The AD Club’s Twitter page salutes PepsiCo Global Beverage Group President Brad Jakeman as the 2015 Advertising Person Of The Year. Really? Is the dubious honor a result of Jakeman’s diversity drivel or his gender equality jive delivered at the latest ANA Masters of Marketing soiree? It certainly can’t be for the thoroughly mediocre brand advertising created in recent years.
Campaign reported WACL celebrated its Future Leaders Award, and the accompanying photo underscored the organization’s exclusivity—as well as underscored that WACL President Lindsey Clay is a fucking idiot.
Adweek reported SXWS changed its mind about cancelling anti-harassment panels after being harassed by media partners and the public. Are there any diversity panels at the conference? The SXSW Job Market exhibition is being sponsored by Publicis Groupe, which means it probably has zero interest in encouraging inclusivity. Although Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Lévy is always interested in purchasing digital asses—um, assets.
SXSW Reverses Controversial Decision and Will Now Conduct a Full Day of Anti-Harassment Panels
19 speakers confirmed
By Marty Swant
South by Southwest Interactive is doing an about-face on its decision to cancel two anti-harassment panels due to threats of “on-site violence” for the 2016 conference. Now, less than a week after announcing the cancelation—and days after facing mounting criticism from media partners like Vox and Buzzfeed pulling out —SXSW is instead creating an entire daylong summit to address the issues in a much bigger way.
South by on Friday announced it will hold a full slate of talks on March 12, which it plans to livestream throughout the day.
“Earlier this week we made a mistake,” the announcement said. “By canceling two sessions we sent an unintended message that SXSW not only tolerates online harassment but condones it, and for that we are truly sorry.
“The resulting feedback from the individuals involved and the community-at-large resonated loud and clear. While we made the decision in the interest of safety for all of our attendees, cancelling sessions was not an appropriate response. We have been working with the authorities and security experts to determine the best way to proceed.”
SXSW is now taking the issue very seriously. For instance, here is a list of 19 confirmed anti-harassment speakers that it released on Friday:
• Monika Bickert (Head of Product Policy, Facebook)
• Soraya Chemaly (Writer/Director, WMC Speech Project)
• Congresswoman Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts)
• Wendy Davis (Women’s Rights Advocate; former TX State Senator)
• Mark DeLoura (VP Technology, formerly with Sony, Nintendo, Google, and White House OSTP)
• Mary Anne Franks (Law Professor, University of Miami School of Law and Legislative & Tech Policy Director, Cyber Civil Rights Initiative)
• Jonathan Greenblatt (CEO and National Director, Anti-Defamation League)
• Umair Haque (umairhaque.com)
• Sarah Jeong (Contributing Editor, Vice Motherboard)
• Emily May (Co-founder and Executive Director, Hollaback!)
• Kelly McBride (Vice President of Academic Programs, The Poynter Institute)
• Shireen Mitchell (Founder, Digital Sisters and Stop Online Violence Against Women)
• Nika Nour (Director, Communications and Creative Strategies, Internet Association)
• Meredith L. Patterson (Security Researcher)
• Joseph Reagle (Northeastern University and Author, “Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web”)
• Jeffrey Rosen (President & CEO, National Constitution Center)
• Lee Rowland (Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project)
• Ari Ezra Waldman (Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School)
• Brianna Wu (Head of Development, Giant Spacekat)
SXSW is an annual conference drawing roughly 40,000 tech, agency and brand players every year for its late-winter festival.
Guess the jerk-offs in Buenos Aires aren’t aware of Playboy’s plan to strip the nudity from its magazine. Stay classy, guys.
Check out the latest smokescreen from The AD Club and i’mPART, its designated diversity driver. The lame campaign is extending diversity beyond the advertising industry to cover the entire planet. Yes, let’s make Madison Avenue’s nettlesome problem appear less dramatic by placing it on a global scale. We’re not as bad as, say, those racists in South Africa. For The AD Club, AD stands for “Against Diversity.”
We’re excited to share that today The AD Club and i’mPART, our diversity initiative, have launched a campaign to highlight the importance of diversity not only within the advertising, marketing and media space, but also throughout the world. Will you be a part of spreading the word of this important cause? Take part by going to http://bit.ly/1hXH6Xl and download a diversity overlay onto your profile picture, post it on your social media accounts, then use the hash tag #imPARTofDiversity. Get even more involved by connecting with us at: #ADClubNY and tag us @ADClubNY.
Here’s how you can participate:
STEP 1: Change your social media profile picture at makesnaps.com/imPARTofDIVERSITY
STEP 2: Share what makes YOU diverse as an individual OR why diversity is important in your industry
STEP 3: Tell a friend or 10…
The New York Times Magazine asked, “Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning?” The author focused mostly on Silicon Valley and Hollywood to make her points. If she had considered the question in relation to Madison Avenue, the story would have made the magazine thicker than The New York Times Sunday edition.
MMI Agency CEO Benjamin Spiegel presented a perspective in Advertising Age, calling on clients to make advertising agency diversity a requirement. Yet it’s unclear if Spiegel is truly being revolutionary. His rally cry included the following:
Wonderful things can happen when you put an eclectic group together in the room—men and women, gay and straight, millennials and baby boomers, native-born Americans and foreign expats. Tastes and interests vary; they’ll have differing work experience and history in terms of types of accounts and agencies, different kinds of expertise (niche experts or flexible generalists), junior employees and agency veterans (with a wealth of successes and failures to share).
Why does Spiegel avoid specifically referencing Blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans—opting to cover diversity of music preferences, socioeconomic status and social media experience? Are polka enthusiasts facing discrimination in the field? Additionally, how diverse is MMI Agency? The company website states, “MMI Agency is an Equal Opportunity Employer offering competitive salary and comprehensive benefits.” Polka enthusiasts welcome.This need for diversity goes beyond heritage to a wide range of demographic and psychographic criteria: age group, preferred music styles, income, family socioeconomic status, gender, experience with technology or social platforms, education level, hobbies and interests, and so on.
Brands Need to Make Agency Diversity a Requirement
Teams That Are Not Aligned Create Better Ideas for Clients
By Benjamin Spiegel
At the recent ANA conference, PepsiCo executive Brad Jakeman lamented that ad agencies are too homogenous and we need more diversity. In Mr. Jakeman’s words, “Innovation and disruption does not come from homogeneous groups of people.”
I completely agree. Given consumers’ focus today on authenticity and relevance, brands that are undergoing agency reviews must look beyond the time-worn standard markers like years of experience in your vertical, experience of agency leads, and quality of the pitch. One criterion that should be on every brand marketer’s or CMO’s radar is agency diversity.
