16185: Law Firms Offering DE&I As A Consulting Service…?

Advertising Age published a lengthy report on law firms delegating diversity to CMOs in ways designed to appease and assist clients. That is, the CMOs help address client demands for DE&I from legal vendors; plus, the CMOs facilitate DE&I consultation for clients who need it. In short, law firms are making DE&I a business imperative and a business offering.

 

It’s difficult to see how the report might have relevance for Adland. After all, Chief Marketing Officers at White advertising agencies are typically charged with new business initiatives and not qualified to handle DE&I tasks. Additionally, Chief Diversity Officers do not constitute a billable service and offer nothing of value to clients—hell, their value to the White advertising agencies employing them is questionable.

 

The only thing to possibly draw from the article is that among industries steeped in systemic racism, advertising agencies do much worse with DE&I than law firms.

 

Why Law Firm CMOs Are Taking On More Diversity Responsibilities

 

Corporate clients increasingly are demanding diverse attorney teams and legal advice on their own DE&I efforts

 

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

 

Law firm Brown Rudnick hired Julia Bennett as chief marketing officer in 2021 to handle not only the typical promotional and client engagement responsibilities that come with that title, but also to head up a key diversity, equity and inclusion role for the firm’s corporate clients.

 

Bennett said her responsibilities are specifically tied to the firm’s revenue goal of $300 million by the end of 2026, putting her in a unique position to advance DE&I, because at the end of the day, having a diverse team of attorneys helps attract clients and boost revenue.

 

“We speak the language of revenue,” Bennett said. “And the diverse team is the high-performing team; it’s the team that’s most likely to get hired. So this is about community and diversity being important in advancing people, but it is also very much about making sure that [we’re] securing work from clients and putting forward stuff that makes clients feel like they trust you.”

 

While professional services firms have historically had DE&I leads in place to tackle internal, HR-related diversity goals and objectives, and they still do, CMOs such as Bennett have only recently started taking on more specific DE&I roles as it relates to client engagement. That’s because corporate clients are increasingly demanding their law firm partners show that they are attracting diverse lawyers, are putting together more diverse attorney teams for them and are able to advise them on their own internal DE&I efforts.

 

Still, firms have a long way in building trust with their corporate clients that they can deliver on their DE&I needs.

 

Deborah Ruffins, CMO at law firm Perkins Coie said it has to start with increasing diverse attorney representation and Perkins Coie has been doing that through recruiting from historically Black law schools and other colleges and universities that have larger populations of first-generation law students.

 

According to the 2022 ABA National Lawyer Population Survey, just 5.5% of all lawyers in the U.S. are Asian-American, 5.8% are Hispanic, and 4.5% are Black.

 

In a recent 2022 State of DEI Content Report from strategic communications firm Greentarget and consulting firm Zeughauser Group, company executives cited DE&I as second to cybersecurity on their list of priorities for the professional services firms they hire, while companies’ internal general counsel cited it as their top priority.

 

“Chief executives, chief operating officers and chief legal officers, they have what we’re uncovering in our research are real growing needs for guidance on a range of diversity, equity and inclusion-related issues,” Greentarget President and Founding Partner John Corey said.

 

Corey said C-suite executives are looking for guidance on, for example, how to recruit and retain diverse talent, when and how to comment on social causes, how to identify DE&I as a strategic priority within their companies, and who needs to be involved in that process, and how to set an inclusive strategy for the entire organization.

 

Chief marketers within law firms have been gaining more prominence overall since 2020. Legal-focused media company ALM wrote chief marketing officers are increasingly crossing into areas that have been the sole responsibilities of partners, including services related to the delivery of legal services and direct client relationship management. (In some cases, these chief marketers started as attorneys but many are coming up through traditional marketing and communications backgrounds.)

 

Mary K. Young, partner at Zeughauser Group and former chief marketer for law firm Howrey and ex-business director for Kraft Foods, said chief marketers are increasingly tasked with ensuring companies get a diverse team of attorneys, that their diverse lawyers are being promoted in the media and retained in-house, that law firms’ internal DE&I efforts are being promoted to attract new clients and that companies are getting the proper legal advice surrounding their own DE&I efforts.

