AgencySpy reported Omnicom President-CEO-Pioneer of Diversity John Wren vowed to double the number of female creative leaders at BBDO over the next year—which technically makes him a Pioneer of Diverted Diversity. Not sure why Wren only mentioned BBDO, but he also declared, “A critical aspect of achieving our talent development goals is creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. That means diversity in backgrounds, race, gender, age and experience. Quite frankly, we need to look more like the businesses, people and consumers we do business with. Omnicom’s commitment to diversity starts from the top.” However, the corporate commitment does not include sharing EEO-1 data to prove the achievement of talent development goals—which, incidentally, aren’t publicly defined either.
"Double the number of female creative leaders." But only at BBDO.
ReplyDeleteGreat. Let's start by pinpointing how many there are to start with, so we can see the progress.
Oh, wait. That would necessitate a formal survey or count of some kind, first. Precisely what the EEO-1 data is supposed to be useful for, if any holding company heads cared enough about diversity to actually tackle it in the first place.
Better to continue with vague talk of "diversity in backgrounds, race, gender, age and experience" so that they can keep insisting gay white men and lesbian white women, white men and women from troubled backgrounds (there's that 'diversity of experience' thing again), formerly poor white men and women, handicapped white men and white women, old white men and white women, and white veterans are all facing precisely the same issues as the ETHNIC minorities locked out of the industry entirely since the beginning of time.
Three years from now we'll see a doubling of the number of white women at BBDO, probably one ethnic foreigner from abroad hired and waved as a diversity flag, and zero black men advancing in the ranks there. BBDO and Omnicom will collect their Adcolor/Mosaic Award for diversity, and things will be the same as they ever were.
Let the shower of White Female Hires begin. It'll be white women everywhere now, and my worry is that they do NOT like lending a hand to Black men. Women of Color might come out OK and get hired in their wake, but Black men in advertising are going to be shut out worse than they are now.
ReplyDelete