13216: JWT & WPP BS.

Adweek reported on the latest legal volleys in the JWT Gustavo Martinez debacle, with Erin Johnson’s legal team arguing that WPP is pooh-poohing Martinez’s alleged bad behavior. A fresh filing also included, “if you complain of discrimination [at JWT], you will be attacked publicly, be branded as a liar and ostracized.” Actually, this contention applies to the entire advertising industry, as evidenced by any minority who has publicly pointed out the racist exclusivity, only to be ultimately blacklisted and banished from the field. Thank goodness new JWT Worldwide Chairwoman and CEO Tamara Ingram has established a hotline for employees to air their grievances. Act now—operators are standing by!

Legal Filing Claims WPP Is Downplaying ‘Sexist, Humiliating’ Behavior by Former JWT CEO

Erin Johnson’s lawyers say lawsuit should continue

By David Griner

The legal team for Erin Johnson says her agency’s parent company, WPP, is trying to downplay offensive behavior by ousted JWT CEO Gustavo Martinez while also tacitly discouraging other potential whistleblowers from stepping forward.

The agency holding company’s response to Johnson’s claims of discrimination by Martinez, her lawyers say, sends the message that “if you complain of discrimination, you will be attacked publicly, be branded as a liar and ostracized.”

The strong words continue an ongoing battle in the legal system and the court of public opinion dating back to March, when Johnson, JWT’s global communications director, filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination, harassment and a hostile work environment stemming from Martinez’s allegedly frequent and negative comments about women, minorities and Jews.

After initially standing behind Martinez, WPP hired an independent investigative agency soon after the allegations came to light. Soon after that, Martinez abruptly resigned. However, his exit has not stalled Johnson’s case against her employer.

In May, all three defendants in the case—Martinez, JWT and WPP—filed motions to have Johnson’s lawsuit dismissed. They claimed that Johnson had failed to prove that Martinez’s controversial comments, including a recorded staff meeting where he made light of rape, amounted to discrimination against Johnson.

This week, Johnson’s attorneys filed their response to the motion, calling Martinez’s rebuttal to her lawsuit “wrong both factually and legally.”

Her filing also takes issue with WPP’s claim that there are not enough proven instances of bad behavior by Martinez to show Johnson faced a hostile work environment at JWT.

“Corporate defendants list six such incidents [of offensive comments by Martinez],” Johnson’s new filing states. “That behavior, without more, could state a claim for a hostile environment. In addition, however, defendants ignore that those allegations are far from describing isolated incidents, but instead are examples of sexist, humiliating and threatening behavior that was typical of Martinez.”

In their motion for dismissal, WPP’s lawyers stated that Johnson’s claims didn’t illustrate a hostile work environment based on sexual harassment because she made “no allegation that he actually talked about ‘the sex.’”

Johnson’s lawyers fired back in their countermotion, saying Martinez’s comments were often overtly sexual in nature.

“The sex-based nature of Martinez’s offensive comments and conduct frequently was explicit,” her legal team’s new filing states. “For example, when Johnson told Martinez that his comments about rape were not acceptable in the workplace, he responded by telling her that ‘American women are too sensitive.’ Shortly thereafter, he grabbed Johnson around the neck with his arm, telling her to come to him so that he could rape her in the bathroom.”

WPP declined to comment on Johnson’s newest filing.

(Adweek included a copy of the latest filing from Johnson’s legal team.)

13215: Annie The Chicken Florist.

Annie the Chicken Queen is running out of cooking concepts, introducing Magnolia Blossom Chicken, which is essentially the same old shitty chicken shaped like flowers. Pick up your battered bouquet today!

13214: Displaying Hypocrisy.

This American Apparel window display announces, “Women represent only 12 percent of engineers in all major tech companies.” Um, American Apparel advocating for women’s equality is like the advertising industry advocating for diversity.

13213: Criminal Complacency.

Campaign published quotes from a discussion on diversity in the advertising and media industries featuring MediaCom Chairwoman Karen Blackett and Stonewall CEO Ruth Hunt. “What’s really struck me about the media industry is a significant complacency,” declared Hunt. “There is assumption of meritocracy, an assumption that creative is meritocratic and an absolute instinct to only work with your friends and people you trust and worked with before.”

Okay, the official definition of complacency includes:

1. a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc.

Hunt hit the proverbial nail on the head. However, she failed to effectively qualify the complacency—“significant” is too polite. Better qualifiers include:

Culturally clueless complacency

Racist complacency

Criminal complacency

The quiet pleasure and smug satisfaction of exclusivity is an ethical, moral and legal violation that cannot be tolerated with complacency.

Stonewall CEO: media industry ‘complacent’ about diversity

The advertising and media industry risks alienating clients and audiences because of its “complacent” attitude towards diversity, the chief executive of Stonewall has claimed.

By Omar Oakes

Ruth Hunt, the chief executive of the LBGT equality rights charity, told Friday’s Media360 conference in Brighton that a “lack of imagination” was responsible to diversity not being taken seriously by agencies and media owners.

She said: “What’s really struck me about the media industry is a significant complacency. There is assumption of meritocracy, an assumption that creative is meritocratic and an absolute instinct to only work with your friends and people you trust and worked with before.

“There is a very insider and outsider culture in media. If you are in any way other from the main group of people, who like working with people like them who get what they’re thinking in two-and-a-half sentences.

“The limitation that has creates means you are missing a significant amount of different views within that group. You’re missing audiences and clients. Organisations we’re working with like the big banks won’t want to work with you because you’ll feel anachronistic.”