From an operations standpoint, I’m sure most agencies would probably prefer to have a team that is very similar in terms of work experience, culture and general background. Homogeneity generally makes it easier to develop employee training, provide tools and technologies and scale up, since presumably everyone knows the same things and all you have to do is find more of the same kind of employees.
However, teams that walk and talk along the same path do not necessarily create winning campaigns that deliver fresh ideas and results. And let’s face it—in order to create real impact that drives real business results, brings consumers over to your side and positively affects a brand’s bottom line, you need differentiating ideas that come from teams that share a love of great work and can also share their different perspectives and experiences.
This commitment to brand-changing ideation means putting together account and creative teams that are actually not well aligned. That’s right—an intentional non-alignment is what develops the diversity that leads to thinking outside the typical agency box. After all, a dozen employees who come from the same basic backgrounds, in the same generation, will be more likely to rest on the “been there, done that.” They need to have their thinking, assumptions, go-to creative solutions or marketing plans challenged—and they need to be comfortable pulling ideas from outside their usual comfort zones.
This need for diversity goes beyond heritage to a wide range of demographic and psychographic criteria: age group, preferred music styles, income, family socioeconomic status, gender, experience with technology or social platforms, education level, hobbies and interests, and so on.
Wonderful things can happen when you put an eclectic group together in the room—men and women, gay and straight, millennials and baby boomers, native-born Americans and foreign expats. Tastes and interests vary; they’ll have differing work experience and history in terms of types of accounts and agencies, different kinds of expertise (niche experts or flexible generalists), junior employees and agency veterans (with a wealth of successes and failures to share).
With so much diversity, you’ll actually have a dream team, and things will really start cooking. The agency will have set the stage to meet Mr. Jakeman’s battle cry for disruption among marketers—a team that will work together to find new ways to reach the brand’s target audience. They will disrupt each other’s accepted ways of thinking and collaborate in new, fresh ways that will spark the interesting conversations brands want to have with their consumers.
Through this diversity, agencies can be leaders in developing revolutionary marketing approaches and innovative campaigns that set new standards for creative—and that breathe life into advertising that consumers will respond to.
Campaign reported on a TV spot for Noddle titled, “Meet The Noddlers,” which “attempts to show off the diversity of ‘Noddlers’, the name the company has labelled its customer base, which it claims is a ‘sub-culture’ of 1.6 million people.” Okay, but it kinda feels like a White advertising agency’s definition of diversity. BTW, how diverse is Brave, the agency responsible for the advert?
Noddle boasts ‘diversity’ of fun-loving credit score users in first TV ad
By Omar Oakes
Noddle, a free credit report and credit score service, is inviting TV viewers to “meet the Noddlers” in its first ad campaign.
The 30-second spot, created by Brave, attempts to show off the diversity of “Noddlers”, the name the company has labelled its customer base, which it claims is a “sub-culture” of 1.6 million people.
It shows a series of people, of differing ages, styles and ethnicities, doing a range of intense activities, such as ballet training, playing chess, or running into the sea.
Accompanied by a drum solo, performed by Stella Mozgawa, the voiceover says, “It’s not where they go, it’s not what they do, that unites them. It’s where they stand, with their free-for-life credit score, and enjoying what they do with it, that gives Noddlers their financial edge.”
It is the first time Noddle, part of Callcredit, has employed an ad agency and Brave won the account earlier this year after a competitive pitch. MNC handled the media planning and buying.
Jacqueline Dewey, the managing director, Callcredit consumer markets, said: “It was key for us that our chosen agency understood our market and was able to deliver a creative execution that had cut through and differentiated our brand from the competition.
“Brave delivered against all the key criteria and has developed a campaign which not only reflects our brand values and growth ambitions but which establishes a strong platform from which we can develop and evolve in 2016 and beyond.”
The campaign broke on TV yesterday (25 October) and aired on ITV, during The X Factor, and during Homeland on Channel 4. The ad will run on Sky and terrestrial channels until the end of December.
The spot was created by Sue Modral and Carole Davids, Brave’s creative directors. It was directed by David Edwards through Rattling Stick.
Adweek reported on the latest propaganda from The 3% Conference: a certification program to designate advertising agencies as friendly advocates of gender equality. Agencies could be certified upon submitting data on women staffers, followed by successfully meeting suggested goals. If this goofy idea takes off, someone should file a major league lawsuit against the industry. After all, White holding companies and White advertising agencies have steadfastly refused to openly publicize staff figures for minorities—so suddenly sharing such information on White women in the field would be, well, certifiably obscene.
Agencies That Care About Gender Equality Can Now Get ‘3 Percent Certified’
Advocacy group announces voluntary auditing
By Katie Richards
The 3 Percent Conference has a new plan for promoting gender equality at America’s advertising agencies: It’s introducing a certification program. The advocacy group announced the initiative at its New York conference today, equipped with data from a study that details what 328 women working in agencies really want.
The seal of approval—introduced by twtw Companies president Erin Carpenter and Accelerating Women founder and CEO Lisen Stromberg—is called “3 Percent Certified.” The program will certify agencies that not only set out to promote equality, but make real changes to their organization along the way.
“We are going to go out and talk to the talent, find out what the talent is experiencing, look at the individual agency’s programs, cultures and community and go beyond that to see what’s the benchmark, not just in the industry but outside the industry,” Stromberg said. “You can find out, how is your agency doing and what can your agency do to make changes?”
When an agency applies for certification, an independent auditing committee will collect information on salaries, the breakdown of men and women in leadership positions, and more. Then, the group will suggest benchmarks along with ways to reach a more balanced agency. If the shop can successfully hit those goals, it will be certified.
“We’re not going to be unrealistic and say to an agency that’s 8 percent women to be 50 percent in a year, but we will have reasonable, attainable goals that will move that needle,” Carpenter said.
“By earning that [certification], you’re sending the message out that says, ‘Hey, this is an agency that really honors and respects diversity, honors and respects respects women,’ and that is a talent-acquisition tool like there is none,” Stromberg added.
While 3 Percent Conference founder Kat Gordon had the idea awhile ago, Carpenter said the organization had to prove that placing more women in leadership roles leads to happier employees and better work cultures. Once the study on what ad women want was complete, it provided the necessary data to kick the certification program off.
The 3 Percent Conference study showed that while 56 percent of women reported they were making an adequate salary ($100,000 a year or more) and 78 percent stated they were satisfied with their current roles, 30 percent have no female leaders to look up to. An additional 60 percent reported that their agency was below the new standard of 11 percent of females holding creative director roles.
At agencies where women make up at least a quarter of the creative leadership, women reported higher levels of job satisfaction, better pay and fewer instances of discrimination than other agencies. For instance, 64 percent said they earn over $100,000, compared with 54 percent of their counterparts at more male-dominated agencies.
