This campaign for Third Shift Amber Lager from MillerCoors was created by Cavalry and The Heads of State. Not too sure about the concept, as it appears to be advocating that late-night workers should drink the brew—perhaps instead of energy drinks? Talk about an industrial accident waiting to happen.
Advertising Age reported Havas Worldwide assembled a new leadership team featuring a trio of White men to run the White advertising agency. Hey, you can never have too many White men in charge, right? Havas Worldwide Global CEO Andrew Benett initially sought a (probably White male) candidate outside of the network before settling on the three stooges senior staffers. Benett said, “They started to be a sort of natural forming team.” Well, naturally, as they’re White men. The decision to appoint them to their new roles might have happened sooner if the trio were brothers or blood relatives in the Bollore clan.
Havas Announces New NY Leadership Team
Tim Maleeny, Sean Lyons, Matt Weiss Become Managing Partners
By Malika Toure
Havas Worldwide New York has formed a new leadership team, effective immediately. Global CEO Andrew Benett has appointed New York Chief Strategy Officer Tim Maleeny, Global Chief Digital Officer Sean Lyons and Global Chief Marketing Officer Matt Weiss to newly-formed managing partner roles.
In addition to their current responsibilities, they will run day-to-day operations in the New York office with each exec overseeing a section of the agency’s client roster. Clients include Liberty Mutual Insurance, Keurig Green Mountain, TD Ameritrade and Dos Equis. The trio will also be tasked with reinvigorating the agency’s offering, acquiring new business and creating new sources of revenue.
“They started to be a sort of natural forming team,” said Mr. Benett, who initially looked outside of the network for someone to assume the role of New York head. Following a 20% increase in revenue last year, the agency has won new business from Edible Arrangements and WeddingWire in 2015.
Mr. Maleeny, Mr. Lyons and Mr. Weiss will report to Mr. Benett, who has personally overseen the office since former New York co-Chairman and Global Brands President Matt Ryan’s departure in late 2013.
“We look at our global staff function and ask, ‘Do we have someone world-class leading each area—digital, talent, marketing?’” said Mr. Benett. “If you look at the world’s top agencies, that’s something that’s in their DNA—two or three key people at the top who think of the business as their business.”
The agency will see a few additional changes. New York Exec Creative Directors Israel Garber and Jason Musante are being elevated to managing director-group exec creative director positions. Together, they will lead the creative department. Director of Talent Shannon Novak has also been promoted to managing director, talent—she will partner with the new leadership on talent recruiting and growth strategy.
These are the latest in a series of changes at Havas Worldwide. In December, Mr. Benett brought the Montreal and Toronto offices together under a single CEO and Chief Creative Officer. Last week, Ad Age reported the formation of Havas Work Club, Havas London’s partnership with digital hotshop Work Club, as well as the U.K. office’s new leadership team. The global creative group also launched Havas Helia last week, following the merger of digital agency Havas EHS and data capability Havas Discovery.
The Essence Festival wants you to share the love. Um, isn’t that Mickey D’s new platform?
The Adweek Staff presented a piece titled, “Meet 15 Young Innovators Who Will Change the Magazine Business”—and they managed to include two Black publishers in the bunch. Imagine that. Is the magazine industry more diverse than the advertising industry or was Adweek just being sensitive to Black History Month?
Not sure what motivated this HTC video starring Doc G and HTC America Senior Marketing Manager David Bruce—probably just another example of how White clients love hip hop. Somebody tell Bruce the video does not help his brand’s cause in terms of trying to establish credibility and coolness.
At Campaign, Karmarama Executive Creative Director Caitlin Ryan wondered, “When will the word ‘sexist’ become redundant in advertising?” Um, probably long before the words “racist” or “discriminatory” or “stereotypical” or “culturally clueless” become redundant. It appears the White women’s movement in adland continues with Ryan’s whining, which seems a tad outdated when considering the Dove Real Beauty bullshit bandwagon has been merrily rolling forward for nearly a decade. Plus, as Ryan proves with her ECD title, White adwomen in the UK are doing hunky-dory. But a peek at Karmarama’s leadership displays the typical lack of diversity prevalent at most advertising agencies. The bigger question being ignored is, “When will the word ‘White’ not be a prerequisite for succeeding in the advertising industry?”
When will the word ‘sexist’ become redundant in advertising?
By Caitlin Ryan
When will brands stop over-sexualising young women and stop reducing women to nothing but their looks in an attempt to sell a product?
