Adfreak presented brands saluting MLK on Twitter. You’d think White Castle wouldn’t want to touch the subject.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
12420: Clio Creative Bowl Sucks.
This campaign for the Clio Creative Bowl—aside from being another example of award show advertising that isn’t worthy of winning awards—really misses the point of our business. That is, advertising is intended to appeal to target audiences. The shitty series of advertisements dismisses the audience as ignorant while positioning adpeople as the true experts in judging messages. The problem is, everyone knows the typical jurors for advertising award shows are pulled from a shallow and exclusive pool, making their judgments questionable and suspect. The predominately male and totally White jury for the Clio Creative Bowl clearly proves the problem. It’s truly pathetic. Racist and sexist too.
Monday, January 19, 2015
12418: Google Glibness.
Gee, why does the MLK tribute from Google feel so patronizing and hypocritical?
12417: MLK On Madison Avenue.
Watching Selma inspired questions:
How would Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have felt about the advertising industry’s lack of diversity?
What would MLK have thought about the decline of Black representation in adland?
How would MLK have responded to all the excuses for exclusivity?
What would MLK have said about the stereotypical “solutions” for inclusivity?
If MLK hadn’t been assassinated, would he eventually have led a march on Madison Avenue?
Sunday, January 18, 2015
12416: Global Cultural Cluelessness.
In the previous post spotlighting new DDB New York CCO and Global Citizen Icaro Doria, MultiCultClassics stated that the man’s Brazilian background and international advertising experience did not necessarily translate to cultural competence on a worldwide scale. A comment left at the post provided two examples of Doria’s work—the print ad above and a Comedy Central video—to underscore the statement. Is ¡Ay, caramba! the same in Spanish and Portuguese?
12415: Serra—Saint Or Sinner?
Pope Francis’ wish to canonize California missionary met with contempt from tribes
Pope Francis announced his desire to canonize Spanish friar Junipero Serra Thursday, which angered leaders of the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe because of Serra’s history of abuse toward Native Americans during the missionary era of California.
By Nicole Hensley
Tribal leaders have condemned Pope Francis’ wish to canonize a 18th-century Spanish friar believed responsible for the destruction of indigenous people through his missionaries.
Hailed by historians as one of California’s founding fathers, Junipero Serra baptized thousands of Native Americans, promoting Catholicism throughout the coastal region.
But his work was anything but holy, argues Chief Anthony Morales of the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe.
“There’s nothing saintly about the atrocities on our culture and our people,” Morales told KNBC-TV.
His string of nine missions in what is now known as California attracted whole villages seeking a steady food source. It was also associated with Spanish soldiers suspected of torturing and raping Indians.
“Our people were enslaved. They were beaten,” Morales Sainthood has been a long time coming after Pope John Paul II beatified Serra in 1988 for being a “shining example of Christian virtue and the missionary spirit.”
Pope Francis made his desire to canonize Serra known aboard a flight from Sri Lanka to the Philippines Thursday while explaining why he canonized St. Joseph Vaz, a Sri Lankan missionary, according to Catholic News Service.
“Now in September, God willing, I will canonize Junipero Serra in the United States. He was the evangelizer of the West in the United States,” Pope Francis said.
The decision took local Catholic leaders by surprise, and also fueled rumors of a visit extending beyond the East Coast in September.
The Vatican has yet to confirm any trips besides Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families.
“I’m learning with Pope Francis, we should always be ready for a surprise,” Father Edward Benioff of the Los Angeles Archdiocese told KNBC-TV.
Despite historical concerns of abuse at Serra’s missionaries, Benioff supports Francis’ intentions.
“By canonizing a great missionary, he’s showing the whole church we’re all called to be missionaries,” Benioff said.
Serra’s beatification heralded protests at his Carmel gravesite and the Junipero Serra Museum in San Diego for rumors of harsh punishment, such as whipping while converting reluctant tribes, that have been passed down through generations.
The museum was defaced with slogans such as “Genocidal Maniac” and “Serra was a Baby Killer.”
Some historians have doubted the claims of abuse because of the lack of documentation, though it’s believed Serra wrote the following passage in 1780, according to a PBS biography:
“That spiritual fathers, the priests should be able to punish their sons, the Indians with blows appears to be as old as the conquest of (the Americas),” he wrote.
Serra died in 1784, but by the end of the missionary era in the 1830s, at least 60,000 of those Native Americans baptized had died of disease, according to the LA Times.