“Integration of data and the importance of having analytics to drive what we are talking about just became much more important. It became less abstract and more concrete. We were able to track what happens when the leadership ratio goes up a bit, and we’re seeing a real impact,” Carpenter said.
Adfreak published a fluff piece titled, “10 Stories of Creative Partners Who’ve Endured and Thrived Without Killing Each Other—How to make a work marriage work.” Based on the photographs, the ten stories clearly tell the story of the advertising industry’s diversity dilemma. That is, besides one obligatory partnering of Latinos, it’s a bunch of White people paired up with similar-looking White people. The ad industry loves depicting concepts with interracial marriages. But such borrowed interest simply constitutes a patronizing smokescreen, implying open-minded attitudes where none actually exist. The true “work marriages” are exclusive affairs.
Adweek reported Matthew Bull—the guy who publicly admitted shutting down his last White advertising agency because it failed to deliver decent work—joined White advertising agency mcgarrybowen in New York as the new Chief Creative Officer. Um, Bull’s move is the equivalent of crawling out of a toilet and into an outhouse, especially given mcgarrybowen’s recent loss of Verizon. Plus, it’s yet another example of how going from flop to top in the advertising industry is pretty easy and routine—provided you’re a White man. Meanwhile, mcgarrybowen Founder and Chief Creative Officer Gordon Bowen gushed, “Matthew brings a wealth of diverse client and category experience to mcgarrybowen.” At mcgarrybowen, diverse and diversity have nothing in common.
Former Agency Entrepreneur Matthew Bull Joins Mcgarrybowen as N.Y. Creative Chief
Office president expects ‘new chapter of success’
By Marty Swant
A few months after closing his own agency, Matthew Bull is taking a job with mcgarrybowen as chief creative officer of the agency’s New York office.
Bull will begin next month after spending the past four years at The Bull-White House, an agency he founded in 2011 and ran until ending it in July. Before that, he held a number of leadership roles including chief creative officer of Lowe & Partners Worldwide in New York. Brands he’s worked with include AB InBev’s Stella Artois, Unilever’s Axe, HSBC and Microsoft.
“In both his work as an award-winning creative leader and entrepreneur partnering with some of the world’s most respected marketers, Matthew has proven himself to be a powerful, inspiring and transformative change agent,” mcgarrybowen New York President and Chief Client Officer Simon Pearce told Adweek. “I am incredibly thrilled to partner with him as we work on creating our next chapter of success at mcgarrybowen New York.”
Bull will replace Mark Koelfgen, who is leaving mcgarrybowen after a 10-year tenure to “pursue new opportunities,” per an agency statement announcing Bull’s appointment. The agency wouldn’t elaborate on the departure, but the announcement did include a quote from Koelfgen saying he is “eternally grateful” for his time at the agency.
“Matthew brings a wealth of diverse client and category experience to mcgarrybowen,” said Gordon Bowen, mcgarrybowen’s founder and chief creative officer. “His track record of success in working with some of the world’s biggest icons will prove instrumental as we partner with our clients to drive top-of-the-line, innovative business results.”
In an interview with Adweek this summer, Bull explained some of his reasoning for closing The Bull-White House. He said he loved the people he worked with, but felt the agency wasn’t producing work that he “thought was magical.” However, he said he wanted to shift to a role as creative consultant, rather than joining another agency in another chief creative officer role.
In the announcement of his new chief creative officer role at mcgarrybowen, Bull said he’s admired the agency’s “strategic and creative prowess.”
“This is a philosophy I took to heart even when building my own agency, The Bull-White House, and the power of the ‘big, organizing idea’ will be even more important as the marketing landscape continues to rapidly evolve,” he said.
When will ESCP Europe Business School break the news to bright-eyed students that people of color are woefully underrepresented—and arguably unwelcome—in the advertising and marketing industry?
The New York Times published an in-depth report titled, “The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black.”
Campaign reported on a music video created by Leo Burnett Chicago for the Music vs Gun Violence campaign, featuring hip-hop artists including Common, Anthony “The Twilite Tone” Khan, King Louie, Lil Herb and Katie Got Bandz. It’s another example of how White advertising agencies love hip hop. Leo Burnett EVP CD Brian Shembeda gushed, “When we’re dealing with any creative partner, the most important consideration is respect. We look to collaborate with the kind of people who have uncommon experience, talent or knowledge around the subject, and we actively seek their input. We want them to shake things up and force us to look at things differently because, at the end of the day, it’s going to make the idea better.” Um, so why doesn’t Leo Burnett apply that open-minded thinking to the company’s hiring practices, bringing diversity to the creative department—versus waiting 66 years for progress to happen? Plus, do the hip-hop artists realize they partnered with a company where diversity is a dream deferred and denied? The realization might inspire some expletive-filled rhymes.
When faced with an abundance of talent, go find even more
By I-Hsien Sherwood
Leo Burnett’s new music video for the Music vs Gun Violence campaign showcases some of Chicago’s best hip-hop artists, but to raise awareness about shootings in the city, the agency solicited even more creative vision, crowdsourcing the musical talent of viewers and featuring it in the video itself.
The music video, a partnership with Chicago Ideas, features artists like Common, Anthony “The Twilite Tone” Khan, King Louie, Lil Herb and Katie Got Bandz, alternating with victims of gun violence, their family members and scenes of Chicago streets. But let the video play through or click “Watch entire video” on the seek bar and the song continues beyond its original length, serving up dozens of user-submitted verses with relatively seamless transitions.
It’s an inventive use of a format that will look familiar to anyone who regularly uses YouTube playlists. The interface is straightforward: viewers can simply record their verse directly on the MusicVsGunViolence.com website using a laptop or desktop webcam (video capture on a mobile device isn’t available). More experienced musicians with their own video equipment who want more creative control over the finished product can also download the music from the website and produce and edit their own videos to upload.
Submitted videos still remain attached to the user’s personal YouTube account and are still accessible there. But they also queue up after the official video, without the interstitial ads that usually break up most playlists on YouTube. As more viewers add their own videos, the full experience becomes longer, more varied and more intimate as the personal experiences of so many people merge into a single piece.
“When we’re dealing with any creative partner, the most important consideration is respect. We look to collaborate with the kind of people who have uncommon experience, talent or knowledge around the subject, and we actively seek their input,” said Brian Shembeda, EVP, creative director at Leo Burnett Chicago. “We want them to shake things up and force us to look at things differently because, at the end of the day, it’s going to make the idea better.”
The submitted videos also appear on a separate page on the Music vs Gun Violence site and can be watched on their own or in a continuous stream.
Aside from music, the site also features compelling interviews with people who have been affected by gun violence. More than 2,400 people have been injured in Chicago shootings this year, and the number of victims in both August and September was significantly higher than in 2014.