When will brands stop portraying the “perfect” woman as a certain shape or size or look that has been determined by… who, exactly?
Ad execs and brand directors sat in lofty offices deciding that a skinny, young, round-breasted woman is the right look? Who does this even benefit? Certainly not women, even if they are the targets of this male-shaped image.
We are only a few weeks into 2015 and already Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in Australia has been forced to apologise for an ad.
The image appeared on its Instagram feed for Sunday Style, showing a woman in lingerie and heels posing on all fours on top of a messed-up bed, with the words “Interns wanted” brandished across it.
The ad was taken down, and Sunday Style claimed it always took its interns programme “seriously”.
As we all know, this is not a lone example, it’s just one of a disappointingly long list of awfully sexist images swirling around the industry.
At the end of last year it was Victoria’s Secret, making the poor decision to show young, extremely skinny girls with thigh gaps modelling the brand’s new line of bras named Body that caused outrage, especially as its messaging used the ineffectual pun, “The perfect ‘body’”.
Before that it was the Lynx ads showing women with identical slim body shapes clad in bikinis and flocking in their hundreds to a flabby and unattractive bloke simply because he had sprayed a scent on him – which is just as insulting to men as it is to women – and before that it was another brand, and another, and another, ad nauseam.
Last year, nearly 10 million women in the UK admitted to feeling depressed due to the way they look. According to research by the ‘Be Real’ campaign, 83 per cent of women do not feel confident about their body and a quarter of women skip meals just to lose weight.
Perhaps most shockingly, 33 per cent of children say they often worry about the way they look, while appearance is the largest cause of bullying in schools. A total of 10.2 million women do not exercise because they feel anxiety about their body.
More than half of the women in the survey said they felt powerless about society’s obsession with looks. And whose fault is that? Which industry perpetuates these negative ideas of what a woman’s body should look like, and what shape or size is considered perfect or beautiful or the best?
Yes it’s advertising, and just because the beauty industry or the media or Hollywood is also to blame for this atrocity, it’s no excuse for the men and women running ad agencies and brand campaigns to absolve themselves of their responsibility in this issue.
Though it is important, in my opinion, to have breasts on show if it is done for the right reason and is promoting a healthy image of women to both sexes.
Making sure women know what looks and feels normal for themselves is extremely important, and breast cancer charity CoppaFeel!’s latest campaign “#whatnormalfeelslike” is centred around pictures of women’s very real breasts – and the words used to describe them.
The women in the ads call their boobs everything from “sensitive” to “doughy”, “pillowy” to “squidgy”, and while the ads are designed to promote women checking their breasts regularly for any changes, they show the sheer diversity of women’s bodies in the process – something that is not shown in advertising. And something that should be promoted far more.
What has also truly felt like a big step forward this year in the way women are portrayed in advertising is Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’ campaign, which, in celebrating the way women “jiggle” when they exercise, how sweaty they get when they’re working out and how fun women playing sports can look, proves that women don’t have to be slim and young to enjoy themselves and feel good when they’re exercising.
And in a final nod to progressive brands, Virgin Atlantic has shown that taking out stereotypical and unrealistic images of women from ads can be another powerful way to stop the perpetuation of negative images of women.
By turning the focus away from Virgin’s slim, be-lipsticked and heeled stewardesses and including them in a completely new narrative, the airline has managed to update people’s expectations of its brand image without losing the emphasis of its tone.
Hopefully at the end of this year we’ll all be able to look back on12 months of hard work and say that 2015 was the year the word “sexist” became redundant in advertising.
Caitlin Ryan is the executive creative director at Karmarama
The 21st Annual Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair reflects the 2015 Academy Awards in its predominately White casting, despite the inclusion of David Oyelowo.
Charlie Sifford dies at 92; often called Jackie Robinson of golf
By Mike Kupper
Charlie Sifford, the gruff, cigar-chomping African American who paved the way for minority players in professional golf, died Tuesday. He was 92.
The PGA of America announced his death but did not specify the cause.
Sifford, known as much for his short swing as his short answers to interviewers’ questions, was commonly referred to as “the Jackie Robinson of golf,” an appellation he viewed with a jaundiced eye.
“If I was the Jackie Robinson of golf, I sure didn’t do a very good job of it,” he said often. “Jackie was followed by a hundred great black ballplayers. I was followed by no one.”