However, Hunt did single out Channel 4 for praise as the “crème de la crème” when it comes to diversity. Her fellow panelist Paul Sapsford, the broadcaster’s group continuity manager, talked about Channel 4’s Year of Disability 2016, which aims to increase on and off-screen representation of disabled people.

Separately, Channel 4 launched a competition at Advertising Week Europe last month, which will see £1m in airtime gifted to a brand that comes up with the best creative idea featuring people with disabilities.

Karen Blackett, the chairwoman of MediaCom, pointed to a vicious circle in which the media industry fails to attract ethnically diverse candidates because they do not see enough ethnic people in advertising, while a lack of diversity within agencies meant creative ideas lacked ethnic representation.

She said: “What we do is set cultural norms. If you don’t see yourself on screen, whether that’s in a programme on an ad that’s a clear issue, not just for altruistic reasons but for business reasons.

“If you’ve got purchasing power of BAME increasing in the UK by 10-fold, ad they’re not seeing themselves in an ad or programme, there’s no relevancy.”

13212: Muhammad Ali (1942-2016).

From The New York Times…

Muhammad Ali, Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century, Dies at 74

By Robert Lipsyte

Muhammad Ali, the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion who helped define his turbulent times as the most charismatic and controversial sports figure of the 20th century, died on Friday. He was 74.

His death was confirmed by Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman.

Ali was the most thrilling if not the best heavyweight ever, carrying into the ring a physically lyrical, unorthodox boxing style that fused speed, agility and power more seamlessly than that of any fighter before him.

But he was more than the sum of his athletic gifts. An agile mind, a buoyant personality, a brash self-confidence and an evolving set of personal convictions fostered a magnetism that the ring alone could not contain. He entertained as much with his mouth as with his fists, narrating his life with a patter of inventive doggerel. (“Me! Wheeeeee!”)

Ali was as polarizing a superstar as the sports world has ever produced — both admired and vilified in the 1960s and ’70s for his religious, political and social stances. His refusal to be drafted during the Vietnam War, his rejection of racial integration at the height of the civil rights movement, his conversion from Christianity to Islam and the changing of his “slave” name, Cassius Clay, to one bestowed by the separatist black sect he joined, the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, were perceived as serious threats by the conservative establishment and noble acts of defiance by the liberal opposition.

Loved or hated, he remained for 50 years one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

In later life Ali became something of a secular saint, a legend in soft focus. He was respected for having sacrificed more than three years of his boxing prime and untold millions of dollars for his antiwar principles after being banished from the ring; he was extolled for his un-self-conscious gallantry in the face of incurable illness, and he was beloved for his accommodating sweetness in public.

In 1996, he was trembling and nearly mute as he lit the Olympic caldron in Atlanta.

That passive image was far removed from the exuberant, talkative, vainglorious 22-year-old who bounded out of Louisville, Ky., and onto the world stage in 1964 with an upset victory over Sonny Liston to become the world champion. The press called him the Louisville Lip. He called himself the Greatest.

Ali also proved to be a shape-shifter — a public figure who kept reinventing his persona.

As a bubbly teenage gold medalist at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, he parroted America’s Cold War line, lecturing a Soviet reporter about the superiority of the United States. But he became a critic of his country and a government target in 1966 with his declaration “I ain’t got nothing against them Vietcong.”

“He lived a lot of lives for a lot of people,” said the comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory. “He was able to tell white folks for us to go to hell.”

But Ali had his hypocrisies, or at least inconsistencies. How could he consider himself a “race man” yet mock the skin color, hair and features of other African-Americans, most notably Joe Frazier, his rival and opponent in three classic matches? Ali called him “the gorilla,” and long afterward Frazier continued to express hurt and bitterness.

If there was a supertitle to Ali’s operatic life, it was this: “I don’t have to be who you want me to be; I’m free to be who I want.” He made that statement the morning after he won his first heavyweight title. It informed every aspect of his life, including the way he boxed.

The traditionalist fight crowd was appalled by his style; he kept his hands too low, the critics said, and instead of allowing punches to “slip” past his head by bobbing and weaving, he leaned back from them.

Eventually his approach prevailed. Over 21 years, he won 56 fights and lost five. His Ali Shuffle may have been pure showboating, but the “rope-a-dope” — in which he rested on the ring’s ropes and let an opponent punch himself out — was the stratagem that won the Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman in 1974, the fight in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in which he regained his title.

His personal life was paradoxical. Ali belonged to a sect that emphasized strong families, a subject on which he lectured, yet he had dalliances as casual as autograph sessions. A brief first marriage to Sonji Roi ended in divorce after she refused to dress and behave as a proper Nation wife. (She died in 2005.) While married to Belinda Boyd, his second wife, Ali traveled openly with Veronica Porche, whom he later married. That marriage, too, ended in divorce.

Ali was politically and socially idiosyncratic as well. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the television interviewer David Frost asked him if he considered Al Qaeda and the Taliban evil. He replied that terrorism was wrong but that he had to “dodge questions like that” because “I have people who love me.” He said he had “businesses around the country” and an image to consider.

As a spokesman for the Muhammad Ali Center, a museum dedicated to “respect, hope and understanding,” which opened in his hometown, Louisville, in 2005, he was known to interrupt a fund-raising meeting with an ethnic joke. In one he said: “If a black man, a Mexican and a Puerto Rican are sitting in the back of a car, who’s driving? Give up? The po-lice.”

But Ali had generated so much good will by then that there was little he could say or do that would change the public’s perception of him.

