15563: Scholarships, Internships, Mentorships—And Full Of Ships.

 

Advertising Age reported on the latest heat shield from Procter & Gamble and Grey—Huenited—created to foster diversity by reaching out to minority high school and college students with scholarships, internships and mentoring. Wow. How original. Totally breakthrough bullshit, er, thinking from White enterprises angling for ADCOLOR^® trophies. The initiative smacks of classic delegating diversity maneuvers too. As P&G and Grey both admit to having “more work to do” in the area of diversity themselves, there’s blatant hypocrisy on display as well.

 

Procter & Gamble And Grey Back Group To Foster Diversity In Cincinnati Creative Community

 

Huenited will draw in other marketers and agencies to provide scholarships, internships, mentorship and awareness about creative careers

 

By Jack Neff

 

Procter & Gamble Co. is joining Grey Midwest and other Cincinnati-based creative agencies to launch Huenited, a non-profit group that aims to increase diversity in the city’s marketing and creative community by reaching out to high school and college students through scholarships, internships, mentoring and advocacy.

 

Most diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the marketing industry have been company-specific, national and focused on one part of the business — i.e. agencies or marketers. Huenited takes a different tack with a cross-industry effort in one city. Huenited, also initially led by executives from marketing and branding shops Katalyst Group and Hyperquake, aims to expose students to creative career options, plus offer mentorship, scholarships and internships to bring them into the industry.

 

“You can’t choose to pursue a career that you don’t know exists,” said Procter & Gamble Co. Design VP Tysonn Betts, who’s president of Huenited. “So the more we can expose students and their parents to the viability of creative careers the more likely we can get students to pursue them.”

 

The ad industry’s focus on diversity issues spiked last year in the wake of racial justice protests following George Floyd’s murder. But discussions that led to Huenited actually started a year earlier following a discussion Betts was part of at Brandemonium, a Cincinnati marketing conference.

 

Jamie Grady, treasurer of Huenited and senior VP of finance and operations for WPP’s Grey Midwest, approached Betts and Sean Rugless, president of Katalyst and now VP of Huenited, after the two were part of a Brandemonium forum on diversity in the creative community. Those discussions led to Huenited being founded this year. The group will be formally introduced in a presentation this week at an all-virtual version of Brandemonium.

 

“The idea was born of creating a collective, bringing together all of the marketing and advertising agencies in town and as many of the big clients we have that purchase these services,” Grady said. “If we can pull together all our energy, intelligence and money, we might actually be able to make some significant change in the industry within the city.”

 

Huenited begins as the city of Cincinnati became “majority minority” for the first time in the 2020 census. Data show 48% of the population identifies as white and 52% as non-white. In the city, 41% of residents are Black, 5% Hispanic, 3% Asian, Pacific Islander or Native American and 6% cited two or more ethnic groups. In the metro region, the population is 77% white; 12% Black; 4% Hispanic; 5% Asian, Pacific Islander or Native American; and 6% reporting two or more ethnicities. Nationwide, 60% of the population was white in the 2020 census; 13% Black; 19% Hispanic; 7% Asian, Pacific Islander or Native American; and 3% two or more races.

 

There’s been no citywide study on diversity and inclusion in Cincinnati’s creative industry, but Grady said it could definitely be better. “There are quite a few agencies that don’t have a single Black person,” he said. “Some have one. Even Grey, while we’ve made some amazing strides over the last two years, we’re still below the percentage makeup of the demographic we’re trying to speak to.”

 

A pitch deck for Huenited breaks down sponsorship commitments into four tiers, ranging from $5,000 and 50 hours annually in time commitment for small businesses up to 49 employees up to $50,000 plus 500 hours from the biggest companies with 500-plus employees. Grady said initial reception has been positive from other branding and marketing agencies and big local marketers, such as Kroger Co. P&G’s involvement as a charter supporter will play a big role in helping draw others, he said.

 

P&G last year reported progress on diversity in hiring and management over the past five years but showed needs for improvement, particularly with Black and Hispanic employees and managers, whose proportions remained below that for the U.S. population as a whole.