With News Wire Services
12414: African American Sniper.
How an Army Rangers sniper became ‘The Reaper’
By Kyle Smith
Nick “Irv” Irving had never taken a human life when his platoon sergeant took him to one side. “After you kill a man,” said the NCO, “there’s no other feeling like it. Mark my words. You won’t want to do any hunting again. The excitement of that will be gone. You won’t find any joy in it. Once you kill a man, you can’t replace that feeling.”
Later, in Iraq, Irv was on the .50 caliber machine gun in a column of Stryker armored vehicles outside of Ramallah. On Route Tampa, the sun had just climbed above the horizon when a car sped past them at 70 mph. “If this guy turns around and approaches us at that same rate of speed,” said Irv’s supervisor, “take him out.”
Irv wondered: Is it that easy?
The Iraqi driver stopped, turned around, stared. Then he gunned it. He stopped in the middle of the road, facing the American convoy. Irv lit him up, with a controlled seven-round burst. “I saw something explode inside the car,” he writes. “It wasn’t an IED, it was the man inside it. He turned into mist and chunks.”
“Yeah!” “Get some!” is what soldiers like Irv say when looking at the after-action videos of some of their exploits, but taking a life is a personality-fragmenting experience.
“Later that night, the image of that man returned to me,” Irving says in his new memoir.
“I had a dream,” he writes, “where I was in a room with a ceiling fan spinning above me. The blades of the fan were the man’s four limbs plus his head and chest. He was staring at me with that same dead-eyed stare, but as the fan spun faster and faster, he started screaming at me open-mouthed. Eventually the fan got spinning so fast that his limbs were whipped off and he sprayed the room with blood and guts, covering me as well with gelatinous goo.”
The sound of Velcro
Irving, the first black sniper in the Army’s Third Ranger Battalion, which had previously fought in the “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia, killed 33 men in less than four months. Other guys started calling him “The Reaper,” which became the title of his book.
The kind of fierce dedication and concentration Irving deployed every day as a Ranger would have surprised the younger version of himself. He describes his boyhood as “angry.”
Growing up the son of two enlisted soldiers in Fort Meade, Md., he didn’t want to be in the Army. No, thanks to a Charlie Sheen movie, he had a bad case of Navy SEAL-itis.
He wasn’t a great student — the only A he ever got was in junior ROTC — and his discipline needed work. But he knew he was a good shot from all the practice he took inside the house: He pockmarked the walls with rounds from an air rifle. Fortunately, the walls were white and his sister had white Play-Doh. Irving used it for spackling purposes, and his dad the sergeant never discovered the damage.
When he was older, he looked up Internet guidelines for homemade weapons and built himself a blowgun. His bedroom window took collateral damage.
Failing a colorblindness test ended the young man’s hopes for joining the SEALs, but he took to life as the Army equivalent, a Ranger. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where one night the “freaks and geeks” squad, as he calls the analysts, had directed him to a building that they estimated to be 25 feet high. From the top, Irving might have a clear bead on his man.
A team of professionals suited up, a sacred sound to Irving.
“I love the sound of velcro,” he writes. “I don’t know what the military did before it was invented. Hearing 35 or so guys strapping stuff on with that simple hook and loop mechanism, the sound of tape being unrolled as guys secure things to keep as silent as possible, was like the music we’d play in the locker room [in high school] before a game to get pumped up. That collective sound signaled that we all had each other’s back.”
As seen in Clint Eastwood’s film “American Sniper,” snipers enjoy the view atop buildings in urban environments, but they risk creating a silhouette that makes them easy targets.
Also, the wrong ladder can scotch the entire mission: Irving found he needed virtually every inch of the telescoping ladder he had brought to get to the top of the building. He was nearly vertical as he climbed. A loss of balance would have meant crashing on his back, shattering under the weight of his own equipment.
Irving got a look at the target, who turned out to be a suicide bomber, who sprinted away. The first shot missed. The second did not.
A squad leader later informed the sniper, “The hollow point expanded and pushed everything up and out of his chest. His heart was hanging there on the outside of his body cavity, still pumping a couple of times, spraying the tree and leaves.”
Dirty Diana
Irving had left Fort Benning in a riot of feeling. Even as he was hugging his wife, Jessica, goodbye, he had a sense of his other, lethal self as a ghost, peeling away and looking elsewhere.
