Gee, it looks like Verizon offers more opportunities for Black women than the entire advertising industry.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
10782: Just Say No.
At Ads of the World, the piece above featured a header reading, “DLF Place Saket: Say No To Crackers.” Wonder if White people will be offended.
10781: Quizzical Bullshit.
At Digiday, Brian Morrissey continues to display his cluelessness about advertising agencies—as well as his limited journalistic skills. The Digiday Ad Tech Quiz was designed “to test your ad tech chops.” The ten questions included, “Which company describes itself as ‘the leading provider of digital media trading technology and services,’ and the inventor of the demand side platform?” Honestly, does anyone—even the place self-identified as “the leading provider of digital media trading technology and services”—really give a shit about such trivia? Morrissey followed the first gem with The Digiday Agency Quiz, which led off by asking, “Which agency had a staffer who got drunk and soiled herself at an upfronts party?” Can’t help but think the second quiz had a distinct anti-agency edge, with a gossipy tone appealing more towards hardcore AgencySpy visitors. Digital shops are hardly without awful behavior, as evidenced by R/GA parties like the one featuring an exotic dancer performing for a couple of interns. Perhaps it’s time to create The Digiday Awful Trade Journalist Quiz. Morrissey would give Kiran Aditham and Bob Marshall a run for their money.
10780: Infographic For Inclusivity.
The Marcus Graham Project continues to fight for diversity in the advertising industry. Here’s the organization’s latest message:
The issue of the lack of diversity in the advertising industry is a serious matter. Earlier today we released the infographic above shedding light on the fact that 15% of the ad industry are people of color while our nation’s minority population is 37%. In order for our industry to be more reflective of the rich diversity that we have here in the United States, we need to continue to #TurnUp the conversation and share information on this important topic.
You can do this today by signing up for our Thunder Clap, which will combine the social media following of the supporters to send a UNIFIED MESSAGE to all of our friends and followers next Friday, Nov. 30th.
To do this we need to reach our goal of signing up 250 supporters to this effort. You can sign up via Facebook and/or Twitter to spread the word by…visiting the following link: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/698-tunein-turnup
In addition, you can support our organization this coming week by participating in #GivingTuesday. We know that many of you are taking advantage of holiday savings today with Black Friday, tomorrow with Small Business Saturday and Monday with Cyber Monday. Please consider making a donation to our effort on Tuesday, Nov. 27th.
10779: Job #1 For President Obama.
Black voters want Obama to focus on jobs
By David Jackson
President Obama’s coalition came through for him big time on Election Day, and now members of the coalition want him to return the favor.
African-Americans, who backed the nation’s first African-American president with 93% of their votes, are calling on Obama to pursue new jobs programs and make sure that budget cuts do not fall too heavily on middle- and lower-class Americans.
“I think the president heard us loud and clear,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, reports the Associated Press. “The collective message was, ‘let’s build on where we already are.’”
While the national unemployment rate came in at 7.9% for the month of October, that number for African-Americans was 14.3%; black unemployment has been as high as 16.5% during the Obama presidency.
In winning re-election over Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama also relied heavily on the votes of women and Hispanics.
From the Associated Press:
“Blacks made up 13 percent of the electorate this year, about the same as 2008, while participation among whites shrank slightly to 72 percent and Hispanics increased to 10 percent, national exit polls showed. …
“African-American voter samples in national exit polls are not useful for providing turnout measurements. Census surveys and other analyses eventually will provide turnout numbers for specific racial groups. But exit polls can be used to examine different groups as shares of the overall vote. And there, experts say, is where the evidence can be found of how much black voters delivered for Obama.
“Nationally, Obama’s share of the black vote was down slightly from four years ago. But in some key states, turnout was higher and had an impact, said David Bositis, an expert on black politics and voting at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
“Blacks made up 15 percent of the electorate in Ohio, up from 11 percent in 2008. And 97 percent of those votes went for Obama, leading Bositis to say Obama’s margin of victory in the state came from black voters.”
10778: Beauty And The Brand.
L’Oréal declares, “True beauty knows no boundaries.” Okay, but critics charge L’Oréal is known for beauty bias.
10777: Headache-Inducing Pitch.
Campaign reported Novartis is conducting a pitch for a global agency to internationally launch an over-the-counter product speculated to be Excedrin. Wow, a planetary shootout for a pharmaceutical account. Even The Pitch would pass on covering this high drama. Then again, will the competition include any non-White shops—and does Novartis actually believe a single network is capable of hatching a concept that will translate across continents? It all sounds like Corporate Cultural Collusion of epic proportions. One thing is certain: the final creative will suck worldwide.
Novartis opens pitch for global brand launch
By Sara Kimberley
Novartis, the pharmaceutical giant, is searching for a global advertising agency to handle the international roll-out of an over-the-counter product.
An RFI has been issued to a number of agencies, including UK-based shops, from the Denmark-based intermediary Haestbeck Consulting. The brief, dubbed “Project Cool”, covers the provision of advertising to support the launch of a product, which is not named in the RFI, across markets in regions including Europe, the US and Asia.
Novartis, which has its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland and has a presence in more than 140 countries, will require the appointed agency to target consumers as well as healthcare professionals.
Agency sources have speculated that the brief relates to a wider roll-out of the Novartis US pain-relief brand Excedrin. They said Excedrin, which spends around $45 million on US advertising, could be set for a global launch that will require a positive brand awareness campaign following a product recall in the US this year.