 

New York University marketing professor and industry pundit Scott Galloway, speaking at P&G’s Signal 2021 virtual event in July, challenged the company to drop requirements for college degrees if it wants to make strides in diversity hiring.

 

“We need more on-ramps into the greatest wealth creator to build the middle class in history, and that is U.S. corporation,” Galloway said. “What P&G needs to do [is] take 10, 20, 40, 50% of their entry-level jobs and decide that they don't necessarily require a traditional four-year bachelor of arts. Because when you say at P&G, or Apple or Tesla we are only going to hire college grads, what you've said is, ‘We want to hire less Black people. We want to hire less Latino people. We want to hire, less, single mothers.’”

 

“Certainly that conversation is not a new one and is maturing a bit now as we figure things out,” P&G’s Betts said. “As we’ve continued to recruit at P&G and tried to understand how to meet our own goals in terms of diversity, we understand that we have to do something different to get a different result. There are lots of folks in the industry who are practicing as creatives who may not have a college degree as a creative.”

 

Grady notes that one way Huenited will help address the education issue is by providing full scholarships for creative education in the city, which has, among other things, what Betts described as strong creative programs at magnet high schools, the top U.S. public design school at the University of Cincinnati, and other strong offerings nearby, including at the University of Northern Kentucky. Internship and mentorship opportunities from member companies will also play a role, Grady said.

15562: Not Feeling It, Fleet.

 

It would have been better if the copywriter who shat out this Fleet commercial experienced writer’s block…

 

 

15561: Latino Media Needs Mucho Mas Crumbs…

 

Digiday published an interview with Canela Media Founder and CEO Isabel Rafferty—presumably to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month—who says spending with Latino media is moving in a positive direction, “but the reality is the dollars are not where they need to be.” Perhaps Rafferty should take inspiration from Byron Allen…?

 

‘The dollars are not where they need to be’: A minority, woman-owned media company isn’t begging for ad support, but still sees room for change

 

By Kimeko McCoy

 

More than a year after social justice calls put further pressure on brands to spend their money in meaningful ways, diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are still a priority for many in adland. While they made DE&I pledges in 2020, this year was slated for action. It’s been notable among the biggest brands: in May, McDonald’s announced a plan to increase spend with diverse-owned media and in June, GroupM pledged to commit 2% of ad dollars to Black-owned media.

 

While many in the industry admit there’s more to be done, a newly launched minority and woman-owned digital media company, Canela Media, says it’s a step in the right direction as advertisers look to make good on their promises.

 

The New York City-based company has been around since 2019. But after last year, the company says more advertisers have looked to it in hopes to reach multicultural audiences. Earlier this year, Canela Media hosted its first-ever Upfront presentation and has recently acquired clients like McDonald’s, Lexus, Amazon, Verizon and Nissan. According to a Canela spokesperson, Hyundai and Target have already committed to brand partnerships in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

 

Digiday caught up with Canela Media founder and CEO Isabel Rafferty, to talk about being a young, Latinx-founded media company and why holding advertisers accountable to their diversity commitments matters.

 

This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.

 

After 2020, a slew of advertisers made diversity and inclusion pledges. How did that impact Canela Media?

 

Canela Media got the chance to be part of the two biggest forces happening in the market. One was the pandemic, where streaming grew rapidly. The other way is the social justice movement that has changed advertiser’s investments in multicultural communities forever. Our business boomed from having to beg advertisers to now being in a situation where we have all these brands that have never done multicultural work are saying how do we do it? Although it’s positive to see that change, there’s still not enough of an investment [compared] to the audience. When you start digging with some of these brands with huge press releases advertising multicultural [efforts], you start seeing the numbers. Percentages look amazing, but the reality is the dollars are not where they need to be.

 

Why do you think that’s the case?

 

The first thing that always got cut was advertising to minorities if you have budget cuts. But now, advertising to Latinos is not what they’re cutting. They’re not willing to.

 

Over the last year, how has that been remedied? How do you keep advertisers accountable?

