Campaign reported D&AD created a Foundation Council to address diversity. Look forward to the idiots appropriately awarding themselves a White Pencil. “Diversity and equal opportunities are a hot topic within the creative industries, but despite all the talk there hasn’t been enough action,” explained D&AD Foundation Director Paul Drake. “This is something that we want to change.” By crapping out a culturally clueless, clichéd concept? In the advertising industry, even the organizations that allegedly boast high standards of excellence and breakthrough thinking still settle for the lamest ideas imaginable to solve diversity dilemmas.
D&AD launches Foundation Council to boost talent and diversity
By Omar Oakes
D&AD has launched its first Foundation Council, with a mission to boost its New Blood talent programme and promote diversity.
Havas Worldwide, WPP, Leo Burnett, Wieden & Kennedy and Bartle Bogle Hegarty have signed up to support the initiative.
The Foundation Council is aiming to use the knowledge and experience from 35 years of student awards, as well as running learning programmes such as the WPP New Blood Academy, to deliver industry-led projects that ensure anyone with talent can succeed.
The first council will work on three projects in the first year, such as co-creating the D&AD curriculum based on the themes of the year’s awards. Over the next three years the curriculum will develop into a series of free courses, available globally to help people further their professional skills.
Another project, called Investing in Talent, will comprise a fund to support people who come through New Blood and lack the finance to realise their ideas.
And a new programme, New Blood Shift, will aim to find creative excellence through a free 12-week night school for young people who have not been through the traditional university route. Participants will also be provided with mentoring and the opportunity to work on paid placements.
Paul Drake, the D&AD Foundation director, said: “As a non-profit, D&AD already invests in programmes like New Blood that inspire the next generation of creative talent and encourage the creative industry to work towards a fairer, more sustainable future.
“But we want to do more. Diversity and equal opportunities are a hot topic within the creative industries, but despite all the talk there hasn’t been enough action. This is something that we want to change.”
This annoys me.
ReplyDeleteI'm sick of watching people of color get forced into complicated, elaborate training programs while white buddies of white people constantly get hired at major agencies with NO TRAINING AND A WINK AND A SMILE.
They bypass HR, get fed all the inside information and special help they need to get the job, slide right into it and their POC counterparts are stuck in some session learning outdated bits of code or programs that are obsolete by the time they have had the 10th door slammed in the face and are told Sorry, Someone Else Was Just A Better Fit For Us.®
A Diversity Council Training Program is the last thing needed in an industry where people are hired on their social connections rather than their skills or merit. It's another diversionary tactic.
ReplyDelete