Novartis works with a number of agencies including DraftFCB London, Wunderman Switzerland and Grey Group.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
10775: Preaching To The Drunken Choir.
Church End Brewery invites you to wash away your sins—with booze. Add the people responsible for this campaign to the growing list of blasphemous marketers going straight to hell.
10774: Giving Extra Special Thanks.
Be thankful you’re not spending Thanksgiving at Golden Corral—or working there on the holiday.
But be sure to ask about the latest fake menu items when you visit.
10773: Dearth Of Doctor Diversity.
UIC hopes to increase number of Latino physicians
By Jason Lee, Tribune Media Services
Research shows that diversifying the U.S. physician workforce is critical to making health care accessible to more Americans.
That’s notably true for the nation’s Latino population, where the number of Latino physicians has lagged behind its growth to the largest U.S. minority. Latinos make up about 17 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This figure is projected to nearly double by 2050.
But while the number of Latino students enrolled in medical school reached a record 1,731 this year, the Latino percentage of all medical school applicants was just 7.9 percent, according to the American Association of Medical Colleges’ annual report, “Diversity in Medical Education.” The report also found that Latinos currently make up about 4 percent of U.S. medical school faculty.
The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Hispanic Center of Excellence aims to reverse this disparity.
The center, part of the UIC College of Medicine, spearheads a number of programs aimed at recruiting and supporting Hispanic medical school students and faculty. This fall, the college received a five-year, $3.4 million grant to support programs that address the shortage of Latino physicians and other health care workers.
Dr. Jorge Girotti, director of the center and dean of admissions for the UIC College of Medicine, said the center would use the new grant to help strengthen and simplify the educational pathway for aspiring Latino physicians, beginning in high school and up to the senior faculty level.
“The grant will build programs that help us accomplish our mission to improve medical care for Latinos by increasing opportunities for students to pursue health careers, and enrich their education with the goal of producing linguistically and culturally competent health practitioners,” Girotti said.
UIC enrolls more Latino students than any other university in Illinois, with the city’s Latino population at nearly 30 percent. According to the university, the grant benefits a number of programs aimed at attracting more Latino students to pursue health careers, including:
Medicina Academy, a program at four high schools that aims to persuade talented students to pursue health careers. Students in the program are supported in their math and science classes while networking with students at other schools and universities. With the grant money, the academy plans to expand services that help students as they make the transition from high school to college.
Academia de Padres Leadership Institute, a parent academy, which began as an outgrowth of Medicina Academy. The one-year curriculum offers Latino parents an opportunity to learn about what medical colleges are seeking from students, and how to navigate the often-complex higher education system.
A summer project that introduces high school students to health careers, tutors them in studying and writing skills, and prepares them for the ACT or other standardized tests. Through the College of Medicine’s Rockford campus, the program also reaches rural areas that have growing Latino populations.
A partnership with UIC’s Latin American Recruitment and Educational Services will offer additional assistance to help ease the transition from high school to college, especially for students pursuing health careers.
A program that features a two-year curriculum for medical students on cultural and linguistic competence. The center also hopes to develop new programs for junior faculty to improve their teaching and research skills, with the hope that they’ll move into senior faculty positions.
10772: It’s Easy To Forget.
BlueCross BlueShield declares, “It’s easy to stand out when your ideas are as diverse as your employees”—with an ad that doesn’t stand out at all.
10771: Biological Warfare…?
Yet another campaign from abroad that shows pharma advertising sucks worldwide.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
10769: MGP On CNN.
The Marcus Graham Project was spotlighted by CNN—including a video featuring the efforts of Lincoln Stephens.
Black advertising executives pay it forward
By Haley Draznin, Special to CNN
(CNN) — Brian Lee is a rare face in the advertising industry.
The 27-year-old assistant account executive at Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Oregon, is one of the 7% of managers (PDF) in advertising and marketing who are black.
When Lee was looking for a way into advertising after graduating from college, he didn’t know how to get his foot in the door.
Enter Lincoln Stephens.
Stephens’ passion to expose young black students to media led to the creation of the Marcus Graham Project, which mentors and trains youth in the skills they need to get a job at an ad agency.
“I started the Marcus Graham Project really out of a need to increase diversity in the advertising and marketing industry,” he said.
The project, named after Eddie Murphy’s advertising executive character in the movie “Boomerang,” began in 2007.
Stephens encouraged Lee to apply for the program’s 10-week intensive summer boot camp, where participants develop campaigns for real clients.
“He really set me up in a way that allowed me to get the foundation that I need to even be successful at Wieden+Kennedy,” Lee said. “And so if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.”
This year, Lee was a mentor and judge, joining his own mentor, Stephens, along with executives from advertising firms Publicis Kaplan Thaler and JWT at the One Club Creative Boot Camp. In the four-day competition in Atlanta, students were challenged to create an ad campaign. Winners earned a summer internship at Publicis or an invite to the Marcus Graham Project summer boot camp, where Lee got his start.
It allows Lee to pay it forward, just like Stephens did for him.
10768: The Diversity Of Sameness.
Exelis boasts, “Great minds don’t think alike.” Yes, but mediocre ones do.
10766: OMG WTF VW.
How does a brand with a history of generating iconic creative campaigns produce one of the worst diversity ads of all time?
10765: Jesse Jackson Jr. Jumps.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned from Congress, acknowledging he is also under federal investigation. “I am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the investigators, and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they are my mistakes and mine alone,” Jackson said in a statement. Unfortunately for Jackson, Cobbler and Gobbler were the only turkeys President Barack Obama would pardon today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