Many of the musicians involved in the program speak about their first realizations that Chicago streets weren’t safe, but the most heart-wrenching testimony comes from those who have lost a love one. In 2007, Annette Holt’s 16-year-old son Blair was killed while shielding a friend from gunfire on a Chicago bus. Blair’s killer was a gang member, also 16, who was trying to shoot a rival.
“It’s innocent young people being killed every day in the city of Chicago that are really changing this face of gun violence. They’re not gangbangers. They’re going to school and doing all the right things,” Holt says in a passionate testimonial on the site. “All these things I taught my son, and my son is in the cemetery right now.”
Does this douchebag look like any developer anyone would want to work with?
Advertising Age reported Verizon is moving its wireless account from mcgarrybowen to McCann—sans a review. Then again, is it really necessary to hold a shootout when shifting from one mediocre White advertising agency to another? It’s like swapping Rue McClanahan for Bea Arthur. Meanwhile, AT&T is still chugging along with Milana Vayntrub.
McCann Picks Up Verizon Wireless
McGarryBowen Remains on Roster for Innovation Work
By Maureen Morrison
Verizon is moving the bulk of its wireless business to McCann Erickson, New York, from McGarryBowen without a review, Ad Age has learned.
McCann currently handles the company’s FiOs business, and like McGarryBowen, has a long history with Verizon. According to people familiar with the matter, McCann will be the lead agency on the wireless business, though McGarryBowen will remain on the roster for innovation work. The first work from McCann quietly launched in the last couple weeks with a new TV spot called “Emojis.”
According to people familiar with the matter, the company is consolidating its creative work with two agencies: Wieden & Kennedy, which is the brand and strategy agency, and McCann Erickson, which will continue to be the lead on FiOs, but will now also be the lead agency on wireless, handling the day-to-day promotion of products and services.
It’s a sizeable move, but it’s not the first shakeup on the brand this year. Earlier this year, W&K wedged its way onto the Verizon roster for brand and strategy work; the brief excluded products and services from the scope. Verizon in September unveiled a new logo, and though it was created by design firm Pentagram, the subsequent marketing was handled by W&K.
‘Optimizing our roster’
W&K’s scope of work is not expected to change with this most recent shift, though it’s possible that W&K from time to time will handle a wireless brief outside its scope. According to people familiar with the company, McCann will be fielding the work that McGarryBowen handled after W&K was added to the roster.
McGarryBowen declined to comment. McCann declined to comment.
Verizon did not offer much detail, saying only: “As a policy, we don’t talk about our agency relationships, but we are constantly optimizing our roster to ensure we have access to the best thinking and most creative ideas.” The company added that McGarry continues “to be a valued partner on our agency roster.”
With McCann now handling more chunks of the business with FiOs and wireless, its parent company Interpublic Group of Cos. now holds a significant chunk of the business within its agencies. In June, the company handed the bulk of its digital business to Interpublic’s R/GA, though it retained incumbent AKQA as well. Other Interpublic agencies on the roster include MRM, Momentum and Erwin Penland. The company’s longtime media agency is Publicis Groupe’s Zenith.
The most recent change comes a year after Verizon tapped Diego Scotti as exec VP and chief marketing officer. Mr. Scotti was tasked with boosting the global brand and creating consumer awareness. In May, Verizon tapped Melissa Garlick to lead a brand creative group overseeing strategy and creative development across Verizon’s products and services and for all customer touchpoints, including advertising, branding, digital content and store design. More recently, John Harrobin, a senior marketing executive, announced he would be leaving by the end of the year.
Trading accounts
The move is a coup for McCann, which was once Verizon’s longtime agency of record. McCann and McGarryBowen have swapped Verizon back-and-forth over the last decade or so. Verizon was a founding client of McGarryBowen when the shop launched in 2002, but the company in 2007 moved the business to McCann as it looked to whittle down its list of agencies.
McGarryBowen picked up the wireless business from McCann in 2010. That was a huge blow to McCann, but wasn’t all that surprising, given that the year prior, Verizon began reaching out to agencies beyond McCann for the launch of its Droid phone, which McGarryBowen ended up handling.
The shop has seen significant account tumult this year, beginning in January when Verizon tapped W&K—a moved that showed the company was serious about making agency changes. At the time, McGarryBowen remained the agency of record for wireless and McCann remained the agency of record for FiOs.
In February, McGarryBowen and the Sears brand parted ways in the midst of the company’s massive holding-company level review of all its work. Then in August, Chase and McGarryBowen severed what was left of their relationship after much of the brand’s work had gradually moved to other agencies or in-house, leaving the shop with just corporate work.
Adweek reported the ANA hired two investigative—or “fact-finding” per Adweek’s description—firms to check into the hot topic of media kickbacks. Seriously, what “facts” will be found? It’s unlikely any media company accounting departments are openly labeling kickbacks on the revenue spreadsheets. Additionally, neither the ANA nor the “fact-finders” have authority to take action if bad behavior is uncovered. This is no different than when the ANA exposed the diversity issues in the industry and blatant inequities in multicultural marketing. Ultimately, the trade group could only present the realities with wringing hands and gnashing teeth—before launching multicultural conferences and minority award shows.
ANA Hires 2 ‘Fact-Finding’ Firms to Investigate Media Rebates
Ebiquity, K2 Intelligence selected
By Lisa Granatstein
The Association of National Advertisers, which represents the country’s top brand marketers, on Tuesday announced the hire of two firms to look into the controversial issue of media rebates.
At issue is whether agencies, represented by the 4A’s, are receiving large rebates—or kickbacks—from media outlets in exchange for buying ads in large volumes. The ANA issued a request for proposal (RFP) this summer to hire an auditor to examine allegations that such savings are being hidden from clients and pocketed by agencies, which crosses an ethical line.
The ANA, in fact, selected two fact-finding firms after a review of 26 companies: U.K.-based marketing analytics firm Ebiquity/FirmDecisions, which in 2014 served as one of the consultants on the ANA Media Transparency Task Force that researched the problem of rebates, as well as K2 Intelligence, a global investigative consultancy founded by Jeremy and Jules Kroll, which bills itself as the founder of the modern investigations industry. Both firms have offices in New York.
The ANA’s project calls for a multi-phased approach, the ANA announcement said. “Phase I will focus primarily on domestic and global fact-finding via confidential interviews with senior ecosystem executives and other business intelligence processes.
“We believe ANA’s objectives will be best facilitated by combining a company that specializes in business examination and fact-finding with a firm that knows the industry and has superb awareness of media transparency issues,” said Bob Liodice, ANA president and CEO. He added that the ANA looks forward to “sharing K2’s findings with our colleagues at the American Association of Advertising Agencies.”
“While the 4A’s favored the continuity and effectiveness of our joint efforts, the ANA has decided to move forward with its solo sponsorship of a fact-finding initiative into agency media practices,” a 4A’s statement said. “The 4A’s will continue to collaborate with ANA on media transparency to the fullest extent feasible.”