“We forgive Muhammad Ali his excesses,” an Ali biographer, Dave Kindred, wrote, “because we see in him the child in us, and if he is foolish or cruel, if he is arrogant, if he is outrageously in love with his reflection, we forgive him because we no more can condemn him than condemn a rainbow for dissolving into the dark. Rainbows are born of thunderstorms, and Muhammad Ali is both.”

Read the full story here.

13211: ¡Ay, Crumba!

Adweek reported former Facebook Vice President Alexandre Hohagen is starting the world’s first Hispanic holding company. Hope it fares better than the last minority-owned holding company. The enterprise intends to specialize in young Spanish speakers. What’s the Spanish word for crumbs?

Former Facebook Exec Is Launching the World’s First Hispanic Holding Company

Alexandre Hohagen will help brands cater to young Spanish speakers

By Patrick Coffee

Alexandre Hohagen’s career to date has focused on two crucial elements of the marketing equation: digital media and young Hispanic consumers.

Over the last decade, he served as managing director of Google’s operations in Brazil and vp of Latin America and U.S. Hispanics for Facebook before stepping down in 2015. Now he and his business partner, former Isobar global chairman Pedro Cabral, want to help plot the future of the market they know best by creating the ad industry’s first Hispanic digital holding company.

In March, the partners acquired Miami-based agency Nobox. The 15-year-old shop currently works with clients including Netflix, PlayStation, Marriott, Royal Caribbean and Volkswagen, but Hohagen told Adweek that his long-term plans have only begun to take shape.

“I love to build things,” he said, “And I really see this as a much bigger than Nobox. We want to build a holding company made of independent agencies focused on creative, technology and performance for the Latin American and U.S. Hispanic audiences.”

Hohagen aims to address a very real problem for brands: a growing group of Hispanic consumers who aren’t properly served by the industry’s biggest agencies. “What I see is that [these consumers] are so relevant to the general market,” he said, “But very few local agencies understand U.S. Hispanics. When we consider the online world, it’s even worse.”

The newly appointed Nobox CEO plans to use the insights he gathered working for two of the world’s most powerful tech companies to better manage brands’ relationships with widely varied groups of young Hispanics. He noted, for example, that a given brand’s approach when trying to reach consumers of Mexican descent should differ from campaigns targeted to Puerto Ricans.

“Many clients who understand the importance of having a different set of communications to target Hispanics are working with specialist agencies,” he said. “What we want to offer, for a Ford or an American Airlines, is the opportunity to speak with Hispanics in both Latin America and the U.S.”

In shaping his company, Hohagen plans to use his experience at Google and Facebook to better navigate the agency world. “We know how many times [Sir Martin] Sorrell has referred to Facebook and Google as ‘frenemies,’” he said, “But on the other hand, they created a lot of opportunities for agencies, which gives me an interesting perspective on how to work with those clients. Look how many people left agencies to work at Facebook. I’m just doing the reverse.”

Regarding his approach to better utilizing those agencies’ existing resources, he said, “They’ve been talking with clients about creative. Now we are trying to talk about business objectives before creative. When I think about acquiring more companies, it’s to help them in the execution of ideas, strategy and the consultancy part [of the equation], which is in my mind the model we want to pursue.”

Hohagen and Cabral are already working on the next round of their long-term strategy; they have identified one agency based in Brazil and one based in Mexico as the second and third potential partners in their planned holding company.

“We are an alternative to the big groups who are trying to acquire agencies,” he said. “But small, promising agencies want to work with someone like us, grow their businesses and then think about being acquired by the big groups.”

13210: Covering Diverted Diversity.

This week’s cover of Advertising Age features past “Women to Watch” honorees—a group of predominately White women who are now staunch advocates for promoting more White women. Has anyone watched these women to examine their records on promoting actual diversity?

13209: Disputing Diverted Diversity.

From Advertising Age…

Black (Ad) Lives Matter: The Industry’s Biggest Diversity Problem

It’s Made Great Strides on Gender, but Not When It Comes to Race

By Ken Wheaton

It was a pretty impressive thing to watch. As the Erin Johnson-Gustavo Martinez case exploded over adland, an industry that often seems long on talk and short on action rushed to mobilize. At the annual 4A’s confab, rather than hide from this potential PR nightmare, those gathered rallied and planted a flag in the ground declaring that this sort of sexist, chauvinistic behavior will not stand.

Women must be respected, listened to and, yes, promoted.

But lost in all this were a couple of salient points.

While there was suddenly a lot of frank discussion about gender—indeed, the 4A’s added a panel to the conference at the last minute—and much of it was couched in terms of “diversity,” you probably could have counted the number of African-Americans in attendance on two hands.

And some of the most heinous remarks allegedly made by Martinez had nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with race. Indeed, the closest thing to a smoking gun in the case so far is a video of Martinez at another confab in Miami addressing a team of J. Walter Thompson employees. Much has been made of the fact that he made a joke about rape. It’s a loaded word and one that automatically brings to mind gender. But the joke, such as it was, was actually made at the expense of African-Americans. And he followed up a comment portraying them as sexual aggressors with comments depicting them as thieves.

Yet the overwhelming majority of talk about diversity over the last few months has been about gender rather than race. Perhaps it’s easier to talk about because we can see some light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to gender issues—and because there are more women in the industry.

This isn’t to say there aren’t gender problems that need to be addressed. Women are still underrepresented in the C-suites and in the creative departments of ad agencies. They’re not paid as much as men. And something has to be done about family leave. Those are major faults that need fixing—and they’re among the harder ones to remedy. But as in much of the rest of the business world, the trends are fairly clear. Women have been and are on the rise.

What’s not happening is any appreciable climb in the number of African-Americans in the ranks of advertising agencies.