Irving had another girl on his mind: Dirty Diana, his SR-25 rifle. Jessica didn’t know that the reason he sometimes stayed late after work was he wanted to doll up Dirty Diana. “I would stay at work for three, four or five extra hours just painting various colors and patterns,” he writes. “If there was an edge that was not painted correctly or crooked, I’d start the whole thing over again.”
Pemberton, Irving’s partner and spotter, had a plain-green weapon called a Win Mag. Irving considered this an ugly companion: “It had no personality whatsoever.”
Preparing to move out against a manufacturer of suicide vests, Irving would lovingly recheck Dirty Diana, checking the stock to see if the spot of gun grease he’d put there was untouched. Irving hated it when another guy touched his girl.
The relationship between man and weapon is never more intimate than at the moment of firing. “I squeezed the trigger and experienced that slow-motion effect,” Irving says. “The smell of the gas burning out of the suppressor mixed with the sweet smell of the gun oil I use. My eye still focused on the crosshairs in the center of the scope, I watched as the man collapsed, almost as if he were a balloon being popped.”
Sometimes things go a little less smoothly. One mission failed when Irving had so much glare in his scope that he couldn’t see anything. When his buddy Pemberton tried to take over, he heard instead what Irving calls “the click of death.” Empty chamber.
Pemberton swore he had loaded a round, and when he pulled back the bolt, one indeed popped out. “We both looked at each other in disbelief,” Irving recalls. The rifle was out of commission.
“That’s why I didn’t like using bolt guns overseas,” Irving writes. “That kind of mechanical failure is pretty typical.” A grain of sand gets into the mechanism and maybe the firing pin doesn’t strike correctly.
Without a chute
Even worse, sometimes you take aim at a tank and discover it’s one of your own (as Irving once did in Iraq, realizing his mistake just before he fired).
Or you jump out of an airplane and no parachute opens.
Late in 2005, before deploying overseas, Irving was training in how to seize an airport. Jumping out of a C-17 aircraft, he says, “I did my four count. Nothing. Five count. Nothing still. I looked up and could see my parachute was a cigarette roll — just a long, slim strand of fabric. That’s what we call a partial malfunction.”
Guys flying past were screaming, “Pull your reserve!”
So Irving yanked on his secondary parachute, and found that as a string went up, one of his legs went with it. He was suspended like a crazed marionette, his left foot up near his helmet as the ground rushed up at him. All he could do was try to land on one foot.
“I hit the ground hard,” he says, “and rolled over while being dragged along the ground by the chute. My equipment was being thrown off me, I could smell rubber from the soles of my boots dragging along.”
Irving’s thought: “My mom is going to kill me.”
Despite having served briefly in the Army herself, before leaving to raise her kids, Irving’s mother took a more quizzical approach to her son’s derring-do. “Why in the world do they have you jumping out of airplanes anyway?” she would ask. “That makes no sense. That’s not a very safe job for you.”
What happens next
Now, Irving is safely out of the military, running a training site in San Antonio. Today he blogs (at sofrep.com), reflecting on issues such as events in Ferguson, Mo., and posttraumatic stress disorder.
The PTSD issue is a personal one for Irving. He allows that after he separated from the Army in 2010, he wasn’t quite the same. One time, in a slight daze, he walked out of a Walmart carrying Gatorade he hadn’t paid for (inside the wire, you’d just take what you needed and leave). Snug in bed with his wife, he’d keep a pistol on the nightstand or on his pillow.
Moving on from life as the Reaper, he says, has meant a certain amount of healthy disassociation, of breaking off the past as best he is able. “In my mind,” he says, “there’s a me and there’s a him. He did those things when deployed.”
Still, he says, “That doesn’t mean that once you flip that switch or whatever, everything is OK.”
12413: DDB Hires Global Citizen.
Advertising Age reported DDB New York tapped a non-White man—Icaro Doria—to serve as the agency’s new Chief Creative Officer. What’s more, the hiring appears to demonstrate deliberate diversity at work, a definitely different direction for DDB. Doria is a native Brazilian who has held professional roles in Brazil, Portugal and the U.S. “I was very conscientious of doing the due diligence—I wanted to have all of the right data to form my decision and select the right person,” said DDB New York President and CEO Chris Brown when explaining the appointment. “I wanted a real modern creative leader. It was important for him to have strong New York and creative experiences, but also very important to be a global citizen.”
