Oh, look! There’s a new collection at Ads of the World—ADCOLOR®: Ad of the Year Nominees and Winners. Whoop dee damn doo. It’s unclear why an awards show is spotlighting an awards show. Not surprisingly, most of the entries came from White advertising agencies. Also peculiar is the hype that claims the organization “is the largest, most recognized cross-discipline diversity and inclusion initiative for creative industries…” Really? ADCOLOR® is bigger than MAIP or Mosaic?
All u Black ad folks who dogged Nathan Young for standing-up, maybe u should learn about the origins of ADCOLOR. ADCOLOR is nothing more than the rip-off of the CEBA Awards devised and created by Gene Jackson and the late Sid Small, the founders of National Black Radio in the late 60's. National Black Radio met its demise as the result of Mad Ave's "redlining" of Black-owned media. In it's heyday, the CEBA Awards was the showcase for Black talent which was virtually excluded from most Creative slots in the agencies. As time went on, as with the current imposter, ADCOLOR, most of the awards went to white agencies. Thus, a CEBA meant jack to the career of the individual Black creative but much to a bigoted ad industry trying to con the business world that they really honored their Black talent. As was the truth then, as now, "Cotton" ain't died & gone to Mad Ave heaven. Ms. Warren, who takes credit for ADCOLOR, which is financed and owned by her employer Omnicom, has not seen fit to give the originators of a Black Awards Show(CEBA) their props. Ms. Warren got hired as Chief Diversity What-ever as a result of Omnicom facing subpoenas during AD Week by Comm. Gatling of the NYC Human Rights Comm and hearings convened by the NYC Council. Omnicom did not have a Black exec to send to the Council hearings and hired a diversity consultant to be their stand-in. Called out by the Council for this charade, Omnicom hired Ms. Warren as Chief Diversity Whatever. Rather than researching, interviewing and hiring qualified Black Executive & Creative ad/marketing professionals, Ms. Warren "created" ADCOLOR - to an ever grateful Omnicom management. ADCOLOR provided them with a "living, breathing" testament to the opportunities awaiting Blacks at Omnicom and its agency network. Having taken this "minstrel" show to Cannes, ADCOLOR is coming to the mecca of Black culture, the legendary Apollo Theatre. Why not, the Mad Men have been appropriating or more to the point, feedin' off Blacks, Black culture, Black creative genius and Black dollars since they placed ads for run-a-way slaves. In truth, ADCOLOR ain't got no color, it's really the Clios' "frontin" in blackface.
ReplyDeleteSanford Moore
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