15664: Reviewing 2021 And Envisioning 2022—Oxen And Tigers, Oh My!

 

While 2022 is the Year of the Tiger, 2021 was the Year of the Ox. Among the Chinese zodiac signs, the Ox symbolizes diligence, strength, honesty, down-to-earth persistence and wealth; in contrast, the Tiger symbolizes strength, speed, exorcising evil and bravery.

 

As the transition between symbols occurs from late January to mid-February, it’s time to recognize three industry figures whose actions in the past year reflected the Ox—although they may ultimately become Tigers in the year ahead.

 

 

Hero Group CEO Joe Anthony lobbed a $10 million grenade at DDB Chicago, filing a lawsuit that charged the White advertising agency with fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract and more. The accusations stemmed from Hero Group joining forces with DDB Chicago to win the US Army account. Anthony insisted that DDB reneged on an agreement to award “significant work” to the New York-based Hero Group after the pitch victory. The argument escalated to a Medium perspective, wherein Anthony presented Prime Redlining as follows:

 

Prime Redlining is when the prime applicant or beneficiary of a government contract teams up with a minority firm to apply for or secure a government contract; and after winning the government contract, the prime redlines the minority firm out of the contract by denying or extremely limiting the minority firm from the financial benefit originally established in their teaming agreement or dictated by government compliance requirements.

 

There were no further reports on the progress and/or outcome of the lawsuit. However, Anthony surfaced as a leader in a partnership with Carat, a company within the Dentsu empire.

 

 

Media Mogul Byron Allen launched an offensive by sending letters of intent to brands and White advertising agencies, threatening legal action if the enterprises failed to allocate more money to Black-owned media. In short, Allen was refusing to accept crumbs.

 

Leading a team of Black media moguls, Allen drove a full-page advertisement attacking General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra for declining to meet with them. In the end, Barra, Allen and the group staged a powwow—and General Motors later announced plans to increase spending with Black-owned media.

 

Allen then set his sights on Mickey D’s, filing a whopper $10 billion discrimination lawsuit. Plus, Allen even demanded that McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski be fired for alleged cultural cluelessness on an unrelated incident. A judge initially tossed the lawsuit; however, Allen was allowed to amend the complaint. Stay McTuned.

 

Nathan Young rose to Head of Strategy for Ethos, a new offering from Deloitte Digital designed to help brands build equity, justice and sustainability initiatives. In his professional role, Young may reach greater heights than the 600 & Rising platform that he cofounded in 2020—but don’t expect any accolades from ADCOLOR®.

 

Anthony, Allen and Young represent Oxen and Tigers, displaying courage and conviction to call out systemic inequities—and serving as exorcists to cast out perpetuating evils.

15584: At Deloitte Digital, Nathan Young Is 1 & Rising…

 

Advertising Age reported Deloitte Digital launched a new offering—Ethos—to help businesses create equity, justice and sustainability heat shields. Leading the charge as Head of Strategy for Ethos is none other than Nathan Young. Hey, if the initiative experiences extraordinary success, Young could land an ADCOLOR® trophy.

 

Nathan Young, Former 600 & Rising President, Heads A New Brand Purpose Initiative At Deloitte Digital

 

Ethos builds on the promise—and pitfalls—of his former organization

 

By I-Hsien Sherwood

 

Nathan Young, co-founder and former president of advocacy non-profit 600 & Rising, has a new plan to help the world—at Deloitte Digital.

 

After the murder of George Floyd, 600 & Rising galvanized racial justice sentiment in the advertising industry, but the original initiative collapsed just a few months later, its plans no match for institutional inertia, management missteps and the often daunting logistics of running a non-profit.

 

“When you’re powered by a team of volunteers, for all your good intentions you are having to balance what you're trying to do in that space with your day job,” Young said. “You just can’t get as far as you want as fast as you want.”

 

Young has learned from that experience. At Deloitte Digital he is now head of strategy for Ethos, a new offering from the consultancy that will help businesses develop internal and external programs to address equity, justice and sustainability issues. While chief marketing officers want to do the right thing, he said, they don’t know how to.

 

“They understand how their audiences feel about their brand, but they don’t have a really good understanding of how they feel about social issues,” Young said. “It’s not just about the relationship between the brand and the customer. It’s about the relationship between the brand, the customer and society, culture writ large.”

 

Ethos soft-launched earlier this year and has been working with more than a dozen Fortune 100 companies. (Deloitte declined to name any of those companies, citing confidentiality agreements.) One undisclosed brand with a predominantly white employee base had surveys lauding its positive work culture and high job satisfaction. But when Ethos specifically asked Black, Indigenous, people of color, disabled and veteran workers about their experiences, they uncovered brewing discontent that had been washed out in the averages. The Ethos team then helped the brand develop new human resources programs to help elevate those underrepresented voices.