For White advertising agencies in the U.S., a global citizen usually means a White adman from the U.K. or a White adman who has spent time on an Asian continent and/or engaged in economic colonialism in an emerging market. Not sure what’s really motivating Brown’s reasoning. Perhaps he’s being sensitive to the ignorant trend of advertisers seeking one global idea for each megabrand. If so, Dario is probably better equipped to succeed than the average White adman; however, his experience abroad does not necessarily translate to cultural competence across planetary borders—especially since Brazil is hardly a mecca of multiculturalism and inclusive thinking. Regardless, Dario’s hiring is preferable to seeing yet another White man or White woman assuming a CCO position. The ultimate challenge will be for a global citizen to lead a staff predominately comprised of culturally clueless White Americans.
DDB New York Taps Icaro Doria as Chief Creative Officer
Was Founder and Exec Creative Director of W&K, Sao Paolo
By Malika Toure
Omnicom’s DDB New York has named Icaro Doria chief creative officer. He fills the position left vacant since Matt Eastwood’s departure for JWT this past June.
This is New York office President and CEO Chris Brown’s first key hire since joining the agency from DDB Group Australia last September.
“I was very conscientious of doing the due diligence—I wanted to have all of the right data to form my decision and select the right person,” he said.
Mr. Doria will report directly to Mr. Brown and joins the agency from Wieden Kennedy, Sao Paolo, where he was a founder and exec creative director. There, he led creative efforts on Heineken, Nike, Mondelez, Philips and Coca-Cola—including its 2014 World Cup campaign—amongst other brands.
“I wanted a real modern creative leader,” explained Mr. Brown. “It was important for him to have strong New York and creative experiences, but also very important to be a global citizen.”
Prior to Wieden & Kennedy, Mr. Doria had been group creative director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco following creative roles at both Y&R and Saatchi & Saatchi offices in New York.
“He has the experience of working in big agencies—ones that have come to fruition,” said Mr. Brown, citing Saatchi, where Mr. Doria was a creative director from 2005 to 2008, as an example. “But he works in a great start-up mentality as well—involved in building an agency from the ground up,” he said.
“Opening an agency and starting from zero is more something you do with your heart than something you do with your brain,” explained Mr. Doria, “but they’re skills you bring along with you for the rest of your career, you learn to make a good first impression over and over again.”
Mr. Doria’s official start date is March 1.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
12412: CarMax Drives New Review.
Advertising Age reported CarMax is now seeking a new White media agency, having just named a new White advertising agency. As noted earlier, car salespeople and adpeople always rank high among the most dishonest professions. Media wonks may be the worst of the bunch.
Carmax Starts Media Agency Review
Recently Tapped McKinney to Handle Creative
By Alexandra Bruell
Carmax, one of the largest used-car retailers in the U.S., has begun a media agency review, according to people familiar with the situation.
The Richmond, Va.-based company spent $62.2 million on domestic measured media in 2013.
The move comes months after the appointment of Cheil’s McKinney as the company’s new creative agency and less than a year since Jim Lyski joined Carmax as CMO. Mr. Lyski was previously CMO of Scotts Miracle-Gro, which is another media agency account currently in review and under new marketing leadership.
“Jim’s extensive marketing experience and strategic understanding of today’s consumer will be a tremendous asset to CarMax,” said Tom Folliard, CarMax president and chief executive officer, in August. “CarMax is in the midst of a national expansion plan, opening 10 to 15 stores in each of the next two fiscal years. We’re pleased to have Jim join us at this exciting time.”
Carmax is slated to issue an RFP over the next few weeks and begin presentations next month.
For the third quarter ended November 30, 2014, Carmax reported a 15.8% increase in net sales and operating revenues to $3.41 billion. Net earnings grew 22.2% to $130.0 million.
The company also recently began selling vehicle inventory on AutoTrader.com and Cars.com after a 16-month hiatus from the sites.
12411: More Team Detroit Garbage.
Team Detroit is running a promotion seeking composting concepts from college students. Too bad world-class liar Mark LaNeve abandoned the White advertising agency, as he’s a major producer of bullshit. Another endless source of compost could come from collecting all the layouts of bad ideas regularly churned out by Team Detroit.
12410: BBH Is Tesco’s New Bagboy.
Adweek reported Tesco shifted its $170 million account from Weiden+Kennedy London to Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Guess BBH can stop crying about the Johnnie Walker $40 million account loss. Hell, the White advertising agency even had to dump Tesco’s competitor, Waitrose, to take on the new client. When an advertiser dismisses an ad shop, it’s because of politics or unfair reasons. But when an ad shop dismisses a client as BBH did to Waitrose, well, nothing personal—it’s just business, mate!
