7596: Diversity Dollars Or Dimes?

From Advertising Age…

Too Few Diversity Dollars on Madison Avenue

Progress Is Being Made, but ‘Shoestring’ Budgets Spread Out Over Uncoordinated Efforts Hold Back Improvement

By Kunur Patel

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The ad industry has grown a little more comfortable talking about a diversity problem as old as the industry itself, but is it putting its money where its mouth is? The good news: Money is flowing into diversity efforts. The bad news: Critics describe it more as a trickle—and one so spread out it dissipates before it can make a long-lasting impact.

The efforts look like a lot on paper and include roundtables with clients on the intricacies of minority markets, executive councils, training, recruitment, partnerships with minority universities and programs from most of the leading trade organizations.

“I’m happy you’re interested in what we’re doing, not what we’re not doing,” said Sandra Sims-Williams, chair for Publicis Groupe’s diversity council. Publicis Groupe sends dozens of employee women of color, as well as some clients, to a conference to develop leadership skills. Add to those commitments executives’ time and providing space for diversity programs.

But recruiting programs and professional-development courses have been around since the 1960s. And still, civil-rights lawyer Cyrus Mehri has rustled up enough instances of discrimination to file charges with U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a step toward a class-action suit against the ad industry.

So why are the programs falling? It might have to do with money.

Coming up short
In December, Howard University, in partnership with the 4A’s, launched a program to train midlevel minority managers to make lateral moves into agencies. The program is under way with 27 students—the second class was held at Grey, New York, last week and another class is slated at JWT. But all this is happening on almost half the planned budget.

The 4A’s made a commitment to contribute $250,000 annually for five years to Howard’s Center for Excellence in Advertising, which the university and trade organization co-founded to increase the number of African-Americans at agencies, as long as Howard could raise $750,000. Last year, the program came up short of that goal with $300,000, of which Dan Wieden alone gave $100,000. The remainder doesn’t seem like too much for the Big Four holding companies to pony up, although their 4A’s membership fees make up some of the 4A’s contribution.

That’s not to ignore that 2009 was an undeniably tough year for agencies and trade organizations. One example: The One Club ended its relationship with Julius Dunn’s Adversity program designed to educate minority youth about careers in creative departments. One Club President Kevin Swanepoel attributes that split to tough economic times, though says other diversity programs are under way.

The Marcus Graham Project launched a pilot boot camp last summer for seven black men between the ages of 18 and 34 to build skills in advertising and is also gearing up to raise money for a second boot camp, social networks aimed at mentorships and various other initiatives. Funding meetings with the Big Four holding companies haven’t happened yet, but they’ll need to soon.

“All these programs have been done on a shoestring budget,” said Lincoln Stephens, founder of the Marcus Graham Project. “Right now we’re in a crucial phase. We have interest from the audience we serve, but in order to grow, we need the right sponsorships from agencies and corporations that see a value in what we’re doing.”

Penalties
One reason Mr. Stephens has faith he’ll find funding for his effort is he’s gone out and proved his approach before seeking money from the majors. “I’ve done amazing things with no money,” said Mr. Stephens. “I’d like to demonstrate to people what we can do if we had a budget.”

Funding such groups isn’t the only way holding companies and agencies are using money to tackle the diversity problem. At Interpublic, failure to meet diversity objectives on hiring, promotions and retention means cuts in executive incentive pay—and that’s meant real money lost for a number of execs.

And the holding company, while it supports other causes, sees more value in fighting the battle on its own turf. “Our agencies and IPG support the industry’s many worthwhile initiatives, especially the long-term pipeline programs, but this is a fight that will be won on the agency level, where the actual hiring, retention and promotion opportunities exist. We invest substantially in our internal programs, because they make a real difference in the day-to-day lives of our people,” said Heide Gardner, chief diversity and inclusion officer at IPG.

At Omnicom, BBDO’s minority-education fund has meant 220 internship and scholarships totaling $885,000 since 2000, and DDB’s diversity scholarship fund granted $250,000 to 50 students.

But scholarships can only go so far, especially when split up over time and large numbers of students. Consider: One quarter at Miami Ad School for art director or copywriting is $4,350 in tuition—or $34,800 in total tuition for the two-year diploma program. Of course, there are cheaper programs to be had at city and state universities, many of which have solid undergraduate programs.

Not enough change
“People genuinely want a program like ours to succeed. Build it, and we’ll come,” said Adrianne C. Smith, executive director, Center for Excellence in Advertising at Howard University. “The more successful we are, the more the agencies want to help,” she added. “We have support, but they don’t want to do the heavy lifting alone.”

Yet between the scholarships and mentoring and award shows, agency C-suites and the upper levels of creative departments don’t reflect anything but the good old (white) boys club.

Can money be the only thing to blame?

“We are short on the money,” said Publicis Groupe’s Ms. Sims-Williams. “But even when I look at our clients that have much more money flowing into diversity, it doesn’t always work.”

What Ms. Sims-Williams—and many others—see a need for is some sort of cohesion—or at least a comprehensive approach to the various programs available. “A solution is bringing these collective groups together to develop a full strategy,” she said.

“I don’t think throwing more money at [diversity] is the solution,” said Nancy Hill, CEO of the 4A’s. “I think it takes coordinated efforts, so that anyone that raises their hand and is talented gets mentored all the way through into agencies.”

Ultimately, the money “doesn’t matter unless somebody knows how to put the pieces together,” said Ms. Hill.