 

“In terms of specifics, in some cases, lawyers are advising [companies] on what they can and can't do around trying to increase the diversity of their workforce; what kind of questions [they] can ask; how to manage diverse talent,” Young said. “In addition to that, there’s a lot of concern around disclosure. There’s a lot of information that they have to provide, especially if they’re a public company. They have to disclose information to their shareholders about their diversity efforts and their numbers. They need guidance on how to do that.”

 

Chief marketers partner with their DE&I leads to assess how to best tackle these needs for clients.

 

“You’ve got to have a very strong collaboration between marketing and the DE&I folks,” Young said.

 

Data and analytics firm Advocado uses Brown Rudnick as its main legal advisor on its business for everything outside of intellectual property patents including mergers and acquisitions.

 

Advocado CEO and Co-Founder Brian Handrigan said, “when we were looking at a firm, we wanted somebody that reflected our values,” noting that Advocado is based in St. Louis, because it sought to bring more tech jobs to a diverse city. “By having a company that’s committed to DE&I, you end up with so many different points of views and experiences in a room when you’re trying to solve a problem. It enhances creativity and innovation. And you get a better work product.”

 

Inside the shifting role of the law firm CMO

 

Another part of Bennett’s job has been working with the firm’s DEI director to maintain Brown Rudnick’s Mansfield certification, an important distinction in retaining clients. The certification is designated to law firms and legal departments that are diverse; part of its requirements includes considering a broad slate of 30% to 50% of underrepresented talent for all leadership roles within firms and departments.

 

Bennett said her team is also in charge of putting forth DE&I information on the firm’s social media and website. Her team also assists the DEI director to track the inclusion of diverse attorneys on pitches and proposals, ensuring diverse attorneys are not only pitching client business but handling the work, something that’s been a top priority for C-suite executives and in-house counsel.

 

“Clients are very vocal in saying they don’t just want to see people show up in a pitch and then never show up on a bill,” Bennett said. “Clients are really demanding to know how many hours people are working on things, how [we’re] positioning those people to do work, how [we] are going to make sure those people are developed and advanced.”

 

When Ruffins started at Perkins Coie law firm in 2020, DE&I was cited to her as part of the job, but it was not clearly defined at the time. Her role at that time was to focus solely on helping diverse attorneys at the firm achieve success.

 

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the rise in Asian-American hate crimes, Perkins Coie started to flesh out Ruffins’ DE&I role more.

 

“I have specific roles now assigned in marketing to drive diversity, equity, inclusion, marketing, sales and communications,” Ruffins said, noting that she is responsible for how DE&I is showing up on the firm’s website and in client development. “For example, our DE&I team offers a speaker series for us internally, and we leverage it for our clients externally.”

 

Ruffins said she works with the firm’s DE&I lead to develop programs for clients on topics such as uncovering unconscious bias.

 

“One of the things that’s true about corporations is that [their] law departments are cost centers,” Ruffins said. “So, they don’t have a lot of infrastructure and they look to their law firms to provide value-added services; for example, education, best practices and helping them build their internal diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”

 

Bennett said as the first African American chief marketing officer for Brown Rudnick, and the firm’s first African American C-suite executive, she does not take her job lightly. Having worked in sales and business development for various other firms, including Venable and Williams Mullen, Bennett said she’s fortunate that she’s always been part of teams that prioritized diversity, “at least quietly, but now the mandate is more clear.”

 

“One of the things I love is being able to sit at the table, sit with the CEO, and help them think through these issues,” Bennett said, “make sure that different perspectives are heard.”

 

Ruffins agreed, saying in prior roles at other law firms such as Hogan Lovells and consulting giants including Accenture, DE&I was a priority to some degree, but not to the level it is now.

 

“We were starting to bring together marketing and DE&I as a good channel for improving client relationships,” she said. “It just wasn't quite nearly as focused or targeted as it is here. It’s definitely taken on an increased importance. It’s part of every significant client relationship conversation.”

 

“Diversity is a high priority for our clients and there’s low confidence in the industry’s ability to meet the goals that we’ve aspired to,” Ruffins said.

16184: In Adland, ECD ≠ Equity, Color, Or Diversity.

 

Adweek published a fluff piece titled, “The Modern Executive Creative Director Must Be The Ultimate Multitasker.” Based on the photography illustrating the story—depicted above—there are at least two things the modern ECD must not be. (Hint: Check out Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall and peruse her perspective.)

16183: How Decolonizing Design Can Diversify Adland.

Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook by Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall is both auto-biographical and anti-racist—a call-to-action for justice, equality, and institutional transformation, as well as a call-out to the colonization that has historically harmed non-Whites and adversely impacted design.

 

Tunstall has served in a range of leadership roles, culminating to her current position as Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto—and she’s the first Black person to hold such a title in the world. Other professional accomplishments include associate dean and professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. In Adland USA, Tunstall has worked for White holding company Publicis Groupe and White advertising and digital firms such as Arc Worldwide and Sapient (although technically, it would be improper to label the latter a White enterprise).

 

The book presents plenty of provocative perspectives—like putting Indigenous demands first in DE&I hiring plans. Hell, Adland USA DE&I hiring plans prioritize White women, White LGBTQI+, White people with disabilities, White people who are neurodivergent, White old people, and numerous other White groups well ahead of non-Whites, with Indigenous communities relegated to the bottom of the proverbial totem pole. In fact, it’s unlikely that the standard White advertising agency even has DE&I hiring plans.

 

Another interesting point involves Tunstall’s success in orchestrating the “cluster hire strategy”—that is, appointing numerous minorities into executive slots at once. Recruiting a group of people together can—in addition to accelerating DE&I efforts—help lessen the pressures that may build up around a single minority appointment, as there will be communal support from the start, which also aids in retention.

 

To be clear, the maneuver happened in Canada, where legal measures (e.g., the Ontario Human Rights Code) allow such group hirings when it can be shown an underrepresented segment has historically faced discrimination. It’s hard to imagine executing the move in the UK or US, where cries of reverse discrimination would likely commence. The ruling majority, of course, has no problem with the Caucasian cluster hiring that created an exclusive industry. In short, Adland would turn minority cluster hires into major clusterfucks.

 

Read Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook by Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall. For a primer, check out Tunstall’s thoughts on how to make Adland a safer space for Black people.

16182: Multicultural Marketing Shaped Adland—And Segregated The Industry Too.

 

Advertising Age published this perspective from Sensis Account Director Dallas Thompson in February 2022 to commemorate Black History Month. In true BHM fashion, the editorial was illustrated with royalty-free stock photography (depicted above).

 

How Multicultural Marketing Shaped The Advertising Industry

 

Recognition of African American creative visionaries is long overdue

 

By Dallas Thompson

 

As an industry, we often embrace the newest techniques and best practices with little thought about the origins of the idea. As marketing moves toward deeper cultural understanding of our target audiences, I see approaches that bear the fingerprints of multicultural agency icons: “unknown legends” who shaped not only multicultural marketing but the industry as a whole.

 

I know. I had the chance to witness it firsthand.

 

To say my path to advertising was unorthodox is an understatement. For the first decade of my adult life, I was a U.S. Army Field Artillery Officer. When I left active duty, I was unsure in which direction I wanted to go professionally. At the time, I didn’t realize how well my military training and experience had fine-tuned my management and leadership skills or how transferable those talents were to a corporate environment.

 

My path led me to a job selling Yellow Page ads, which helped me to understand advertising channels, and then to a direct mail marketing firm targeting African Americans. With that experience, I made the jump into the agency world as an account executive with Chisholm-Mingo Group, one of a handful minority-owned agencies in New York.

 

That opened the door to a career in multicultural agencies, where I was blessed to work with multicultural marketing icons up close, including Byron Lewis Sr., Carol H. Williams, Jo Muse, Herbert Kemp Jr., Samuel J. Chisholm, Pepper Miller and Charles “Chuck” E. Morrison. I also met brilliant advertising minds who were unsung outside of the multicultural world. They taught me that the value you bring as a professional marketer has nothing to do with where you work, but how you work and the intellectual rigor you bring to the discussion.

 

What multicultural marketing brings to the mainstream

 

I’ve witnessed a lot of changes to marketing in 25 years, but the role and purpose of integrated communications remains the same. All consumer-facing communication, multicultural or otherwise, is designed to get someone to think something or do something … it’s that simple.

 

With that in mind, I’m keenly aware of how the approaches created and implemented by the pioneers I learned from have become standard practice for targeted communications for forward-thinking marketers.

 

Early in my career, I often got the impression from headhunters and general market agency professionals that multicultural advertising experience was considered “less than.” However, my experience working in collaborative groups often revealed that the systematic approaches of multicultural marketers used to uncover unique insights for specific audiences practiced in these agencies provided an additional layer of understanding that was embraced by our general market partners.