Tesco, Britain’s Largest Grocer, Leaves Wieden + Kennedy for BBH
Coveted account spends $170 million annually
By Noreen O’Leary
The London office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty is the new creative lead for Tesco, the U.K.’s largest retailer and one of the country’s biggest ad spenders, at nearly $170 million a year.
The Publicis Groupe agency replaces Wieden + Kennedy, London, which won the business in 2012 after a highly competitive review.
As a result of the Tesco win, BBH London issued a statement saying it has resigned Tesco’s U.K. competitor, Waitrose.
“A unique opportunity has presented itself with Tesco, and we are looking forward to working with [new Tesco CEO] Dave Lewis and his team,” said Neil Munn, CEO of BBH Group.
Tesco has always been one of the U.K.’s most coveted ad accounts, but in the past year or so, the retailer has been plagued with an accounting scandal, declines in sales, profits and share price, and top executive departures. Tesco is also losing market share to discount chains like Aldi and Lidl.
Tesco was long a mainstay client at IPG’s Lowe before moving to startup London shop The Red Brick Road, which Frank Lowe launched to service the business, before moving on to Wieden.
12409: Oprah Is A Liar…?
Not sure how Women’s Day and an advertiser pulled off this promotion. A banner declaring, “Shocking! Oprah Lied!” leads to a landing page hyping “Oprah’s Backstage Skincare Secret Finally Exposed.” The copy goes on to state Oprah “is legally obligated to keep it under wraps due to her relationship with Clinique and their ‘Anti-Aging’ makeup line.” Plus, the advertisement insists Clinique’s makeup is not “causing her to look almost half her age”—rather, “Oprah’s Backstage Skincare Secret” is responsible for her youthful appearance. Did Oprah approve this promotion? Doubt it.
12408: Oscars President On Diversity.
Academy president responds to lack of Oscars diversity
By The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Responding for the first time to the firestorm of criticism over the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominations, film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs says the all-white acting slate inspires her to accelerate the academy’s push to be more inclusive. She also hopes the film industry as a whole will continue to strive for greater diversity.
The first black president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spoke out Friday night in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press about the Oscar nominations and the widespread criticism that followed.
All 20 of this year’s acting contenders are white and there are no women in the directing or writing categories. After the nominations were announced Thursday morning, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started trending on Twitter.
The Asian Pacific American Media Coalition issued a statement Friday saying the nominations balloting “obviously reflects a lack of diversity in Oscar voters as well as in films generally.”
Yet Boone Isaacs insisted the academy is “committed to seeking out diversity of voice and opinion” and that outreach to women and artists of color is a major focus.
“In the last two years, we’ve made greater strides than we ever have in the past toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization through admitting new members and more inclusive classes of members,” Boone Isaacs said. “And, personally, I would love to see and look forward to see a greater cultural diversity among all our nominees in all of our categories.”
A 2012 survey by the Los Angeles Times found the academy was 94 percent white, overwhelmingly male and with a median age of 62. A more recent survey determined the percentage of older white males had dropped by one point, the Times said. But with nearly 7,000 members and no requirement to retire, diversity is going to take some time.
Boone Isaacs declined to address whether she and the academy were embarrassed by the slate of white Oscar nominees, instead insisting that she’s proud of the nominees, all of whom deserved recognition.
She explained that while each branch comes up with its own criteria for excellence and each nominates its colleagues, all voting is individual and confidential.
For instance, only directors can suggest best director nominees and only actors can nominate actors. But the entire academy membership can submit suggestions for best picture.
“There is not one central body or group of people that sit around the table and come up with nominations,” she said. “It really is a peer-to-peer process.”
With all the accolades the civil rights drama “Selma” has received since its Christmas opening, some felt its failure to garner nominations for director Ava DuVernay or star David Oyelowo reflected a racial bias.
“What is important not to lose sight of is that ‘Selma,’ which is a fantastic motion picture, was nominated for best picture this year, and the best picture category is voted on by the entire membership of around 7,000 people,” Boone Isaacs said.
Besides best picture, the film received just one additional nod — for original song — in what was widely viewed as a significant snub. But fans shouldn’t feel that way, she said: “It’s nominated for the Oscar for best picture. It’s an award that showcases the talent of everyone involved in the production of the movie ‘Selma.’”