Consider this assessment of the ad business:

“Despite expressed intentions to reform, the industry’s past record cast doubt upon its willingness and ability to police itself. Spokesmen testified that … the industry and individual companies might be trusted to make the necessary changes without governmental intervention. But critics contended that the industry has forfeited the confidence of the minority communities, and that government agencies must step in.”

So wrote the New York City Commission on Human Rights in 1978 after finding that only 5% of the industry’s workforce in 1967 comprised black and Hispanic workers.

Fast-forward to 2004 and the Commission on Human Rights had to go after ad agencies again because little to no progress had been made. It took a two-year investigation and the threat of subpoenas and public hearings to get major New York agencies to agree to modest minority hiring goals. A little improvement ensued. On average, the 15 agencies involved set a goal of hiring 18% minorities and ended up hiring 25%. “But,” we wrote at the time, “it’s no secret that it was a specific lack of African-Americans in the agency world that drove the investigation. And a closer look at the numbers shows that of the total new minority hires, only about 30% were African-American.”

In fact, according to a 2008 study conducted by economist Marc Bendick Jr., while African-Americans would be expected to make up 9.5% of the professionals in advertising (a number even lower than the 13% in the general population), it turns out they made up only—wait for it -- 5.8%. On the executive and managerial side, African-Americans made up only 3.2% compared with an expected 7.2%.

That study was conducted on behalf of the law firm Mehri & Skalet, which had started to investigate the possibility of a class-action lawsuit. Discussing the industry’s attempts to remedy the problem with internship programs, in-house minority councils and job fairs, attorney Cyrus Mehri said at the time, “What needs fixing isn’t the African-Americans; it’s the white guy running the agency. We want to relentlessly focus on not the excluded groups but the excluding groups, the people who control the power and make the decisions. That’s where people are running into barriers. The leadership has to come from the top.”

I’ve been told plenty of times that it’s Ad Age’s responsibility to do something about the diversity problem. Over the years, we’ve covered it from a journalistic perspective, but after a while, we’re just writing the same story over and over again, complete with the platitudes and excuses.

We now include questions about diversity in our Agency A-List entries. But those numbers are hard to check, when they’re even given. A number of agencies hide behind holding company policies about disclosure of such things. Others like to talk about all the South Americans and Europeans they’re hiring.

And while we’ve made a concerted effort to include more nonwhite faces in our lists of honorifics and on stage at our conferences—and I think we are getting better at it—we’re still going to sometimes find ourselves with a group photo on the cover that doesn’t have a black face in it.

What’s to be done? I’m not quite sure. This is a case in which we don’t really need more data or frank discussion. We need action. Cyrus Mehri wasn’t the only person who’s said the solution has to come from the very top. 4A’s President-CEO Nancy Hill said the exact same thing at the conference this year. And leading female execs including JWT’s Tamara Ingram, Facebook’s Carolyn Everson and AMV BBDO’s Cilla Snowball are pushing forward on this front. There are a number of efforts underway to right this wrong, but this is the sort of problem that can only be fixed by those with the hiring power—and the budgets to do so.

And because they’ve been mobilized and because they’re changing the dynamics of companies and boardrooms, perhaps this new group of leading women—of any race—are the ones to succeed where so many men before them have failed.

13208: Racism Made In China.

Advertising Age—along with lots of media sources—reported on a Qiaobi detergent commercial from China that is being deemed perhaps the most racist advertisement ever. Um, not really. As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, there’s a long history of racist detergent advertising, much of it coming from the United States. Plus, it’s no ancient Chinese secret that China is on the same planet as, say, Germany, when it comes to cultural cluelessness. It’s actually more offensive when U.S. agencies such as the former Draftfcb consistently churn out culturally clueless crap—despite being part of a holding company boasting leadership in diversity and inclusion. Even from a global perspective, hypocrisy and ignorance trumps ignorance alone.

This Chinese Ad Caused an International Outcry; Now the Brand Is Trying to Erase It

Widely Denounced as Racist, It Disappeared From the Brand’s WeChat Account

By Angela Doland

CNN asked if this Chinese commercial was “the most racist ad ever.” Vibe’s headline was: “There are few words to describe the racism packed into this detergent commercial.”

The ad shows a Chinese woman shoving her black boyfriend into a washing machine. The cycle runs, and when he emerges, he’s been “cleaned”—into a Chinese man.

The commercial is for a detergent brand called Qiaobi, which appears to be a small startup sold mostly through e-commerce. It’s also a shot-for-shot rip-off of an Italian spot uploaded to YouTube 10 years ago. (In the Italian ad, a pasty, hairy white guy is transformed into a buff black guy.)

The international press discovered the Chinese ad Thursday; a day later a search on Google News turned up over 120 articles on it.

The full-length Chinese spot was still viewable early Friday on the brand’s WeChat account, where it was posted weeks ago. One of those posts had said the ad was created with help from a team of directors from popular Hunan TV, a satellite channel. (Hunan TV did not return an email seeking comment.)

By evening, though, the full-length version was gone. All that remained was a post that included a 5-second cut of the end of the ad, without the black actor. That post said it had appeared on big media channels, including Hunan TV, Jiangsu TV and CCTV-7. It was not clear whether Chinese TV giants ran the abridged or longer version, and whether the ads ran locally or more widely.

Ad Age contacted someone representing Qiaobi online. He declined to answer questions, aside from saying that the brand is sold online, on WeChat and in a few shops.

A woman who identified herself as an employee of an agency called Guangdong Today Media had posted about the ad on Weibo, the microblogging service. She took pictures of the spot ostensibly running in a movie theater in the central city of Xi’an, perhaps to show the ad’s reach. Ad Age reached out to ask about the post; she erased it. A version also disappeared from video sites iQiyi and Youku. But copies remained, including on YouTube.