The ANA board’s decision to move forward with the hire of two investigative firms comes on the heels of last week’s Masters of Marketing Conference in Orlando. At the conference following an ANA board meeting with invited guest 4A’s CEO Nancy Hill, ANA CMO Duke Fanelli had said, “We are trying to understand which questions to ask, the breadth of the situation, and very much want the 4A’s to be part of that. We want this to be a collaboration—something that benefits the industry.”
The 4A’s had requested that the ANA move forward instead with a set of media transparency principles for the industry created by a joint 4A’s-ANA Transparency Task Force, and those guidelines are expected to be released in the coming weeks, per the announcement.
The media rebates issue came to a head in March at ANA’s 2015 Media Leadership Conference, where former Mediacom CEO Jon Mandel gave a blistering presentation accusing agencies of questionable business practices involving rebates and the lack of disclosure to clients.
Campaign reported the Marketing Agencies Association (MAA) teamed up with Google and youth marketing agency Livity to launch a diversity internship programme in the UK. The UK advertising industry mirrors the US when it comes to exclusivity, so it’s not surprising that the country would also mimic the contrived and clichéd “solutions” for the problem. Hell, this particular smokescreen isn’t even original, as the programme—named Digify—was first created in South Africa in 2014. “Digify is a tangible, proven and scaleable way to bring talent, digital skills and diversity to our sector and it’s this combination that will inspire and inject innovation into the participating agencies and their work,” said Livity Co-Founder and CEO Michelle Morgan. “It’s rooted in business benefits to agencies and social benefit to young people. We know agencies have the willing to attract diverse, brilliant talent to the sector and in Digify we now have the solution.” Notice Morgan said “scaleable” (sic) versus measurable. When the programme is applied to the broader advertising industry, the inevitable lackluster results will completely and wildly throw any scale off balance. MAA Managing Director Scott Knox—the man who helped invent the UK’s first LGBT Award—gushed, “Bringing the excellence of Google, Livity and the MAA together for this unique programme will deliver real change to the agency sector. Through this we will see young people regardless of background be trained and developed in a way that the industry has never seen before.” Um, take a peek over the Atlantic and you’ll see it’s been seen before.
MAA launches diversity internships in UK with Google and Livity
By Omar Oakes
Google and Livity, the youth marketing agency, have partnered with the Marketing Agencies Association to launch an internship programme to tackle the lack of diversity in the creative sector.
Named Digify UK, the programme aims to address a lack of diversity and digital skills among marketing and advertising agencies, with 5.4 per cent of the creative sector being made up of individuals from black and minority ethnic groups.
The programme is being announced this afternoon by Grant Shapps, the minister of state for international development, at an event hosted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Digify was founded in South Africa in 2014, as a partnership between Livity Africa and Google, with about 80 per cent of those completing the programme securing full-time work in the creative sector after their internship.
Starting next month, the programme will launch with a pilot, including 10 people aged between 18 and 24, who will enroll on a two-month digital and marketing skills boot camp at Livity.
The aim is for interns to participate in day-to-day agency life, working on real digital campaigns, social media and content creation, with personal mentoring and coaching sessions, provided by the MAA.
Michelle Morgan, the co-founder and chief executive of Livity, said: “Digify is a tangible, proven and scaleable way to bring talent, digital skills and diversity to our sector and it’s this combination that will inspire and inject innovation into the participating agencies and their work. It’s rooted in business benefits to agencies and social benefit to young people.
“We know agencies have the willing to attract diverse, brilliant talent to the sector and in Digify we now have the solution.”
Morgan became chair of youth and diversity for the MAA three years ago and has driven the organisation’s #doingdifferent agenda, which aims to deliver real and meaningful change in the make up of the agency sector’s talent.
Scott Knox, the managing director of the MAA, said: “Bringing the excellence of Google, Livity and the MAA together for this unique programme will deliver real change to the agency sector.
“Through this we will see young people regardless of background be trained and developed in a way that the industry has never seen before.”
Adweek presented a fluff piece titled, “Facetime: The ANA Masters of Marketing Conference”—featuring photos of participants at the annual advertisers trade group gathering. Go check it out. Besides the obligatory celebrity appearance by LL Cool J, the content should have been called Whiteface Time.
Adweek reported on Playboy’s decision to—starting in April 2016—strip away the nudity that has essentially symbolized the magazine’s brand. Playboy pulled a similar move with its website in 2014, apparently increasing traffic, lowering the median age of visitors and attracting broader advertisers. What’s next—turning Playboy Mansion into a children’s amusement park? Can’t help but think this action is the New Coke of the decade—except it’s not a soft drink, but rather, soft porn. Playboy without Playmates is like Madison Avenue without culturally clueless racists.
Playboy’s No-Nudity Revamp Could Mean More Ad Dollars and Higher-End Brands
Magazine may compete with Esquire and GQ
By Emma Bazilian
That old line about “reading Playboy for the articles” is about to become a lot more legitimate. This morning, Playboy announced that beginning in March 2016, it will no longer run nude pictures in the magazine. While the move has been attributed to the rise of Internet pornography—after all, who really needs to buy magazines to see naked women in this day and age?—there’s another important factor at play: Fewer nudes may mean more advertiser dollars.
The safe-for-work approach has certainly benefited Playboy.com, which underwent its own nudity-free revamp in August 2014, shifting focus to more Facebook-friendly lifestyle and entertainment content. Since then, the site’s average monthly unique visitors have increased by 400 percent, and median reader age has dropped from 47 to 30, according to the company. The site has also managed to attract advertisers like Stoli Vodka, Hornitos Tequila and The Weinstein Company.
By instituting similar changes in the magazine—among them, higher-quality paper stock, more coverage of visual artists and liquor content, per the New York Times—Playboy might hope to compete with men’s magazines like GQ and Esquire for high-end fashion, automotive and spirits advertisers.
The no-nudity move could also help broaden Playboy’s appeal among mass brands that tend to be more conservative. “This opens up the conversation to marketers hesitant to go into what was a highly provocative environment,” said Robin Steinberg, evp, publishing and digital director, investment activation at MediaVest.
Whether advertisers really will embrace the “new” Playboy remains to be seen. But even if brands bite, the magazine will still need to win over its target millennial audience. “Readers and revenue are the two most crucial factors for success,” Steinberg said.
Take, for example, former laddie magazine Maxim, which relaunched in an attempt to reposition itself as a destination for stylish urban males. Since then, the magazine’s fashion advertising has grown, but newsstand numbers are still struggling: According to the Alliance for Audited Media, single-copy sales dropped 36 percent in the first half of 2015.