Boone Isaacs says the five best actor nominees — Bradley Cooper (“American Sniper”), Steve Carell (“Foxcatcher”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Imitation Game”), Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) and Michael Keaton (“Birdman”) — “are all at the top of their game.”
“There are quite a few actors this year at the top of their game,” she said. “There are five nominees and this year, these were the five.”
Diversity outreach is spread among the academy’s 17 branches, she said, since existing members recruit new ones.
“This is a membership organization, so we are all involved in this discussion and moving the subject of diversity forward,” she said. “It’s very important for us to continue to make strides to increase our membership and the recognition of talent.”
In its Friday statement, the Asian Pacific coalition said the responsibility for diversity in film should be industry-wide.
“It behooves Hollywood — as an economic imperative, if not a moral one — to begin more closely reflecting the changing face of America,” the statement said.
Boone Isaacs agrees, saying that as the academy “continues to make strides toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization, we hope the film industry will also make strides toward becoming more diverse and inclusive.”
Though she repeatedly stressed the Oscars are a competitive process and that she’s proud of the year’s nominees, Boone Isaacs acknowledged that diversity needs to be mandatory in both story and storyteller.
“It matters that we pay attention to, again, the diversity of voice and opinion and experience, and that it doesn’t slide, it doesn’t slide anywhere except for forward,” she said. “And maybe this year is more just about let’s kick it in even more.”
12407: Oscars Snub Diversity.
White, male field spurs Oscars diversity backlash
By Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY
One year ago, 12 Years A Slave triumphed as Oscars’ best picture — the first time the top prize went to a film directed by a black filmmaker, Steve McQueen.
It’s a stark contrast to Thursday’s 2015 Academy Awards nominations, which have come under fire for a glaring lack of diversity. Social media erupted after the slate revealed that the 20 contenders for lead and supporting actor and actress are all white for the first time since 1998.
“It was a total blow, it was like getting hit in the stomach,” says regional Fox network film critic Shawn Edwards, who runs the website ILoveBlackMovies.com. “It was like, ‘Here we go again.’”
Selma, centered around Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights struggle, received two nominations, for best picture and best song. The film’s Golden Globe-nominated director Ava DuVernay, who would have made history as the first female African-American director nominee, was notably shut out. So was her much-touted star David Oyelowo.
The director category is dominated by white men: Richard Linklater (Boyhood), Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) and Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher), along with Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (Birdman), who is a native Mexican. Angelina Jolie’s high-profile directing effort, for the epic Unbroken, went unnoticed. No women were nominated in the two screenwriting categories, including Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn.
DuVernay took the setback in stride, tweeting a “Happy Birthday” to Dr. King and urging her team to “march on.” But the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite took flight and voices such as actor Patton Oswalt expressed disdain.
“SELMA? One of the best pics of the year. But the directing, script, all the acting, & cinematography? Meh,” Oswalt tweeted. “Nice song, though.”
Edwards says he “was not surprised to see a complete shutout” of people of color in the major acting categories. “The writing was on the wall. I was disappointed but not shocked.”
He considers last year’s awards race, which included diverse films such as Mandela and Captain Phillips, a “once-in-a-lifetime fluke, the likes of which we will probably never see again.” He cites the voting body of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, made up of members of the film industry, as the issue: A 2012 Los Angeles Times report found that Oscar voters were 94% white and 77% male.
“You have to want to go out of your way to recognize quality cinema outside of your main scope,” Edwards says. “It’s an issue of understanding.”
The Academy’s first African-American woman president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment, but told New York magazine’s Vulture blog that the organization doesn’t have a diversity problem “at all.” Last year, the academy inducted 271 new members, including 12 Years A Slave supporting-actress winner Lupita Nyong’o and comedian Chris Rock.
Still, coming off of last year’s nominations, which included a black best-director nominee and three acting nominees of color, “this year’s all-white lineup in the major categories seems like a bit of a step backward,” says Dave Karger, host of movie site Fandango.com’s awards show Frontrunners. “I don’t think anyone is saying that black filmmakers should be held to a different standard. But today’s nominations suggest that the academy should continue its efforts to bring more minority members into the fold.”
Pete Hammond, awards columnist for the industry website Deadline.com, addressed the outcry in a column titled “Oscar’s bumpy ride.” He blamed other factors, such as an overcrowded actors’ field, for any snubs.
“But people are talking about this,” he says. “And it’s significant that we are talking about this.”