 

Often, the ideas originally generated by multicultural partners became the foundational approaches used in both targeted and general market outreach. Campaigns such as KFC’s “We Do Chicken Right” by Mingo-Jones, McDonald’s “I’m Loving It” from Burrell and Budweiser’s “Whassup?” campaign from Charles Stone III (African American filmmaker) all had their origins in multicultural shops.

 

I’ve personally seen that thinking brought to life. As the media environment has become more fragmented and media consumption habits have become less defined by race, targeted marketing has evolved to an understanding of culture and lifestyle. For example, several years ago, I led the FDA Center for Tobacco Product’s “Real Cost” campaign aimed at reducing the use of smokeless tobacco among white rural males aged 12 to 17.

 

On the surface, you don’t get more mainstream than 12- to 17-year-old white males. However, the lifestyle of rural Americans is unique and represents a culture all its own. Like many ethnic audiences, there was an existing research gap that required a methodical approach of primary research to understand the attitudes and perceptions that contribute to this unique health issue.

 

We used to ask ourselves a question in my first agency job, meant to ensure we were meeting the unique needs of our target audience: “What’s Black about it?” That phrase, with some obvious changes, applies to virtually every market you’re trying to reach. I’ve since worked on general market, Hispanic, Asian, African American, LGTBQ and other targeted campaigns to unique and hard-to-reach audiences. The audiences change, but the thinking still applies.

 

The national dialog about racial equity in America and existing disparities has been elevated over the last year and a half. One of those disparities is in the relative lack of acknowledgement for what these visionaries brought to advertising. The influence and power of media and marketing in shaping society cannot be overstated. During Black History Month, a recognition of the African American pioneers who have shaped the advertising industry is appropriate and overdue.

16181: Health And Wellness Banner Is Unhealthy And Unwell.

 

It’s always amazing to see multiple typos in a banner—especially from an advertising trade journal that would presumably have access to editors and proofreaders. Or maybe it’s symptomatic of the laziness and lack of experience displayed throughout the industry.

16180: For Scam Campaigns, Plastic Is Fantastic.

 

Gee, it’s only a matter of time before plastic-kills-wildlife advertising gets its own category in award shows. Although it would be interesting to see how many of these campaigns are not scam ads.

 

16179: Digging For Diversity Data Discovers Discrimination, Deception & Dung.

 

Adweek reported on a global survey—being conducted by the World Federation of Advertisers and bankrolled by a variety of diversity-averse organizations (including Adweek)—that will allegedly measure DEI progress in Adland.

 

Is it really necessary to take a survey? The holding companies shared numbers to expose the obvious; that is, the industry is mired in exclusivity and plagued by systemic racism.

 

Another outrageous element in the scenario involves participants volunteering to complete an anonymous, 15-minute questionnaire. Um, Adland has already demonstrated an unwillingness for self-regulation, as well as a propensity for cultural cluelessness. The industry consistently shows a strong inclination to deliberately conceal the truth in such matters too. In short, any survey results will be useless at best and bullshit at least.

 

The WFA chief executive said, “What gets measured gets managed.” Okay, but false and fuzzy measurements only manage to perpetuate deception, fuel bias, and fortify discrimination.

 

Has DEI in Global Marketing Improved? WFA Launches Census to Find Out

 

The global survey will measure whether advertising and marketing workplaces are becoming more diverse, equitable and inclusive

 

By Brittaney Kiefer

 

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is calling on marketing and advertising professionals around the world to participate in its second census measuring the state of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) across the industry.

 

It is the most comprehensive survey focused on DEI in global marketing, covering 33 markets worldwide and supported by 10 organizations, including Adweek, VoxComm, Kantar, Cannes Lions and Effie Worldwide. Leading companies such as Bayer, BP, Danone, Diageo, The Estée Lauder Companies, Kraft Heinz, Reckitt and WPP are also supporting the effort.

 

The WFA’s Global DEI Census will be open for responses between March 15 and April 15. Professionals from across the marketing ecosystem—including brands, agencies, media, ad tech and platforms—can participate by completing an anonymous, 15-minute questionnaire. The questions cover respondents’ demographic profiles, including race, ethnicity, religion and age, their views on DEI in the industry and their experiences at work.