 

When you dig into it, a lot of these companies say things because it looks good, but they’re not investing. Sometimes there are good intentions at the CMO level, but they don’t have the infrastructure below to make it happen. It gets lost and they go for whatever is easier, like putting money in Univision and calling it a day. It’s not being very authentic in their strategy. However, it’s going to take time. We’re going in a good direction.

 

As we see more advertisers and brands willing to have minorities and people like me at the table, that are willing to be outspoken and hold them accountable, that’s the only way to make change. You need to have minorities at the table having those conversations. We should not be an afterthought when they make those decisions. We need to be there ahead of structuring their campaigns.

 

What’s the importance of advertising with minority-owned media companies like Canela Media?

 

We’re built by Latinos for Latinos. To grow in the Latino community, authenticity is required. We can always tell when a brand is trying to reach us authentically. The expertise that we bring to the table on how to connect with us meaningfully and create content that resonates with those audiences (and subsets of it that’s not putting all Latinos in one bucket), that’s the difference.

 

You go to any other service and they’ll say, ‘Here’s a bucket full of Latinos. I don’t know who they are, but I can target them.’ No, let’s think about which audience, messaging, content and how we’re going to connect with them authentically with culturally relevant content. Working with a platform that is built by Latinos for Latinos, it doesn’t get more authentic than that.

15560: A Senior Moment From Amnesty International…?

 

Does this Amnesty International advertisement from Belgium—advocating for seniors’ rights—push stereotypes by symbolizing seniors as doddering cane carriers?

15559: Slowing The Spread Of COVID-19 Themed Ads.

 

After nearly a year, the crappy, contrived, clichéd COVID-19 Themed Ads collection only increased from 555 to 559 entries. Did the subject matter achieve herd immunity…?

15558: Papa John’s Is A Soul Man…?

 

Papa John’s in the UK is hyping its latest marketing move as follows:

 

Packed with full flavour that make your soul sing, Papa John’s new fresh soul range is here to serve up the good times for one and all. Cue the music.

 

Somebody cue John Schnatter for color commentary…

 

15557: Ad Age Presents Stock Solution For Diversity.

 

Advertising Age published a perspective titled, “Tokenism Versus Diversity: What Does Genuine Inclusivity Look And Feel Like?”—and illustrated the piece with the most tokenistic, nongenuine iStock photo imaginable. Brilliant.

15556: WPP SEC WTF.

 

Advertising Age published a Bloomberg News report stating WPP paid $19 million to settle SEC allegations that the White holding company violated anti-bribery laws. Somewhere, Miles Nadal is sneering, “Amateurs…”

 

WPP Pays $19 Million To Settle SEC Claims It Broke Bribery Laws

 

The industry’s biggest holding company neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings

 

WPP Plc, the world’s largest agency holding company, agreed to pay more than $19 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it violated anti-bribery laws.

 

WPP acquired majority interests in firms in high-risk markets without ensuring that these subsidiaries implemented WPP’s internal compliance controls, according to a Friday SEC statement. Founders and CEOs of the acquired entities exercised wide autonomy and out-sized influence. For example, a subsidiary in India continued to bribe Indian government officials in return for advertising contracts even though WPP had received seven anonymous complaints about the conduct.

 

“A company cannot allow a focus on profitability or market share to come at the expense of appropriate controls,” said Charles Cain, head of the SEC enforcement unit that handles violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

 

Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, WPP agreed to pay $10.1 million in disgorgement, $1.1 million in prejudgment interest, and an $8 million fine.

 

“WPP’s new leadership has put in place robust new compliance measures and controls, fundamentally changed its approach to acquisitions, cooperated fully with the Commission and terminated those involved in misconduct,” a WPP spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

 

—Bloomberg News

15555: Can’t Beat The Real Unnecessary Thing…?

 

This “advertisement” appears to state that when it comes to a waste of money, Coke is it!

15554: Smoking Sex & Stereotypes.

 

Big Tobacco has historically shown ignorance with Native American imagery—and even compounded the cultural cluelessness with sexual stereotypes.

 

 

15553: Can’t Beat The System—Or Systemic Racism.

 

Advertising Age published a lengthy report titled, “What to Expect As Coca-Cola’s Massive Agency Review Comes To An End.”