True, there has been no surge of African American golfers since Sifford, with a boost from a California attorney general, climbed over pro golf’s “Caucasians only” wall in 1960. But there has been a representative number. And had not Sifford persisted, would the sports world ever have heard of Tiger Woods, who became the dominant player in the sport? Or Vijay Singh of Fiji, Native American Notah Begay III, or South Korean K.J. Choi? Would Lee Elder, Woods, or anyone else without white skin, have ever been allowed to play in the Masters — a tournament Sifford never did get to play?
The easy answer: “If it hadn’t been Sifford, it would have been someone else.”
Perhaps, but Elder, the first African American to play in the Masters, would disagree.
“Without Charlie Sifford, there would have been no one to fight the system,” he told the New York Times in 1992. “It took a special person to take the things he took — the tournaments that barred him, the black cats in his bed, the hotels where he couldn’t stay, the country club grills where he couldn’t eat.
“Myself, I don’t think I could have taken it because I’m a little too thin-skinned. Charlie was tough and hard.”
Which was precisely what he needed to be, for what he couldn’t do with his talent, he did with his gumption, finally getting his tour card when he was 39, well past any athlete’s prime age. Even so, he won twice on the PGA Tour — one of those victories was in the 1969 Los Angeles Open — twice on the senior tour, consistently finished seasons among the 60 top money winners, was the first black player enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004 at St. Augustine, Fla., and in 2008 was honored as that year’s Ambassador of Golf. In 2014, he was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the nation.
“I really would like to know how good I could have been with a fair chance,” he pondered from time to time. “I loved the game, and I had a gift, but I had too much pressure. I will never know.”
It wasn’t so complicated at the beginning. Born in Charlotte, N.C., on June 2, 1922, Sifford was working as a caddie at the Carolina Country Club, out-earning his father at 60 cents a day, when he was 10, and playing the course on Mondays, when the club was closed to members, or whenever he could sneak in a few holes on other days.
Hence, his short swing: “I was always moving fast to keep from being thrown off the course. I never learned how to take my time…and develop a decent stroke.”
Still, he was shooting par golf — and smoking cigars — by the time he was 13. At 17, Sifford was taken aside by Carolina Club owner Sutton Alexander, who told him it would probably be best if he stayed away from the club.
“I had gotten too good and the members didn’t like it,” Sifford told the Atlanta Constitution. “Mr. Alexander was concerned about my physical well-being.”
So Sifford headed north to Philadelphia, where he had relatives, and spent the next four years working in a biscuit bakery and hustling golf at Cobbs Creek, a public course open to black players. Then it was off to the Army for service in the Pacific — he fought on Okinawa — during World War II, and when a 26-year-old Sifford returned to the States, it was with the firm desire to become a pro golfer.
In 1943, however, while Sifford was serving his country, the PGA of America, which ran the pro golf tour at the time, had inserted a “Caucasians only from North or South America” into its rules for membership. Thus, when Sifford applied, he was denied on the grounds that he wasn’t Caucasian. And when he tried to enter PGA-sponsored tournaments, he was denied because he wasn’t a member.
Sifford was determined, though, and kept picking away. He played — and won six national titles — on a circuit set up by other black golfers, and spent several years as a personal coach and assistant to singer-bandleader Billy Eckstine, playing wherever and whenever he could in the few PGA events that accepted non-whites.
“I went to Jackie [Robinson] and told him what I wanted to do,” Sifford recalled often. “He asked me if I was a quitter. I told him I wasn’t a quitter and he told me to go ahead and take the challenge.”
And it was a challenge. In 1952, playing in the Phoenix Open on an invitation obtained through former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, Sifford, Louis and their all-black foursome arrived at the green on the first hole and found the cup filled with human excrement. They had to wait an hour for the cup to be replaced.
At another tournament, again playing on an invitation, Sifford made a hole in one, which, it had been advertised, brought with it a new car and a cash prize. Somehow, though, the offer had been withdrawn, it was determined, just before Sifford teed off.
And always, there were hecklers yelling racial insults, kicking his ball into the rough, shouting death threats. Sifford ignored them as best he could, and played the best he could.
In 1955, at the Canadian Open, one of those tournaments that welcomed non-whites, Sifford led the first round after shooting a 63. That put him a stroke ahead of Arnold Palmer. Palmer went on to win, but Sifford showed in that tournament that he could play with the best.
