most recognized in American advertising history.

The years, however, have not been as kind to the organization’s name, which has gradually become a source of alienation to the very people the group aims to serve. And while the fund is not prepared to drop the word “Negro” from its name, it plans to try to shift attention away from it.

A branding effort being introduced Thursday will seek to play down the full name and instead highlight the nonprofit’s initials, U.N.C.F. An updated logo will seek to communicate the changing direction of the group while putting renewed emphasis on the well-known slogan.

“Forty-plus years ago, when I started at Morehouse, I thought of myself as a Negro,” said Michael L. Lomax, U.N.C.F.’s president and chief executive, referring to the historically black college. “By the time I graduated in 1968, I was black. And then in the last 15 to 20 years I’ve become an African-American.”

The nomenclature issue is a decades-old predicament for U.N.C.F., which has long struggled to keep up with younger generations of African-Americans without abandoning nearly 70 years of hard-won brand equity.

“We want to hold on to our heritage, but we also want to find a way to say who we are that speaks directly and positively to a younger generation,” Mr. Lomax said. “I think we’ve found a happy medium.”

[Read the full story here.]