 

Um, expect that Coke’s branding campaign will be handled by a bunch of White advertising agencies in a White holding company, while minority shops receive classic crumbs…?

15552: Reading Mark Read Bullshit…

 

Campaign published an interview with WPP CEO Mark Read that was likely written and/or reviewed by the White holding company’s PR and legal departments. When asked about the JWT sex discrimination lawsuit, Read coughed up the following:

 

CAMPAIGN: JWT, now part of Wunderman Thompson, lost a recent employment tribunal case which found that two male creative directors were unfairly made redundant “because of their sex”. What has WPP, the parent company, learnt from this case and do you really plan to appeal the ruling as Wunderman Thompson has said?

 

READ: The events did take place three years ago at JWT since when we’ve merged the agency and changed the leadership. I am not going to comment on the specifics of that case but I would reiterate that we seek to run our business in a way that doesn’t discriminate against anyone in the company on any basis and that would be my commitment.

 

CAMPAIGN: Jo Wallace, a creative director, who got caught up in the JWT case but was not directly involved, gave an interview to Channel 4 News after the tribunal in which she talked about how it might take 100 years to close the gender pay gap. And if we look at WPP’s published gender pay gap figures for the UK, some of them do seem to have moved very slowly (median gender pay gap was 17.5% in 2020 vs 17.6% in 2019). This is relevant because you talk in these results about how diversity, inclusion and sustainability metrics are now part of the compensation scheme for senior leaders at WPP. So how do you drive change faster?

 

READ: It’s important to me and to our board that we’re clear on our expectations for our leaders that we expect them to build an inclusive culture in their company and the make-up of our workforce should reflect the societies in which we operate.

 

I think about it in two ways: Representation – do we represent the society in which we live in terms of gender, race and other metrics? – and belonging – do the people who work for us feel they belong in our company?

 

Both representation and belonging are things that we are increasingly measuring and we seek to put them in our people’s incentive plans to remind them it’s important and to reward and motivate them to make progress. I think we have to do that and can do that without discriminating on any basis.

 

If you look at the gender composition of our workforce, we’ve made very good progress on Hampton Alexander metrics [for senior female leaders] and we have some progress on the ethnic make-up of our workforce in the US and the UK – but we recognise we’ve got more to do on both.

 

Wow, that’s some pretty slick dodging on Read’s part. To distance himself by claiming “the events did take place three years ago” is pathetic. After all, Read orchestrated the merger between JWT and Wunderman. Did he believe that combining two White advertising agencies—historically dominated by White men—would create a DE&I Nirvana?

 

Read’s dual objectives—representation and belonging—spotlight the abject failure of the CEO and board. Regarding gender and racial equality, he admits “we recognise we’ve got more to do on both”—despite having been with the corporation when it proclaimed that the staffers “represent perhaps the most diverse example of diversity of any single organisation.”

 

Most outrageous is Read’s contention that belonging—which he defined by asking, “[D]o the people who work for us feel they belong in our company?”—is being measured. It would be interesting to learn exactly how the measurement is executed and recorded.

 

The easiest thing to measure is the increasing amount of bullshit excreting from Read’s mouth.

15551: New Pine-Sol Campaign Is Lame AF.

Did The Pine-Sol^® Lady get demoted? She’s not visible in the latest campaign. That’s rude AF, baby.

 

 

15550: Priceless Hypocrisy From Mastercard.

 

Mastercard claims that for Black women business owners, it all starts with respect. For Black women at the White advertising agencies partnering with Mastercard, not so much.

15549: Overreaction Of The Week.

Adweek spotlighted a Gain commercial hyping how the detergent turns people into “Gainiacs”—which seems culturally clueless and insensitive to people with mental health issues, no?

15548: Holy Shit.

The hacks responsible for this Abbot Ale campaign need creative direction and spiritual direction.

 

15547: No Serious Side Effects For Big Pharma…?

When pharmaceutical companies advertise their products, the copy is strictly scrutinized and dictated by FDA regulators. Yet for self-promotional messages, it seems like any propagandistic puffery flies.