In 1957, he won the Long Beach Open, and although it was not a tour event, it was co-sponsored by the PGA of America and included a number of name white pros.
Finally, in 1960, the PGA gave in and issued Sifford an “approved player” card. It wasn’t membership, but it allowed him to play in whatever tour events he could qualify for. And then, in 1961, under a threat by Stanley Mosk, then California attorney general and later state Supreme Court justice, to bar the tour from the state, the PGA caved in all the way, removing the “Caucasians only” clause from membership requirement.
Sifford didn’t take the tour by storm but he displayed his talent — and his mettle — in one of his first tour events and his first in the Deep South. It was the 1961 Greater Greensboro Open in his home state of North Carolina, where not everyone was happy to see him. Sifford was heckled and harassed — at one point his ball was kicked off the fairway and covered with beer cans — but he kept his composure, shot a 68 and led the first round.
That night, staying at the home of friends, he was told in a phone call not to show up for Round 2.
“Whatever you’re going to do,” he replied, “you’d better be ready at 9:20 because that’s when I’m going to be out there on the first tee.”
Sifford finished fourth in that tournament but later admitted to having played scared.
“It was one of the most frightening and dangerous things I’ve ever done,” he told the Daily Telegraph of London. “Of course I was worried. A black man playing golf in Greensboro, N.C.? I was worried, all right.”
Sifford is often credited with having been the first African American to win on the tour, but it didn’t happen that way. Pete Brown, who took advantage of Sifford’s pioneering and joined the tour when the offending clause was removed, beat Sifford to the punch, winning the 1964 Waco Turner Open in Burneyville, Okla. Sifford broke through three years later in Connecticut, winning the ‘67 Greater Hartford Open. He was 45.
In 2009, 40 years after Sifford won the L.A. Open, the tournament organizers established in his honor a sponsor’s exemption for a minority golfer who otherwise would not have been eligible to play in the event.
Sifford was preceded in death by Rose, his wife of 51 years. Among his survivors are sons Charles and Craig.
Two sightings of Artist/Writer/Recovering Adman Lowell Thompson: 1) A comment at The New York Times and; 2) Thompson’s latest effort to save the human race—HumaneCom.
Adweek reported McCann bucked the trend of appointing White women and global citizens to creative leadership roles by hiring a plain, old White man—Eric Silver—as North American Chief Creative Officer. To take the McCann gig, Silver is closing his namesake agency—which recently lost CarMax, its largest client. Lose your biggest client today, land a better job tomorrow. Only in America.
Eric Silver Will Close His Agency and Join McCann as North American Creative Chief
Silver + Partners lost biggest client, CarMax, in November
By Noreen O’Leary
Eric Silver is back in the big leagues, signing on as the new regional chief creative officer of McCann Erickson North America. Silver, who has worked at network agencies like BBDO and DDB, was most recently chief creative officer at Silver + Partners, New York.
Silver’s namesake agency is closing, sources said. In November it lost its biggest client, CarMax to McKinney, which became the lead creative shop after a review in which the incumbent did not participate. Other agency clients had included Ben & Jerry ‘s, Coca-Cola’s Honest Tea, Patron Company’s Ultimat Vodka and MSG Networks. It’s expected some of Silver + Partners’ remaining clients and execs will follow the CCO to McCann.
There was no one previously in the role of regional North America CCO, though the agency’s Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy, who were promoted to co-CCOs of McCann N.Y. in 2012, have been two of McCann’s most senior-ranking creatives in the states.
“Eric is a ‘badass’ creative talent,” said Rob Reilly, global creative chairman for McCann Worldgroup, in a statement. “With the momentum we are having here in the States, especially New York, the timing couldn’t be better for him to join.”
Reilly joined McCann Worldgroup a year ago, with a mandate that included elevating the creative profile of the Interpublic agency flagship, McCann Erickson. Silver’s hire comes after Reilly, formerly worldwide CCO at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, brought in other new talent last year like former CPB execs James Dawson-Hollis and Bill Wright who were most recently co-creative chiefs at OgilvyWest. Reilly also promoted John Mescall, the former ecd of McCann Australia who was behind the award-winning “Dumb Ways to Die” spot, to global ecd.
Silver + Partners, formerly known as Amalgamated, was founded by three former execs who worked together at Cliff Freeman & Partners in the late 1990s. Eric Silver, who also worked with them at the agency, joined in 2010 and became majority owner, prompting the name change in 2012.