According to this Toujeo® insulin commercial, side effects include nightmarish hallucinations of being trapped in a totally White world.
Steve Jobs really highlighted the dearth of diversity in the tech industry. The movie depicted images of Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from the Think Different campaign—which, appropriately enough, was created by White advertising agency Chiat Day. And there was a single scene in the film where Jobs walked past a Black person (an Apple employee?) and briefly acknowledged the man. But besides those three instances, the only thing Black was Jobs’ t-shirt.
Business Insider reported Deutsch has been using social media like Instagram and Reddit to find and recruit talent. Deutsch Chief Creative Officer Pete Favat explained, “The idea of hiring people in advertising is over. We will just regurgitate what has already been done. If advertising continues to copy itself and take influence from itself, that’s why people will get put off of advertising.” Besides not being very articulate, Favat is full of shit, as Deutsch is completely guilty of employing all the same hiring and promotion tactics that have kept the industry exclusively White for decades. Then again, social platforms such as Instagram allow Deutsch to more quickly identify candidates as being Caucasian, ultimately streamlining the staffing process. According to Business Insider, “Deutsch is telling the entire agency to ‘stuff yourselves with culture as much as possible’—paying attention to Instagram, Vine, art, comedy, shows on Netflix—and keep an eye out for potential new hires.” Um, the last time the White advertising agency gave its employees Internet-related instructions, the place wound up getting seriously spanked by the FTC.
Here’s why one ad agency seeks to hire ‘internet kids’ from Reddit and Instagram rather than people from the ad industry
By Lara O’Reilly
Recruiting for new young creatives to join the ad agency is a tough job at the moment.
At one time, the competition for creatives was just between other agencies and brands’ marketing departments, Winston Binch, chief digital officer at ad agency Deutsch, told Business Insider: “Now we compete with BuzzFeed, Vice, Google, Facebook, or what we call ‘two f—kers in their garage’ — everyone is in the marketing business now.”
But rather than fight against the democratization of tech and the ease at which people can publish their creative efforts, Deutsch has embraced the internet, by using it to be more creative about the way it recruits talent.
Instead of looking to other ad agencies, or people that have just finished college marketing courses, the agency is actively seeking out “internet kids.”
Pete Favat, Deutsch chief creative officer, said: “The idea of hiring people in advertising is over. We will just regurgitate what has already been done. If advertising continues to copy itself and take influence from itself, that’s why people will get put off of advertising.”
Recently, Deutsch has handpicked three of its young creatives via Instagram, and one via Reddit.
Deutsch discovered brothers Bryan and Beau Abbot through their “Baseball Card Vandals” website and Instagram account, which sees the pair sabotage baseball cards with funny illustrations. Neither had worked in advertising before, but now they are an art director and copywriter, respectively, working on the Sprint account.
Dan Atwater joined as a junior art director, but was found by Deutsch staff via his “kickass” Instagram profile, in which he cleverly repurposed his creative portfolio.
Meanwhile, Kurt Gassman was offered a place on the agency’s “DPrep” summer residency in Los Angeles because he made an unusual application via Reddit. He posted a series of images transforming his paper job application into an origami crane, that he took wherever he went.
Deutsch duly responded by sending his acceptance letter back via Reddit too.
Deutsch is telling the entire agency to “stuff yourselves with culture as much as possible” — paying attention to Instagram, Vine, art, comedy, shows on Netflix — and keep an eye out for potential new hires. “Talent is everyone’s job,” according to Favat.
It’s that kind of thinking that saw the agency hire TJ Miller, the comedian, writer, and actor from the HBO show Silicon Valley. He’s been brought in as a freelance writer when he’s not on set.
Binch said: “What makes this place different is that we’re passionate about innovation. We are investors and we invest ahead of revenue and that’s very rare for an ad agency — most of which are just busy managing their margins. And that’s the quickest way to die. Invention and innovation has to be the biggest part of our business model. We’ll make mistakes, but that’s what makes it exciting for us.”
Both Binch and Favat admit that hiring “internet kids” hasn’t always worked — and it’s too soon to say whether they’ll go on to get senior roles — but they encourage other businesses to adopt a tech-like “fail fast” attitude. They believe the larger business community — banks, retailers, healthcare companies — should be hiring “internet kids” too to bring new thinking into their sometimes stodgy organizations. Those kinds of people are more likely to bring ideas that a fan — not a corporation — would make, they added.
(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)
Crazy Client Brad Jakeman grabbed a mic to perform an encore to his revolutionary act on diversity.
But rather than escalate his outrage on the Whiteness of the advertising industry, the PepsiCo Global Beverage Group President seized the moment to advocate for—you guessed it—gender equality. People, it’s time to raise your voice for more White women in C-Suites and CD roles on Madison Avenue!
Jakeman is now available for bookings at 3% Conferences and ADCOLOR® extravaganzas.
C’MON WHITE MAN!
PepsiCo’s Brad Jakeman: Adland Lacks Diversity
He Calls for More Women in Senior Roles
By E.J. Schultz
At this week’s Association of National Advertiser’s conference, PepsiCo’s Brad Jakeman, president of the global beverage group, drew attention for his harsh critique of ad agencies. But he was equally aggressive in calling for more diversity in Adland. He elaborated on the topic in this video.
Albert Einstein is often credited with having said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Based on that popular definition, PepsiCo Global Beverage Group President Brad Jakeman is totally insane—and he’s definitely no Einstein. Advertising Age reported on ranting and raving spewed by Jakeman at the ANA Masters of Marketing conference, where the lunatic criticized the advertising agency model and even ripped the industry’s lack of diversity. Jakeman’s jabs included:
“I am sick and tired as a client of sitting in agency meetings with a whole bunch of white straight males talking to me about how we are going to sell our brands that are bought 85% by women. Innovation and disruption does not come from homogeneous groups of people.”
Okey-doke. If Jakeman is really worried about the soon-to-break agency model, perhaps he should stop hiring Omnicom shops and global garbage makers. Hell, the same basic advice applies for his tough words on diversity—that is, if you want to deliver on PepsiCo’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, stop conspiring with White advertising agencies where exclusivity reigns. As a global client, PepsiCo certainly has the power and authority to demand change from its shops. But to believe a blowhard like Jakeman might actually take action on such matters would demonstrate, well, insanity.“The agency model that I grew up with largely has not changed today. Yet agency CEOs are sitting there watching retainers disappear … they are looking at clients being way more promiscuous with their agencies than they ever have. … I am really worried that this model is not going to bend—it’s going to break if we don’t really think about how to innovate.”
PepsiCo Exec Has Tough Words for Agencies
PepsiCo’s Brad Jakeman Suggests Shops Have Not Kept Pace With Change
By E.J. Schultz
Ad agency models are breaking. Pre-roll ads are useless. Measurement models are outdated. The ad industry lacks diversity. And the phrase digital marketing should be dumped.