There was a silver lining for Selma heading into the awards, which will be given out Feb. 22.
“It’s the first film directed by an African-American female to be nominated for best picture,” Karger says. “That’s a fantastic achievement.”
Contributing: Arienne Thompson and Brian Truitt
12406: Hoop Dream.
Adweek reported on the NBA MLK commercial from new NBA AOR Translation. For an MLK advertisement, it’s okay—but not significantly different or better than the standard MLK-Black History Month fare, including last year’s Dream Big commercial starring Miami Heat Forward-Center Chris Bosh. Plus, it’s odd to see clips featuring NBA legend Michael Jordan in this context, as he’s always been neutral on political issues involving equality and civil rights. Of course, it doesn’t help that the progress depicted in the spot is tainted by modern-day cultural cluelessness from Donald Sterling, Bruce Levenson and Danny Ferry. Now, coming up with an MLK-BHM concept incorporating those Three Stooges would demonstrate breakthrough thinking.
Ad of the Day: NBA Celebrates Its History With Audio of Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech
Spot is artful and inspiring, but will have its critics
By Andrew McMains
In its first work for the NBA, new lead creative agency Translation uses the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to powerful effect.
Excerpts from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech serve as the backdrop for images of inclusiveness, as the league celebrates its history of firsts when it comes to breaking down racial and other barriers. Those images begin with Charlie Cooper, the first black NBA player, and end with a “We Are One” sign—a reference to how fans and players responded to racist remarks from former Clippers owner Donald Sterling last year.
In between are still photos and video of the likes of Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Yao Ming and Jason Collins, the first openly gay NBA player.
The ad breaks online today and will extend to TV during the NBA’s slate of games on Monday—Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It’s part of a broader campaign that continues into Black History Month in February and features a mentorship program for students; video vignettes about why Charlotte Hornets forward Marvin Williams is passionate about African American history; and an NBA Inside Stuff piece about a Tuskegee Airman who was the grandfather of Orlando Magic forward Tobias Harris.
So, kudos to the league for going well beyond just creating an ad.
That said, while many will find the ad artful and inspiring, don’t expect it to be universally loved. Any commercial use of King’s words—however well intentioned and well timed—is bound to draw criticism. Telecommunications company Alcatel learned this hard lesson in 2001, when it unveiled an ad from Arnold that depicted King making his famous 1963 speech but without the crowd of 250,000 that had amassed to hear it. The brand message was, “Before you can inspire, before you can touch, you must first connect.” Critics, however, recoiled at the blending of history and commerce.
By contrast, the NBA ad—while obviously designed, at least in part, to sell more tickets—feels commemorative and will run on TV for just five weeks. The league obviously got approval from King’s estate to use the audio. And it’s backing up the message of the ad with programs and actions to help the black community.
Nevertheless, some will still find fault with any commercial use of King. Even an ad as graceful as this one.
Friday, January 16, 2015
12405: Lowell Thompson’s Book Review.
Former Leo Burnett Chairman-CEO-Chief Creative Officer Richard “Rick” Fizdale authored a book—“999: A History of Chicago in 10 Stories”—that covers “the wealth, greed, power, corruption and even murder that accompanied the rise of arguably the most beautiful and historical residential building in Chicago.” Fizdale is a resident at the ultra-elite property, which isn’t surprising when realizing the man was among a quartet of executives that collected $300 million for the sale of Bcom3 Group Inc. (which included Leo Burnett) to Publicis Groupe in 2002. One could say Fizdale has personal experience with wealth, greed, power and corruption. Anyway, this post was actually typed upon learning that Artist/Writer/Recovering Adman Lowell Thompson published a review of Fizdale’s book. Thompson’s critique is titled, “A Great Guide for Chicago’s ‘Un-Colored’ 1%!” Check it out.
12404: Covering The Dream.
Eric Garner and Michael Brown Join MLK as Civil Rights Martyrs on New Yorker’s Cover
‘Dream of Reconciliation’ also includes slain officer Wenjian Liu
By David Griner
Over the past year, race relations in America have been more volatile than at almost any time since the 1960s, a fact The New Yorker’s cover next week will highlight in a bold way.
Created to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the cover illustration by Barry Blitt is called “The Dream of Reconciliation” and shows King marching alongside several black men whose deaths drew protests after a lack of prosecution or conviction: Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Martin was fatally shot in 2012 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who claimed he was defending himself after confronting Martin for supposedly suspicious activity. A jury acquitted Zimmerman of second-degree murder in July 2013.