Silver started his ad career as a writer at Chiat/Day before moving to Portland to work on Nike and ESPN at Wieden + Kennedy. After a stint writing as a staff writer on the Late Show with David Letterman, he went back into the ad business as a creative director at Cliff Freeman. He moved on to BBDO where he was an executive creative director, working on FedEx, Monster and the BBC. In early 2009 he joined DDB, New York as CCO and left a year later.
As a companion post to the 2015 MLK Day perspective, the following quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warrants commentary:
“If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.”
When MLK’s formula is applied to the advertising industry, the results reveal how diversity remains a dream deferred and denied. In fact, it’s pretty fucked up. To focus this examination—as well as commemorate Black History Month—let’s consider the Black populations in major cities.
Based on 2010 U.S. Census figures, Blacks comprise 82.7 percent of the citizenry in Detroit. How does that number hold up against the makeup of Team Detroit teammates? What’s the Truth Well Told on inclusivity at Commonwealth/McCann?
Blacks account for 54.0 percent of Atlanta residents. Are there even 54.0 Black advertising executives in the entire state of Georgia? Somebody ask Bruce Levenson and Danny Ferry if they know.
Chicago boasts a 32.9 percent Black populace. Leo Burnett will need far more than 66 years to achieve fairness by the MLK standards. DDB Chicago would have to scour the planet for global citizens to reach the promised land. If FCB Chicago were required to deliver on MLK’s logic, the White advertising agency’s leaders would shit their pants.
Los Angeles features a 9.6 percent Black demographic. Perhaps the single-digit percentage explains David&Goliath President Brian Dunbar’s belief that La-La Land agencies are more diverse—that is, the area is working with a lower-than-National-average figure. Meanwhile, any diversity numbers provided by Deutsch LA—via Twitter or other methods—would almost certainly be lies.
Blacks represent 25.5 percent of New Yorkers. Sorry, but Madison Avenue makes Mad Men look like a Shonda Rhimes television show.
The delegation, deferment, delay and denial of diversity in the advertising industry is downright discrimination. And dangerous, when reviewing this MLK quote: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
The New York Post reported RadioShack is filing for bankruptcy, closing half its stores and teaming up with Sprint to keep the remaining stores open. Um, a partnership between RadioShack and Sprint is like a Republican presidential ticket featuring Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Or a Dumb and Dumber sequel. Or the next Draftfcb. Or a Frobinson and Shirato family reunion. Hell, the comparisons could go on forever.
RadioShack ‘Sprints’ toward bankruptcy
By James Covert
RadioShack is finally about to blow its fuse.
The flailing electronics chain is nearing a bankruptcy filing — perhaps as soon as this week — that will close nearly half its stores while keeping the rest open in a partnership with telecom giant Sprint, sources told The Post.
The Chapter 11 filing is expected to be packaged with an agreement for Sprint to take over the leases of between 1,800 and 1,900 locations, according to sources — less than half of the more than 4,000 currently in operation.
Under terms recently being negotiated, those locations would be dual-branded under both the Sprint and RadioShack names, according to a source briefed on the discussions.
The rest of the 94-year-old retailer’s locations will be shuttered — with the exception of between 200 and 400 stores, according to a source. Those will be kept open as standalone RadioShack stores, although they won’t sell mobile phones and contracts.
Under the terms of the bankruptcy, Sprint’s proposal will likely take the form of a “stalking horse” bid for the chain, with rivals getting the chance to submit offers, sources said.
RadioShack is meanwhile expected to get $275 million in debtor-in-possession financing, consisting of $25 million in new funds plus the company’s existing $250 million in first-lien debt, according to a source.
“RadioShack’s not going away, it’s going to be shrunk,” according to one insider. “The idea is to bring RadioShack back to where it was 15 or 20 years ago and just sell electronics.”
RadioShack has taken a beating from brutal competition in the wireless market. In addition to big-box retailers like Best Buy and Walmart, RadioShack has been pummeled by the rapid retail expansion of wireless carriers like Verizon, AT&T and Sprint.
Last month, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure signaled 2015 “is a year in which we intend to grow our distribution dramatically.” Claure said, “You are going to see the opening of more and more Sprint stores as this is one area that we work on.”
The Huge Diversity Disparity in Tech
While many of the major players are admitting to the issue, more need to make efforts around it.