Those statements were among the declarations made Wednesday by PepsiCo exec Brad Jakeman in a fiery, truth-telling presentation at the Association of National Advertising’s annual “Masters of Marketing” conference in Orlando, Fla.
Mr. Jakeman—who is president of PepsiCo’s global beverage group—went so far as to suggest that even the phrase “advertising” should go by the wayside. He did so before 2,700 marketing and agency professionals at an event put on by an association that has the word advertising in its name. “Can we stop using the term advertising, which is based on this model of polluting [content],” he said.
“My particular peeve is pre-roll. I hate it,” he added. “What is even worse is that I know the people who are making it know that I’m going to hate it. Why do I know that? Because they tell me how long I am going to have to endure it -- 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 15 seconds. You only have to watch this crap for another 10 seconds and then you are going to get to the content that you really wanted to see. That is a model of polluting content that is not sustainable.”
But Mr. Jakeman, whose talk was called “Designing for Disruption,” saved his toughest words for ad agencies. “The agency model that I grew up with largely has not changed today,” he said, noting that he has been in the ad industry for 25 years. “Yet agency CEOs are sitting there watching retainers disappear … they are looking at clients being way more promiscuous with their agencies than they ever have.”
Continuing the rant, he said that the “global alignment agency is a dinosaur concept” and he questioned the level of innovation. “I am really worried that this model is not going to bend—it’s going to break if we don’t really think about how to innovate,” he said.
Mr. Jakeman also ripped the industry’s lack of diversity. “I am sick and tired as a client of sitting in agency meetings with a whole bunch of white straight males talking to me about how we are going to sell our brands that are bought 85% by women,” he said. “Innovation and disruption does not come from homogeneous groups of people.”
Indeed, agencies—or at least the agency of record concept—had a tough day in the opening session of the ANA event, which ends Saturday and is being held at the sprawling Orlando World Center Marriott.
Harley-Davidson Chief Marketing Officer Mark-Hans Richer—who delivered a late morning presentation—responded to a question about agencies by pointing out that the motorcycle marketer works with a lot of shops and takes a “boutique” approach. “We have not had a lead agency in about five years,” he said. “Clients must take more responsibility for creativity. It’s not the kind of thing that you should offshore.”
Disruption has been an early theme at the conference. Marketers presenting on the stage so far appear to be taking less time showcasing big campaigns and TV ads, as in years past, and more time talking about how they need to rethink their organizations and approaches from the ground up.
Mr. Richer—whose presentation was called “Fake Fight: Millennials vs. Boomers”—sought to dispel the popular notion that growth comes solely from marketing to young adults. “Youth does not own cool. Youth does not own growth. Youth does not own innovation or disruption.” he said. “Old people are a growth market, too.”
Mr. Jakeman’s presentation was almost completely devoid of self-promotional Pepsi marketing, with the exception of the blue Pepsi can he carried in his right hand. And while he questioned agency models, he was also critical of marketing organizations for not changing with the times.
He said he has been to many marketing conferences and has seen some really creative things, which he said was “awesome.” But he “hasn’t seen our industry really push for incredibly disruptive things,” he added. “We are still talking about the 30-second TV spot. Seriously?”
The theme for Blog Action Day 2015 is Raise Your Voice.
If you raise your voice for the alleged plight of White women in the advertising industry, expect to receive respect, reverence, rewards, kisses, kudos, compliments, applause, accolades, acclaim, praise, prestige and payouts—even if you’re a pathetic and patronizing douchebag.
If you raise your voice for the acknowledged plight of Black people in the advertising industry, expect to be blacklisted, blackballed, black eyed and blacked out—unless you’re a White, wonderful, wise, witty, worldly douchebag. Or a Chief Diversity Officer.
It’s time to raise your voice over such disparities in raising one’s voice on Madison Avenue.
Advertising Age reported the gender-bias lawsuit targeting Publicis Groupe and MSLGroup settled for $3 million, which is a lot less than the $100 million in damages from the original filing. But hey, it shows White women are still doing much better than minorities, who have failed to collect a single crumb for the institutionalized discrimination they face in the field.
Publicis Settles Class-Action Gender-Bias Suit for Nearly $3 Million
MSLGroup’s Monique da Silva Moore Originally Sought $100 Million in Damages
By Alexandra Bruell
In February 2011, a former employee of Publicis Groupe’s MSL Group started a class-action gender discrimination complaint against the Paris-based holding company and MSL, Publicis’ umbrella unit for public relations shops. The lead plaintiff, Monique da Silva Moore, was seeking $100 million in damages. Today, it was settled for nearly $3 million.
“The settlement, which resolves the claims of the named plaintiffs and pay and pregnancy discrimination claims of 101 other female MSLAmericas employees, has been submitted to the District Court for approval,” according to a statement from the plaintiffs’ law firm Sanford Heisler Kimpel. “Defendants Publicis Groupe and MSL Group have not conceded or admitted liability in connection with the settlement and deny that they have engaged in any wrongdoing,” added the statement.
“We are pleased to have resolved this matter, avoiding the cost of further litigation,” said MSLGroup in a statement. “We are confident that our workplace policies and practices are lawful, correct, and non-discriminatory. The Court has made no determination that any policy or practice was unlawful, and the settlement agreed to by the parties does not require any changes in our policies or practices. We continue to be fully committed to the fair, equal and respectful treatment of all of our employees.”
When they filed the suit, Ms. da Silva Moore and other female public relations employees in the U.S. claimed that they were denied equal pay, promotion and other employment opportunities by Publicis and its PR group, MSLGroup. Ms. da Silva Moore, a former global healthcare director for MSLGroup, had worked for the PR agency for 13 years.
Jim Tsokanos, MSLGroup’s U.S. president at the time, stepped down over a year after the claims were made. He was then succeeded by the company’s Chief Client Officer Renee Wilson.
Mr. Tsokanos’ alleged behavior was described in a version of the original suit.
Despite ongoing inappropriate conduct and complaints, Tsokanos was promoted to Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the Company’s largest office in New York and ultimately to President of the Americas. In his new role, Tsokanos continues to make comments about the appearance of female employees often discussing their “looks” in front of other employees and during meetings. He is also known to take young female employees out for drinks frequently. Human Resources has never taken any action to end President Tsokanos’ ongoing inappropriate conduct.In 2008, President Tsokanos proudly announced to many in the company that he “need[ed] a big swinging dick to lead the Midwest” while searching for a candidate to fill the head position for the Midwest region. The comment was widely circulated around the company.
MSLGroup has since made additional leadership changes under a new structure overseen by Arthur Sadoun, the CEO of creative agency network Publicis Worldwide.