How did this ad get made in the first place? One Shanghai art director at a major international ad agency said Chinese people weren’t as shocked as foreigners, partly because few know anyone who is black. “When we were children we always told jokes about black people turning white, washing their skin and turning white,” he said. “So when we see this ad, it seems very usual.”

On Weibo, some people said Westerners were too “politically correct.” But there was also harsh criticism. A user with the handle Xu Bugouzishu wrote: “If you can’t see any racism in this ad, then congratulations, you are racist!” In a Shanghai café, young office worker Lin Fei watched it and said: “I wonder how those people would feel if a Chinese person was washed into something whiter?”

13207: Memorial Day Memories.

Celebrate Memorial Day with news from 24/7 Wall St., AlterNet, Daily Koz and Vox.

13206: Experimenting With Diversity.

Campaign published a perspective from Managing Director of Sunshine and Co-Founder of The Great British Diversity Experiment Nadya Powell, who shared details of the experiment’s focus on addressing the exclusivity in adland. Powell wrote, “The experiment provides practical and relevant actions to drive change specifically for the communications and creative industries,” and she presented five advice actions. “If every leader across the communications industry implemented the recommendations of the report we would build a better communications environment,” declared Powell. “If we know that diversity in the workplace leads to better experiences, solutions, and a better world in which to live, what excuse do we have not to change?” Give Powell credit for being idealistic; however, the root barriers to progress involve her being unrealistic. That is, history has shown “every leader” in the industry will not implement anything. Rather, the task is delegated to powerless Chief Diversity Officers or impotent Diversity Committees. Additionally, we do not “know that diversity in the workplace leads to better experiences, solutions, and a better world in which to live…” Because the ruling White majority has sustained exclusivity, there is zero proof that diversity will lead to better results. For now, The Great British Diversity Experiment is a not-so-great failed experiment.

The Great British Diversity Experiment 2016: Top 5 findings

In 2015, a group of senior leaders who work for the diversity cause in the advertising and marketing world got together to discuss one of the most pressing problems in our workplaces, writes Nadya Powell.

If the UK population is becoming more diverse, why do the majority of creative ideas we pitch to our clients so often get decided by a group of middle class white men, rather than a group that accurately reflects the target audience?

To tackle this issue, Daniele Fiandaca, Alex Goat, Laura Jordan-Bambach, Jonathan Akwue, Bejay Melunga, Tolu Farinto, Karen Fraser and myself founded The Great British Diversity Experiment.

The experiment provides practical and relevant actions to drive change specifically for the communications and creative industries.

We offered the following advice actions to businesses dedicated to creating diverse teams:

Create an environment where team members are comfortable being themselves

The teams that fared best were those where individuals felt empowered to be their authentic selves rather than conforming to type, and where ideas won by a democratic vote, instead of by cultural consensus.

The creative process is broken — readdress it

We need to embrace messiness and go beyond using standard decision-making mechanisms. Take the time to explore all ideas, and create strong structures and boundaries for the ideation process, to reap the rewards of truly diverse teams.

Re-train leaders

Question whether the archetypal role of the all-encompassing creative director is still fit for purpose. The experiment pointed less to a Don Draper-esque style of leadership, and more to the skills of empathetic, careful facilitators, capable of listening and creating space for a team to grow and flourish, with guidance.

Implement the ‘Rooney Rule’

Acknowledge that bringing in diverse talent is not a “CSR thing”, but is critical to business success. Demand that every new role has a diverse shortlist. Look harder, further and accept that often a round peg in a square hole is a good thing. The experiment showed that true diversity serves creativity by allowing people to be themselves and to draw on their experiences without being judged.

Make your attitudes as accessible as your buildings

14% of the UK identify themselves as having a physical disability — yet how many people in your company are from this community? Even worse, how many companies have not even discussed how you can encourage more people with a disability into your company? This is an issue that isn’t receiving the attention it deserves and our industry is falling behind because of it. Let’s start the debate and inspire change.

This is not an exercise in industry-bashing but a tool to confront the elephant in the room. If every leader across the communications industry implemented the recommendations of the report we would build a better communications environment. Teams that reflect the society with which we communicate produce more compelling, engaging work.

If we know that diversity in the workplace leads to better experiences, solutions, and a better world in which to live, what excuse do we have not to change?

Nadya Powell is managing director of Sunshine and a co-founder of the Great British Diversity Experiment

13205: Campbell Ewald Get Out Day.

AgencySpy reported Campbell Ewald axed 10 percent of its staff in the past month, speculating the downsizings were the result of four client defections—three of which were directly tied to the Ghetto Day debacle. For years, Chief Diversity Officers have insisted diversity and inclusion are good for business. It’s always been a tough notion to prove, however, as the chronically exclusive advertising industry has never had a clear example to cite as a standard. Yet now there’s evidence that a lack of diversity and inclusion—coupled with blatant racism—is bad for business. Thanks, Campbell Ewald!

13204: Digitize Diversity.

Adweek reported History is celebrating a new show via a project that will initially digitize 4,000 post-slavery documents to help Black families trace their ancestors. Hey, someone should digitally document every Black person who has worked in the advertising industry. Such an effort would likely involve far, far fewer than 4,000 documents.