By Rebecca Strong — Staff Writer
It started with Google: After the company decided to release its employee diversity statistics last May, some nudging from activist groups helped led a slew of other tech giants to follow. Before long, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and others were all giving a look at their diversity—or rather, lack of diversity.
But there’s a big difference between admitting the problem exists and fixing it.
With one glance at GigaOm’s chart of company diversity data (above), you can see that it’s going to take some serious effort to resolve the disparity, particularly in terms of the percentage of black employees. The chart compares the ethnicity demographics of the U.S. population to those at top tech companies. (Hispanic is not a separate category for U.S. labor statistics.)
Apple appears to be among the closest to representing the U.S. black population in its employee base. But as GigaOm pointed out, that’s at least partly because it includes retail store staff. Apple and eBay tie for the highest percentage of black employees on staff, at 7 percent.
Locally, Groupon’s statistics reflected this national trend, with its domestic workforce at 71% white, 15% Asian, 5% Hispanic and 4% African-American. Following the release of this data, the company said that “Like many of our tech industry peers, we recognize that there is more we can do. As a company that is just six years old, our inclusion and diversity programs are evolving alongside our business.”
A faulty pipeline
Clearly, a major source of the problem for tech companies attempting to achieve a more diverse staff is that there are a limited number of black and Hispanic graduates emerging from computer science programs. According to GigaOm’s reporting, 6.5 percent of recent computer-science bachelor grads with this degree were Hispanic and 4.5 percent were black. Meanwhile, 61 percent were white and 19 percent were Asian.
In Chicago, there are a number of organizations working to address this pipeline issue.
For example, Teamwork Englewood increases digital access and use by families and businesses in the community by providing technology classes, computer literacy classes, and Englewood Portal trainings. Englewood Codes, an initiative under the Teamwork Englewood umbrella, is a 10-week summer intensive where kids and young adults learn how to design, build and maintain their own websites.
Blue 1647 is a Pilsen-based tech and innovation center that’s focused on education, offering a variety of classes and workshops to neighborhood residents. Last August, its CEO announced that they’ll be launching a new Blue 1647 shared-space in Englewood in 2015.
A third, I.C. Stars, provides tech-based workforce development to low-income individuals, emphasizing the fact that “the fundamentals necessary to succeed in tech are the same as those necessary for community leadership.” So, not only is I.C. Stars preparing people for a career in tech, they’re also training future community influencers.
Tech industry efforts
Some companies have also been making efforts, but more need to follow suit.
At CES this month, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced that the firm is investing $300 million to improve its diversity. He also set a goal to have the country’s demographics fully represented in the Intel workforce and management by 2020, and announced that managers’ pay will be tied to achieving the diversity goal.
Krzanich challenged the entire industry to make similar efforts.
“This isn’t just good business,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do. When we all come together and commit, we can make the impossible possible.”
Okay, it’s not necessarily a BHM advertisement, but Newport is very prevalent in Black media—and the cigarette brand ultimately creates a different-yet-distinct kind of Black history.
Advertising Age reported KFC is flying the FCB coop and landing its account with Wieden + Kennedy. As it turns out, Corporate Cultural Collusion was involved, as the advertiser staged a closed shootout between the two White advertising agencies; plus, KFC CMO Kevin Hochman has professional history with W+K. Now that’s fucked up, albeit not surprising in the world of modern Mad Men. Additionally, one could argue W+K has a conflict of interest, as the agency has been creating commercials for Weight Watchers that slam fast food. But again, in the modern world of Mad Men, such contradictions and hypocrisy are common occurrences. Billings trump ethics, morals and integrity. Hell, in White advertising agencies, ethics, morals and integrity are as rare as ethnicity, multiculturalism and inclusivity.
KFC Parts Ways With FCB, Set To Hire Wieden & Kennedy
Interpublic Shop Has Worked With Yum Unit For More Than A Decade
By Maureen Morrison
Yum Brands’ KFC is set to move its creative account to Wieden & Kennedy from Interpublic’s FCB, an agency the brand has worked with for more than 10 years.
According to people familiar with the matter, both agencies presented ideas to KFC in a closed pitch.
Wieden & Kennedy declined to comment. KFC declined to comment.
That KFC would choose Wieden & Kennedy comes as little surprise, given the chain’s U.S. chief marketing officer, Kevin Hochman, has worked with the agency in the past. As a longtime Procter & Gamble marketing executive on various brands including Old Spice, which Wieden & Kennedy handles, Mr. Hochman is well versed in the agency’s work, having overseen creative like “The man your man could smell like.”
