(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)
Campaign published a patronizingly pathetic perspective from Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Chief Creative Officer Tham Khai Meng, who devoted over 60 percent of his essay gushing that the progress made by the LGBT community indicates “we’re entering a new era of inclusion,” and “It’s all part of the tapestry of difference that we now live.” He then meandered through brief mentions of racial and ethnic diversity, as well as cyberbullying, before arriving at the ultimate purpose of his pontification: to salute the rise of fighting for gender equality—aka promoting White women—by the advertising industry via the Glass Lion at Cannes. “Advertising can do more than just reflect the mores of society,” declared Tham. “[W]e can change them too.” Um, O&M can’t even change the makeup of its predominately White staff, let alone affect societal shifts. Tham’s agency reflects adland’s absolute lack of progress regarding true inclusion. We’ve been re-entering the Mad Men era for over 50 years. By dodging, diverting, delegating and denying the discrimination festering at the core of our industry—and doing so in classic contrived and clichéd fashion—Tham wins the honor of becoming the first Singaporean recognized by this exclusive MultiCultClassics series.
C’MON WHITE MAN!
Cannes Perspectives: Time adland smashed the glass ceiling
By Tham Khai Meng, Ogilvy & Mather
David Ogilvy was wrong: advertising can do more than just reflect the mores of society — it can change them too
Today’s adults came of age when homophobia was tolerated—even encouraged—by playground peers. Today, we’re entering a new era of inclusion.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis had a number-one hit with their gay-rights anthem Same Love.
Even the often-puritanical US is hurtling towards universal recognition of gay marriage.
Glittering (literally) gay-pride events take place in nearly every major world city, and I am proud to say that the advertising industry has been a staunch partner in the move towards the mainstreaming of gay culture.
From the frankly homoerotic ads of the first half of the 20th century to the cross-cultural work of today, advertising has helped our society move its stance on homosexuality from oppression to appropriation and now to acceptance.
Work from Oreo, Coca-Cola, Gap, Absolut and now Tiffany & Co has normalised LGBT individuals and families as simply another demographic.
This is happening outside of the US too. To promote the ZenFone, Asus released a heartwarming film about a young gay couple learning how to love. PFLAG China used a hard-hitting video to urge families torn apart by homophobia to reunite for the Chinese New Year.
The ANZ bank in Australia took a lighter approach, sponsoring Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and marking the occasion by turning its ATMs into GAYTMs. Get a glitter-and-disco reward when you deposit your paycheck.
We’re moving towards a time when the fact of one’s sexual identity just doesn’t matter — even in the boardroom. It’s all part of the tapestry of difference that we now live.
A tapestry that has grown more intricate in recent years as society learns to embrace the trans-person community. Conchita Wurst shocked the world when she appeared on — and then won — the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bruce Jenner is transitioning on the world stage and so is episodic television. Orange Is The New Black and Transparent feature main trans-person characters.
We’re moving towards a cross-cultural world, one in which a new, polyglot majority holds sway. We are, at last, intermingled.
But our work is not done.
We in advertising have done a good job of late in crafting a vision of a gender-, colour-, and orientation-blind society. But recall the words of David Ogilvy: “Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not change them.”
And what are we reflecting?
A society that is trying hard to eradicate the appearance of gender and sexual-identity prejudice but which still has a long way to go in rooting out the reality of it. What about how we ourselves reflect it? Well, one need only look at the levels of diversity in creative departments worldwide to find the answer to that.
A society that is striving to efface racism in every nation on earth. Tribalism and xenophobia rush in where political systems have failed — and even where they haven’t, as the epidemic of police shooting unarmed black men in the US makes clear.
A society that is striving to adjust to the peculiar tension between digital mass intimacy and the distancing effect of technology. Eighty-three per cent of girls and 79 per cent of boys are bullied, many of them via cyberbullying.
Is our increased tolerance, then, just on the surface?
I don’t think so, but neither do I think the work of inclusion is anywhere near over.
But something remarkable is happening now.
We’ve seen breathtaking work that has taken on gender prejudice, particularly from Pantene, Always and Dove. We are past the point of patting ourselves on the back and are now facing our unspoken prejudices. Those who have been discriminated against in the past now have the power to force society to face its own ugliness.
Advertising can do more than just reflect the mores of society. With apologies to Mr Ogilvy, we can change them too.
And that’s why I’m so delighted by the debut of the Glass Lion at Cannes this year. The Glass Lion “recognises work that implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice, through the conscious representation of gender in advertising”.
Hallelujah.
By Tham Khai Meng, worldwide chief creative officer, Ogilvy & Mather
It's simply easier for individual agencies and holding companies to talk about gender diversity than race, period.
ReplyDeleteMost agencies are approximately 50% women to start with (upper management is another issue), so it's always easy for them to speak out and look like they're making progress when the truth is, they're just shuffling women who are already in the system (mostly white women), into higher level positions. They can do the bare minimum and then wave their victory banners.
Racial minorities, on the other hand, make up who knows what percentage of agencies (probably single digits). Speaking up on that issue gets you no fans, no support, and no change because there's a much higher hill to climb.
I've seen, with my own eyes, holding companies boldly claim their overseas agencies as ticking off the diversity box. They truly think that opening an agency in Mumbai or South Africa counts as diverse, and so they don't have to address diversity issues in the US.
This is an idiotic post. You've ignored the fact that he's Asian... "C'mon white man!"
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