 

WFA will release results from the census in June 2023 to show any progress made in DEI, monitor people’s sense of belonging in their workplaces and identify negative behaviors and areas that need improvement.

 

The census will be adapted across local markets for legal and cultural reasons. In the U.K., the Advertising Association, IPA and ISBA are overseeing the All In Census, which is running concurrently with WFA’s initiative.

 

The inaugural WFA Global DEI Census ran in 2021 and covered 27 markets. It found that 1 in 7 professionals said they would likely leave their company and the industry because of a lack of diversity and inclusion.

 

The 2021 census also identified that the most common forms of discrimination were experienced on the basis of gender, age and caregiving responsibilities (those looking after the young, elderly or sick), as well as on the basis of race, ethnicity and disability.

 

Since those findings, the WFA has published a Charter for Change that outlines how global organizations can take concrete steps to drive more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces.

 

“What gets measured gets managed. Our industry is facing a well-documented talent crisis. Ensuring our industry is more diverse, equitable and inclusive will go a long way to addressing this challenge,” WFA chief executive Stephan Loerke said in a statement. “There are patently clear moral and business cases for why our industry must better reflect the diversity of consumer we all aim to reach. This is why this exercise is so critical.”

16178: March Comes In Like A Senior Lion And Goes Out Like An Old Liar.

 

A campaign to coerce the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity to invent a new trophy category for creatives over 50 years of age has been launched by an anonymous group of presumably Old White Guys. The presumption is rooted in the name and logo—Senior Lions—which excludes lionesses and non-binary cats.

 

Also offensively outrageous is the website proclamation: “Dear Cannes, celebrate creativity as well as diversity.” Yep, old White people continue to advance ageism as a DE&I issue, erecting another self-absorbed diversion to avoid actively addressing racial and ethnic diversity.

 

It all begs the question why such concerned and committed crusaders of justice have not advocated for a category of color to salute non-White creatives.

 

Check out the self-promotional hype:

 

Ageism across the advertising industry has become increasingly problematic. Talented, experienced people all over the world are being discarded just because of their age.
In March 2023, the https://seniorlions.com/ initiative was launched to raise awareness and convince key players in advertising to address this issue.

 

The project directly invites the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to create a competition aimed at 50+ years old creatives, similar to the Young Lions. This will be a powerful statement and will set an example for the whole advertising industry to follow.

 

Wow. The melodramatic mumbo-jumbo might be symptoms of early-stage Alzheimer’s—or more likely, good old-fashioned White privilege.

 

16177: Advertising Age A-List, AI & A-Holes.

The Advertising Age 2023 Agency A-List included Wunderman Thompson with a headline that read: How Wunderman Thompson Is Using AI To Program Its Future. Based on the accompanying photo depicted above, perhaps the White advertising agency will eventually introduce the first AI-generated Black employee.

16176: From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Rastus And Brer Rabbit…?

Researching the recent erasures and revisions of racist brand icons such as Aunt Jemima, Mia the Land O’Lakes Maiden, and Uncle Ben led to an interesting discovery. The food company whose portfolio includes Cream of Wheat—represented for generations by Rastus—also manufactures Brer Rabbit^® goodies. Here’s the corporate website hype:

 

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For more than 100 years, Brer Rabbit^® has been a trusted household brand used in cherished family recipes. Made of the finest quality unsulfured juice of sun-ripened sugarcane, Brer Rabbit sugarcane molasses contains no preservatives, artificial flavor or artificial color. It’s a key ingredient for baking and cooking.

 

Brer Rabbit Molasses comes in three grades: mild flavor, full flavor and blackstrap. All three grades are unsulfured molasses, making them the finest quality of sugarcane molasses available. Brer Rabbit is also available in two syrup varieties: full and light flavors.

 

The Brer Rabbit name comes from the mischievous Br’er Rabbit from the Uncle Remus folktales passed down by oral tradition in the 1800s and popularized for mainstream audiences in the late 19th century by the published works of Joel Chandler Harris. In these tales, Br’er Rabbit is a trickster who wins by using his wits instead of brawn. Trickery and fun can certainly come in handy in the kitchen as you create winning dishes with Brer Rabbit!

 

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Okey-doke. To further comprehend the cultural complexities, brush up on your Brer Rabbit history.