History Celebrates New Show Roots With Project to Digitize Post-Slavery Documents

Will help African-American families trace their ancestors

By Katie Richards

When immigrants came into the United States through Ellis Island or arrived on the Mayflower, it was all carefully documented so that today, family members can easily trace the arrival of their ancestors. For those with relatives that arrived on slave ships, it’s much harder to trace, but a new campaign from History, “Reading for Roots,” aims to help those families learn more about their ancestors by digitizing some of the important records and documents.

“Reading for Roots” was created around History’s new show Roots—a four-night, eight-hour miniseries and one of Adweek’s 12 TV shows you don’t want to miss this summer—which debuts this weekend. As History was preparing to launch the show, it came across the Freedmen’s Bureau Project, an initiative seeking to digitize all of the records from the Freedmen’s Bureau.

With nearly 4 million slaves freed by emancipation, there were a high volume of documents detailing where they came from, who they worked for, who their families were, what their own names were and so on. The Freedmen’s Bureau Project has been working to digitize all of these documents, asking volunteers to sign up and help index over one million documents.

“The Freedmen’s Bureau have all these documents that they still need to read and they have an incredibly intense process wherein they have to check the document two or three times to make sure it’s accurate,” Elizabeth Luciano, vp, brand marketing at A&E, told Adweek. “So, why don’t we give people that chance to help this project along by letting them simply do it online in an easy manner?”

In partnership with 360i, History built a website that houses roughly 4,000 documents from the Freedmen’s Bureau, dating back to the 1860s. The idea was to tap into millennial viewers who, according to a key insight from History, would rather donate time than money. Volunteers simply need to visit the Reading for Roots website, open up a document and type in any names and dates they come across.

The campaign fits nicely with the show, which focuses on slavery in America and follows one family’s struggle to stay alive. “Roots is a story about family heritage, identity and where you come from. We want to make sure we could provide people with similar backgrounds in the United States with the ability to tell their story,” Luciano added.

History hopes to have all 4,000 documents digitized by the time the final episode of the show airs next Thursday. FamilySearch will house all of the documents online. They will also be available in the National Museum of African American History and Culture when it opens in September.

13203: Dancing With Diversity.

Google saluted Frankie Manning, Ambassador of Lindy Hop and swing dancing. Meanwhile, when asked about diversity, Google tends to start tap dancing.

13202: Keeping Up With The Joanses.

Numerous media sources have reported on the launch of Joan, a new White-female-owned advertising agency founded by Lisa Clunie and Jaime Robinson. The hype includes promoting “The Joan Foundation for Diversity in Advertising” with website copy that reads:

The world needs more irregular thinkers, and those are likely to come from more surprising places. See, as creative people, our unique life experiences are the building blocks for our best ideas. So, we’re establishing a foundation where a percentage of our time and profits will be spent seeking and inspiring brilliant people from all walks of life to join our field.

Watch this space as the Foundation announces its board, goals and plan.

Oh boy, MultiCultClassics will be visiting often to learn the exciting details.

Additionally, Robinson declared, “You don’t need to be a woman to work at Joan. Our philosophy is that a diversity of talent is what brings unique, interesting ideas. If you have the same, you’ll get the same.”

Okay, but right now, the diversity appears to be diverted—that is, it looks like the inclusiveness is exclusive to White women. Will the “percentage of our time and profits” dedicated to battling sameness exceed 3%? Or is this just the same old, same old smokescreen?

13201: 100% Diverted Diversity.

Campaign reported on the latest 100% diverted diversity bullshit from The 3% Conference: the launch of a survey asking, “Exactly how pervasive is sexual harassment and gender bias in the advertising industry?” According to Campaign, the survey was “driven by the JWT discrimination case” involving the alleged ignorance of former JWT Worldwide Chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez. However, The 3% Conference will play ignorant regarding the charges of anti-Semitism and racism in the case. Is a formal survey really necessary? Publicis Groupe Hairman and CEO Maurice Lévy—along with lots of prominent ad women—might insist there is no problem. The survey site claims, “Research from The 3% Movement reveals 23% of ad women have witnessed or experienced sexual harassment and 25% have personally experienced gender discrimination.” Okay, but the percentages for minorities who have witnessed or experienced harassment and/or personally experienced discrimination are waaaay higher.

13200: Objecting To Objectification.

Adweek reported on the Naja “Nude for All” lingerie campaign that allegedly celebrates diversity and rejects gender stereotypes. The campaign was created by Badger & Winters, a shop that recently generated press when it “made a commitment to never objectify women in our work.” Um, does depicting beautiful models wearing nothing but lingerie really support the commitment? Give Naja founders Catalina Girald and Gina Rodriguez credit for not choosing a standard White advertising agency to handle the campaign. At the same time, how diverse and inclusive is Badger & Winters?

‘Nude for All’ Campaign Breaks Lingerie Ad Stereotypes

Work by Badger & Winters features a diverse cast of women

By Christine Birkner

When Catalina Girald saw Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Gabby Douglas compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics, it sparked an interesting product idea. Girald, a former gymnast, herself, was taken aback by the fact that Douglas, who is African-American, was wearing a “nude” ankle wrap that didn’t match her skin tone.

“I wore ankle wraps many times and hadn’t ever thought about the fact that they don’t make them in other colors. It made me realize that ‘nude’ is not ‘nude’ for everyone,” Girald said.

Two years later, when Girald launched her lingerie company, Naja, she kept that idea in mind. Today, the company is debuting ads on New York’s subways for Nude for All, its new lingerie line that’s available in seven shades of nude for every skin tone. The ads feature 10 racially and ethnically diverse women who all have varied, and accomplished backgrounds, including a soloist for the San Francisco ballet, a software engineer and a Harvard Business School student. Naja plans to post the women’s stories on its website and social media channels later this summer, and expand the campaign to include more outdoor ads in other cities.