Garner died in July 2014 after an NYPD officer detained him by wrapping his arm around Garner’s neck. The altercation was recorded on video, and Garner could be heard repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe,” but a grand jury declined to indict the officer in December.
Michael Brown was killed by police in August 2014 after reportedly struggling with a white police officer who confronted him in a Ferguson, Missouri, street. Brown, a suspect in a recent strong-arm robbery, was shot multiple times, and a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer led to widespread protest and looting in late 2014.
However, Blitt’s image also includes NYPD officer Wenjian Liu (posthumously promoted to detective), one of two patrolmen slain in a Brooklyn ambush in December. Their attacker, who later killed himself, claimed he was seeking revenge against the NYPD for cases like Garner’s.
While many who have protested the recent killings of unarmed black men as a modern civil rights crisis will praise the cover, the image is also sure to inspire outrage from those who have supported the police officers’ actions as justifiable in the line of duty.
In a statement about his inspiration, Blitt described the idea behind the cover:
“It struck me that King’s vision was both the empowerment of African Americans, the insistence on civil rights, but also the reconciliation of people who seemed so hard to reconcile,” Blitt said. “In New York and elsewhere, the tension between the police and the policed is at the center of things. Like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, Martin Luther King was taken way too early. It is hard to believe things would have got as bad as they are if he was still around today.”
12403: Cultural Cluelessness Trends.
Campaign published The year ahead for cultural trends by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R CEO Ben Kay. Of course, Kay focused on White culture—which pretty much covers the trend in UK advertising agencies. In short, the year ahead will see zero meaningful or measurable changes in the cultural cluelessness and mono-cultural shops across the UK and US ad industries.
12402: Sameness Succeeds At Deutsch.
Oh, look! Deutsch promoted a White man and White woman, along with a handful of other White people. Nothing succeeds like White succession. Meanwhile, Donny Deutsch becomes Chairman Emeritus in order to focus on his upcoming USA Network comedy show. From “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch” to “Love Calling” to “Donny!”—the man is heading for an inevitable appearance on “Dancing With The Stars.”
The West Coast Wins Deutsch’s Succession Race
L.A. execs take over North America roles
By Noreen O’Leary
In Deutsch’s succession race, the West has won. The Interpublic agency named Mike Sheldon—Deutsch L.A.’s chief—as CEO, Deutsch North America, with oversight of the L.A. and N.Y. offices.
The company announced a series of promotions that show the Marina del Rey, Calif., office has outstripped the New York operations in business development and caliber of work. Notably, the West Coast team snagged major accounts, from Sprint to Nintendo, and beefed up digital operations.
Sheldon will now report to Linda Sawyer, who becomes chairman, succeeding Donny Deutsch. Val DiFebo, CEO of Deutsch N.Y., continues in that role while Deutsch L.A.’s chief operating officer, Kim Getty, has become president of that office.
The agency also made these changes:
• Winston Binch, former chief digital officer of Deutsch L.A., becomes chief digital officer, Deutsch North America. L.A. has built a team of 190 digital specialists in four years, and digital now drives 35 percent of the office’s revenue.
• Pete Favat, former chief creative officer in L.A., is now CCO of Deutsch North America.
• Jeff White, Deutsch L.A.’s director of business development, is now evp, CMO, Deutsch North America. Under White’s leadership over the past year the agency has been awarded assignments from Sprint, Pizza Hut, HTC, Nintendo, Vivint and Georgia-Pacific.
The L.A. office has come off a year of explosive growth, having added Pizza Hut’s creative account last summer and lead creative responsibilities for Sprint late last year. The Sprint account alone represents some $30 million in annual revenue. Once the office staffs up for Sprint, it will have about 630 employees, making it one of the largest players on the West Coast. The office opened in 1997, under Sheldon, with just seven staffers.
In planning for this transition, outgoing North America CEO Sawyer said, “Mike [Sheldon] is the right person for the next chapter of Deutsch. In his 17-year run, he has built strong client relationships, has an innate ability to attract top-tier talent and has built a world-class integrated agency. Under his leadership, the L.A. office has grown from a handful of people to what is now the largest agency on the West Coast.”
Donny Deutsch, who has been a non-active chairman for the past several years, becomes chairman emeritus. He’ll end his relationship with the agency at the end of March as he begins work on his recently announced new USA Network show.
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