Essay 1555

The New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott presented the following five sentences to close his story on Wal-Mart choosing the Martin Agency as its White shop:

“Also yesterday, Wal-Mart named three agencies to handle assignments aimed at multicultural consumers. Those assignments were being reviewed separately from the creative and media assignments for the general market.

“Global Hue was named to create ads aimed at black shoppers. The IW Group was chosen for ads for Asian-American consumers. And López Negrete Communications was selected for ads aimed at Spanish-speaking shoppers.”

On the one hand, it’s tough to complain about the brief reporting, as most news sources didn’t even mention the minority appointments. But it does demonstrate the continued invisibility of the industry’s non-White agencies.

For starters, the IW Group and López Negrete Communications were Wal-Mart’s incumbents for their respective segments. López Negrete Communications — whose consumer audiences go beyond the label of “Spanish-speaking shoppers” — has serviced the mega-retailer since 1995.

GlobalHue, whose name Elliott had misspelled, is connected to Interpublic — as are the IW Group and the Martin Agency. So despite DraftFCB’s infamous spanking, IPG profits greatly in the end.

GlobalHue actually hypes itself as a truly multicultural enterprise, offering Asian and Hispanic expertise in addition to Black-targeted work. The Michigan-based agency was favored to win the Wal-Mart account even when Julie Roehm was still at the client’s helm, as GlobalHue and Roehm had partnered in the past on the Chrysler account.

The only big loser on the multicultural scene is Black incumbent E. Morris Communications. The Chicago-based shop had handled Wal-Mart’s Black efforts for about 13 years. The shift is catastrophic, as the mega-retailer was EMC’s major account.