Also appearing in ads for the lingerie is Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez, co-founder of Naja. How Girald and Rodriguez became business partners is a story in itself. Right after she started Naja, Girald was approached by Procter & Gamble to appear in a video series showcasing up-and-coming Latinas, where she met Rodriguez, who also appeared in the videos.

“At the time, Gina and I were the only two people who really weren’t up-and-coming,” Girald said. “I had just started the company, and she didn’t have the part on Jane the Virgin yet. We were both struggling artists, and we became friends. Eight months later, she won the Golden Globe, so I asked her to help me launch the nude lingerie, and she loved the idea.”

The campaign was directed by Badger & Winters, whose co-founder and chief creative officer Madonna Badger is fighting sexism in advertising through #WomenNotObjects, an effort to combat ads that objectify women.

“I’m still bothered by the fact that most lingerie portrays women as sexual objects, and I wanted to change the way that lingerie is advertised to women,” Girald said. “I saw an article in the New York Times about #WomenNotObjects, and it resonated with everything I was feeling, so I reached out to them.”

“They fell in love with my story, and when Madonna and her team got ahold of the campaign, it turned out incredibly well,” she said. “We initially had an image where the women were serious, but Madonna wanted the image where the women were jumping up and down. She wanted to show their personalities.”

“The happy creative helps to drive home a more serious message about diversity,” Girald said. “We wanted to make people smile, and then, make them realize that there’s a broader issue here. You see the race and ethnicity issue more than anything.”

13199: Frivolous Follies.

Adweek reported lawyers for JWT, WPP and Gustavo Martinez filed motions to dismiss the infamous discrimination suit, and the motions called Erin Johnson’s claims “frivolous.” Okay, the official definition of “frivolous” includes:

1. characterized by lack of seriousness or sense: frivolous conduct.

Based on the definition, if Johnson’s charges are indeed frivolous, it appears that JWT, WPP and Martinez have overreacted with extreme seriousness and sense of purpose.

After all, Martinez saw fit to resign his global position.

Meanwhile, JWT and WPP immediately replaced Martinez with a White woman—Tamara Ingram—who instantly declared, “Top of my agenda is diversity and inclusiveness.” Ingram followed up by creating a Diversity and Inclusion Council and partnering with inQUEST, a diversity and inclusion consulting firm. Plus, Ingram is establishing a hotline for whistleblowers, which is unlikely to attract callers considering the way JWT and WPP are now treating Johnson.

Additionally, while the motions might be valid from a strict legal perspective, the documents feature a few items that border on being frivolous, in terms of lacking seriousness or sense. Adweek wrote, “According to the document, the ‘alleged racist and anti-Semitic comments referenced in the Complaint’ also ‘have no bearing on [Johnson’s] retaliatory harassment claim’ since she is neither Jewish nor a minority.” Does this mean White people cannot feel threatened by alleged anti-Semitic racists? BTW, did the lawyers conduct DNA and genealogy investigations to conclude Johnson is free of any Jewish or minority ties?

Adweek also wrote, “The argument holds that, while Martinez’s conduct as alleged may have been ‘offensive,’ it was not illegal because ‘Courts have repeatedly held … that a few sexual or racially-charged comments do not create a hostile work environment.’” Perhaps, but in an industry with a long history of sexual harassment and racial/ethnic discrimination, such alleged behavior receives heightened responses—as demonstrated by the aforementioned reactions from JWT, WPP and Martinez. It could be argued that Martinez’s alleged remarks and behavior fueled an already hostile work environment.

In the end, there’s a lot to dismiss in the motions to dismiss. But that’s to be expected when corporate lawyers team up with advertising agency executives. It’s Tommy Flanagan meets Joe Isuzu.

Lawyers for JWT, WPP and Gustavo Martinez File Motion to Dismiss Discrimination Suit

Filing calls Erin Johnson’s claims ‘frivolous’

By Patrick Coffee

Lawyers for WPP, J. Walter Thompson and Gustavo Martinez filed motions in New York’s U.S. District Court today seeking to dismiss in its entirety the suit filed by global chief communications officer Erin Johnson against her employer this March.

That suit, which inspired headlines around the world, led now-former JWT global chairman and CEO Martinez to resign one week after it was filed. He was immediately replaced by WPP chief client team officer Tamara Ingram.

Today’s filing by Davis & Gilbert LLP, the firm representing JWT and its parent company, urges the judge to dismiss the case on the federal, state and city levels. The 30-page document argues that Johnson and her legal team have failed to prove that she suffered any sort of “materially adverse” consequences due to Martinez’s behavior, which allegedly included racist and anti-Semitic statements, incidents of sexual harassment and at least one rape joke caught on camera during a 2015 meeting with employees and client representatives at a Miami hotel. It also claims that accusations of Martinez retaliating against Johnson for raising concerns about his behavior to the agency’s global chief talent officer Laura Agostini are baseless.

The document calls Johnson’s amended complaint alleging violations of the federal Equal Pay Act and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act forbidding discriminatory behavior by employers “frivolous.” It also argues that she used her relationships with various media outlets to further publicize her case and that a text message sent to Martinez just over a week before her legal team let JWT and WPP know that a suit would be filed disproves her claims about being subjected to a hostile work environment.