Mr. Hochman joined KFC in January 2014, replacing Jason Marker, who was promoted to KFC’s president post in the U.S.
The KFC account shift to Wieden & Kennedy is the latest in a series of major account moves for Yum Brands. Last summer, Pizza Hut moved its account to Interpublic’s Deutsch from McGarryBowen without a review. Prior to that, Deutsch gradually took on lead duties for Taco Bell from FCB.
FCB has been a longtime agency for Yum Brands. It won KFC back in 2003, and for several years was also the lead agency on sibling brand Taco Bell. Although Deutsch took the lead on Taco Bell, FCB continues to handle marketing-services duties like retail for the brand out of its Southern California office.
The loss of KFC is a blow to FCB’s Chicago office, but the loss is mitigated in part by the newly won Michelob Ultra Beer North America account, which will be handled out of both Chicago and Toronto.
An internal memo sent to FCB employees by Chicago President Michael Fassnacht and Chief Creative Officer Todd Tilford said, “We are fortunate that 2014 has been FCB Chicago’s best year in a long time. We grew our top line by double digits, added 10 new clients to our family, attracted unbelievable talent from all over the world and had our fair share of publicity along the way.” Among those wins is a Nestle health-and-wellness image effort.
Of KFC’s business, the memo said: “We have done incredibly strong work for KFC over the last 10 years, especially over the last 24 months, when we worked unbelievably hard and smart on making KFC relevant for a younger generation. And we were successful. In 2014, KFC was the most social [quick-service restaurant] brand in North America, was ranked as the second most engaging QSR brand by Forbes in November 2014, and enjoyed very strong sales results over the last nine months that outshine the rest of the QSR category. We expect this trend to continue in 2015 while our new work runs nationwide.”
KFC in recent years has struggled to appeal to younger consumers, generally the biggest customers of fast food. Fourth-quarter and full-year earnings for Yum won’t be released until Thursday, but in the third quarter, KFC in the U.S. saw a rebound, with same-store sales increasing 2%. That followed a same-store sales decline of 2% in the second quarter and a drop of 3% in the first quarter.
KFC is Yum’s second-biggest ad spender behind Taco Bell, according to Kantar Media. In 2013, the last full-year of available spending data, KFC spent close to $284 million on U.S. measured media, while Taco Bell spent $327.5 million and Pizza Hut spent $247 million.
Overseas, KFC has had problems with sales, particularly in China, with an Avian-flu scare in 2013 and a food-safety scare last summer following reports that one of KFC and McDonald’s suppliers was blending expired meat with fresh meat.
This Loctite Glue commercial represents the first-ever Super Bowl appearance for the advertiser. Hopefully, it will be the last. Fallon, the White advertising agency responsible for the spot, is definitely a front-runner for the Most Culturally Clueless Creators Trophy. Note to Fallon: Making a mockery of a range of races and ethnicities does not lessen the offensiveness.
This American Family Insurance commercial might not be a BHM initiative—as the Dream Fearlessly promotion seems to target a multicultural audience—but it’s close enough given the patronizing warm-and-fuzziness.
Google saluted Langston Hughes’ 113th Birthday with an animated video featuring “I Dream a World.” Um, did anyone at Google bother to read the poem? Just asking.
MultiCultClassics will forgo an in-depth examination of the latest Super Bowl offerings from Madison Avenue—especially since too many White advertising agency wonks are already doing so. Rather, this post presents a few quick points to ponder.
In 2010, the Madison Avenue Project and NAACP presented a study—conducted by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida—that revealed the overwhelming majority of Super Bowl commercials were conceived by White creative directors.
So let’s review the progress five years later.
Black representation in the advertising industry has actually declined.
The Madison Avenue Project has essentially died.
White women have hijacked the diversity discussion.
While Super Bowl XLIX has been tainted by Deflategate, the advertising industry has created Inflategate. That is, White advertising agencies have been inflating the perception of diversity. Hiring figures are inflated via the addition of White women and global citizens. Collaboration and representation are inflated through cross-cultural smokescreens. The illusion of cultural competence is inflated by shamelessly producing patronizing poop.
Deflategate is being debated, scrutinized and investigated ad nauseam. Inflategate is business as usual in adland—and nauseating.
Allstate presents #GiveItUpForGood. The art direction is not very good. The copywriting is not much better.