Here, an original version of the suit:
Adweek reported Land O’ Lakes dumped Mithun—its White advertising agency of 80 years—and handed its buttery business to The Martin Agency. Both shops are in the IPG network, so the holding company’s accountants are probably breathing a sigh of relief, realizing that Corporate Cultural Collusion works. Hey, were any Native American shops permitted to pitch?
After 80 Years With One Ad Shop, Land O’ Lakes Hires The Martin Agency
Big changes at America’s top butter brand
By Patrick Coffee
Two months after announcing its creative review, Land O’ Lakes Inc. has picked The Martin Agency as the agency of record for its dairy brands including Land O’ Lakes butter and Kozy Shack puddings. This move comes after the account spent an incredible 80 years with Minneapolis agency Mithun (which, along with Martin, is owned by IPG).
Mithun was one of six agencies participating in the review, and three candidates competed in the final round. Moving forward, the Richmond, Va.-based Martin will handle communications planning and creative development in addition to all media-planning and -buying duties for the business.
Like so many agency reviews, this one followed the client’s appointment of a new CMO. Land O’ Lakes marketing chief Tim Scott served as international CEO of mcgarrybowen and president of the Dentsu-owned shop’s Chicago office before leaving the agency world to go client-side in April. He and his management team helped run the three-month review along with outside consultancy SelectResources International.
Regarding the decision, Scott said, “We’re delighted to begin work with The Martin Agency. From their speed in learning our business to their translation of strategy into impressive initial creative thoughts to their chemistry with our team, it’s already a strong partnership.”
Land O’ Lakes remains America’s most popular butter brand, but its parent company is not a particularly big spender—Kantar Media reports that Land O’ Lakes Inc. reduced its measured media outlay from $20 million in 2013 to $8.1 million in 2014. Still, Martin Agency CEO Matt Williams told Adweek that the new account will allow his agency to do what it does best: “To take brands that people know really well and inject them with a new sense of energy and momentum.” He noted that “Land O’Lakes is a household name and a company with big ambitions,” adding, “everyone has it in their fridge.”
Does this mean a new TV-centric marketing push for the client? “It’s a little early to know the specific media mix,” Williams said, “but one of the things we are most excited about is the opportunity to capture the essence of the brand and bring it to life across lots of different media from digital and social to mass media and internal communications.”
Land O’ Lakes is also keen to raise its profile among Hispanic consumers. Martin worked with fellow IPG shop Casanova Pendrill on the review, and Williams said, “We partnered with Casanova from the beginning so that our ideas would do well in both the general and Hispanic markets. We’re really excited about what’s to come.”
The first new work on this account will launch in 2016.
Brand Republic reported the UK advertising industry is launching its first LGBT award via the Marketing Agencies Association (MAA) and PrideAM. PrideAM President Scott Knox reiterated, “I began the PrideAM project saying that I wanted it to have bite.” So the inaugural initiative involves creating an award…? Yep, that bites all right. In lieu of actual, measurable and revolutionary change, let’s hand out more trophies.
MAA launches ad industry’s first LGBT award
By Omar Oakes
The Marketing Agencies Association has created the adverting industry’s first award to celebrate work supporting equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Following last month’s launch of PrideAM, the ad industry’s leadership group for LGBT people, a new PrideAM award as been incorporated into the annual MAA Best Awards.
PrideAM was co-founded by Scott Knox, the managing director of the MAA.
Knox said: “I began the PrideAM project saying that I wanted it to have bite.
“By building an award that celebrates work that reflects and targets LGBT people in a way they want, should be rewarded and heroed.
“I am truly proud that this will be the UK industry’s first ever advertising and marketing award for LGBT strategy judged by senior LGBT people.”
The award will be given to a campaign or project that shows a brand representing or targeting the LGBT community in a different way.
The MAA said the judges will be LGBT marketing and advertising professionals who will be looking for fair, accurate, inclusive and genuine representations of LGBT people in the work submitted.
They are also looking for work that could challenge and support LGBT equality.
The deadline for entries for the PrideAM award is Tuesday, 20 October. The MAA Best Awards ceremony will take place on 3 March 2016.
One more note on Advertising Week XII. The banner above stated ABC takes targeting seriously. The advertising industry, not so much.
MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.
Advertising Week XII inadvertently spotlighted the diversity dilemma that has plagued Madison Avenue and beyond since, well, forever.
This year’s New York soiree actually featured a Diversity & Inclusion Track, presenting a pile of patronizing pap that did little to legitimately further and/or foster diversity and inclusion. Additionally, there was a separate Talent Track. Leave it to the advertising industry to decide Diversity & Inclusion and Talent should be segregated endeavors.
The Diversity & Inclusion Track opened with the following promotional copy:
Diversity & InclusionIn the midst of the biggest effort in history to introduce comprehensive civil rights to the LGBTQ community, the media storm continues to swirl around national diversity challenges. Caitlyn Jenner has fueled much of the attention as of late, providing a high profile face to the debate around acceptance. Brands and advertisers still face biases in planning and executing media campaigns yet the buying power continues to grow in minority and historically excluded groups. The Inclusion of targeting and segmenting meaningful content to truly diverse audiences based on their consumer behavior and exclusive of their lifestyle choices, ethnicity or background is the recipe brands need to experiment with to optimize ROI. As the awareness and controversies rise in the media and progress is made and lost on various fronts, it is certain to be a passionate time in our history.
Only a handful of advertisers in the scheme of things have shown boldness in their work to understand, reach and service diverse audiences. Which brands are striving to understand and embrace diversity? What brave and bold campaigns will we see arrive on the scene? How will advertisers balance the perceived risks of polarizing audiences?
The diversity and inclusion track at advertising week is certain to provide insights into some of the biggest questions of our time.
Notice how the above bullshit makes zero mention of the biggest question of our time: Why are the staffs at most advertising agencies still predominately White?
Instead, the Diversity & Inclusion Track included: a single, obligatory panel discussing diversity of talent; a couple of LGBT events; an examination of media targeting women; the rise of diverse non-network shows; an autobiographical share with Lin-Manuel Miranda; an Emilio and Gloria Estefan self-promotional tour stop; a peek at Broadway Video’s Latino Network; a hand-wringing session on the Whiteness and maleness of the digital arena, and; a conversation on “the power of inclusiveness” in storytelling.
Hell, the most noteworthy diversity-related happening was the Here Are All The Black People incident—and The One Club program wasn’t even a part of Advertising Week XII.
Remember when Advertising Week served as the perfect stage to call out and condemn the dearth of diversity? Where are Cyrus Mehri, Patricia Gatling and the NYC Commission on Human Rights and John Liu? Why isn’t anyone demanding that Madison Avenue agencies publicly reveal the alleged progress?
Advertising Week XII put the “x” in exclusivity.