In that text, Johnson allegedly told Martinez that she had rejected a job offer from another agency “because I am loyal to you and what you are doing,” adding, “I felt like we had a good year together. So I hope I wasn’t wrong to stay. Lol”

The filing also states that Johnson’s claims regarding “her alleged reduced 2014 bonus” cannot be validated because the reduction of that bonus occurred “before she complained about her bonus in ‘late April and early May 2015,’ and before she allegedly complained in May 2015 about Martinez’s racist comments.” It further states that Johnson never clarified as to whether Martinez was made aware of her complaints regarding the aforementioned comments and that she therefore has no direct evidence that his actions were made in retaliation against her.

The filing claims that Johnson mentioned “virtually nothing supporting a hostile work environment claim” during the nine-month period between May 2015, when Agostini told Johnson she would investigate the claims made against Martinez, and the day in February when Johnson and her legal team let the companies know that a suit would be filed.

Regarding the implication that Martinez’s behavior created “a hostile work environment” for Johnson (which serves as the subject of her state and city-level claims), the filing argues that many of the incidents in question are “irrelevant” since they occurred before she “purportedly engaged in protected activity,” meaning activity that happened after the first formal complaints were made against Martinez in May 2015. According to the document, the “alleged racist and anti-Semitic comments referenced in the Complaint” also “have no bearing on her retaliatory harassment claim” since she is neither Jewish nor a minority.

Johnsons’s initial suit stated that, after she told Martinez that his rape jokes were inappropriate, he told her to “come to him so he could ‘rape [her]’ in the bathroom.” But today’s filing states that such incidents do not amount to sexual harassment because her complaints contain “no allegation that he actually talked about ‘the sex.’”

The argument holds that, while Martinez’s conduct as alleged may have been “offensive,” it was not illegal because “Courts have repeatedly held … that a few sexual or racially-charged comments do not create a hostile work environment.” The document goes on to cite various cases that included “more offensive” behavior but were not ruled to have created such an environment since they were “petty” and, in several instances such as the Miami meeting, were not directed at Johnson herself.

According to the filing, any adverse consequences Johnson suffered for filing related complaints—including the reduction of bonuses, the removal of certain duties from her schedule and her exclusion from executive meetings—amount to only “minor annoyances” that cannot be considered retaliation by her employer. “Not only did Johnson remain as Chief Communications Officer,” the document reads, “but she fails to allege how losing these minor duties adversely impacted her job.” WPP’s lawyers also argue that Johnson failed to prove definitively that Martinez slashed her 2015 bonuses in response to the complaints she made against him and that her request to be placed on paid leave following the suit’s initial filing “belies any claim that such leave is materially adverse.”

Finally, the document argues that the claim that these allegedly retaliatory acts “dissuaded Johnson from complaining” or otherwise affected her ability to do her job is disproven by the very filing of her suit.

Lawyers for Martinez himself, who hired a separate firm after resigning from his job, also filed their own motion to dismiss Johnson’s claims today.

13198: Whitey Chocolate.

This campaign shows mcgarrybowen in Brazil is as culturally clueless as mcgarrybowen in the U.S.

13197: Ogilvy’s Pipe Dream.

Campaign reported on a new internship scheme from Ogilvy & Mather apparently designed to attract a truly diverse crop of Whites into the field. Appropriately called The Pipe—as the idiots behind the concept must be smoking some pretty serious shit—the programme targets White folks ranging from young people unable to afford college to retirees. Ageism be damned! Plus, O&M joined other White agencies in signing a pledge to pay a minimum amount of money to newbies. So not only will there be a greater number of Whites flooding the industry, but they’ll probably receive more compensation than inner-city minorities earn. Brilliant.

Ogilvy & Mather looks for school leavers and retirees for new placement scheme

Ogilvy & Mather has become the latest agency to set up an initiative to boost diversity, with a group-wide creative internship programme.

In a bid to ensure applicants come from all walks of life there are no requirements for people entering the scheme to have any particular qualifications or experience. Ogilvy is looking to hire 14 interns through the programme, which is called The Pipe in homage to founder David Ogilvy’s smoking pipe.

The interns will be paid the London Living Wage (£9.40 an hour) and work on briefs from across the Ogilvy & Mather UK group, which includes Ogilvy & Mather, OgilvyOne, branding agency Coley Porter Bell, Ogilvy PR, Ogilvy Healthworld, social@Ogilvy and behavioural change arm OgilvyChange.

A spokeswoman said it was hoping for a huge variety of candidates — from 18-year-olds who cannot afford to go to university through to 65-year-olds who have retired and are looking for a new challenge.

Ogilvy & Mather plans to assign these interns to a mid-weight creative at the agency. This will benefit the mid-weight creative as well as the intern as it will enable them to develop people management skills as well as experience guiding the creative direction of colleagues, which will equip them for the promotion to creative director.

The Pipe’s application process will require budding creatives to first send in a piece of creative work — anything from an ad design to song lyrics. Then, 200 applicants will have two weeks to answer a brief before the top 50 are invited for an interview.

The Ogilvy & Mather creative directors Johnny Watters and Angus George came up with the idea for The Pipe, and are supported by the group chief creative officer Emma De la Fosse and head of talent acquisition Matt Jordan.

Aspiring agency creatives often have to work lengthy periods for free or just expenses before securing their first full-time job. With rents and the cost of living rising, this has led to an increasing proportion of junior creatives coming from more prosperous backgrounds.

Creature’s creative partner Stu Outhwaite and Ben Harris have led a campaign, supported by Campaign, to ensure agencies commit to the Placement Poverty Pledge. It requires shops to pay their creative placements the London Living Wage and at least £100 a day after three months.

Ogilvy & Mather has recently signed up to the pledge for its traditional creative placements, joining agencies such as Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, Adam & Eve/DDB, Outhwaite’s Creature, Wieden & Kennedy, Saatchi & Saatchi and TBWA\London.