 

The resources afforded by an organization as large as Deloitte “allow us to move beyond manifesto, beyond powerful campaigns and actually make up something that fundamentally changes the way that companies work,” Young said, “more in the service of benefiting the planet, benefiting the people that reside in it and being in balance and harmony with society.”

 

If Young’s rhetoric seems less combative than last year, it is. A sabbatical after his resignation from Periscope in August 2020 helped him channel the urgency he felt about fixing things. “This is going to sound kind of obvious, but it’s relatively easy to point out what’s wrong,” he said. “It’s a lot harder to find a solution for what you’ve perceived to be wrong out there.”

 

15437: 600 & Rising & Rejiggering.

 

Advertising Age published an interview with 600 & Rising Co-Founder Bennett D. Bennett on the state of affairs at the organization. To recap, the group launched in revolutionary style with an open letter to Adland in 2020, demanding an end to the systemic racism plaguing the field. The movement was derailed when Co-Founder Nathan Young resigned following backlash from a Twitter critique of ADCOLOR® as being a heat shield. Based on the interview, 600 & Rising is not exactly on the rise after roughly 600 days, still strategizing to define a vision and action plan. When asked to share his hope for 600 & Rising, Bennett remarked, “I can only hope for grace to those who want to give it for me and the organization. There needs to be a lot of egos shed to make this work.” Um, to ultimately realize success, a lot of culturally clueless White “leaders” need to be shed too.

 

600 & Rising’s Bennett D. Bennett on the future of the organization

 

One year since the nonprofit called for the end of systemic racism on Madison Avenue, its co-founder reveals what’s next

 

By Jeanine Poggi

 

600 & Rising made waves in June 2020 when Black agency executives, led by Nathan Young and Bennett D. Bennett, came together to challenge Madison Avenue to end systemic racism. The nonprofit was quickly backed by industry trade body the 4A’s and moved to take the pulse of the industry and formulate a standard for agency diversity data reporting.

 

Just two months later, Young stepped down from the organization and the group announced a plan to dissolve its structure. At the time the nonprofit said it would be “taking the next 30 days to reassess with the intent that 600 & Rising becomes an advocacy community led by the signatories—Black talent and non-Black allies—that works for the interests and with the input of all involved, moving forward.”

 

Not much has been heard about the group since then, but Bennett has continued to work on reframing the organization. He sat down with Ad Age to discuss the progress and what’s next for 600 & Rising. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

 

Where is 600 & Rising at this point?

 

Starting over feels like a weird term, but it is a bit of a refresh for us as an organization. When my co-founder departed in July, there was a lot of mending fences, ensuring the organization could remain stable. I moved on with what I believe is still a good-enough mission to stick around.

 

What is that mission now?

 

I feel like I have an opportunity to just do the work. I needed to reframe how I was looking at my role within this organization. I have done as much as I can, but I am not the future of the industry. I shifted my mindset. It is a weird and interesting burden; I don’t think any Black person wants to have to scream out at the top of their lungs. But I started looking at this opportunity as a ‘thank you’ to everybody who allowed me to get to this point.

 

I was raised by more DE&I people than creative directors. I never had the proper opportunity to have that guidance when I was on the agency side. I had to do so much on my own. They gave me a chance to say, ‘I should still be in this industry and fight my way to be a creative professional.’ I feel I owe them that because this burden has been theirs to carry for a very long time. 600 is about Black talent first. We want to advocate for them and their best interest. We want to elevate them to their fullest potential. Wherever talented Black voices we want to make sure we support that.

 

When you lose focus on what brought you here, messes happen, and we have seen messes happen. If Black talent feels dissatisfied at their agency or are being harassed, we are still an organization you can come to and say, ‘this is a terrible work environment,’ and we will figure out how to help them. I don’t want to say 600 isn’t here for the ad agencies; it was born out of agency people, but it doesn’t tell the full picture of Black talent.

 

What has the process of rebuilding been like?

 

I was in my parents’ guest room at a desk for 13 to 14 months. I don’t want to say it was the easiest thing to reach back to partners like 4A’s after we made a splashy announcement with them; they were very hurt. We had those conversations as soon as we could because we recognize the mission was more important than who was running it.

 

What’s next?

 

There is no lighthouse for Black talent in the industry or companies who feel they may not have made inroads with the Black community in the way they should. This is mostly an infrastructure problem. No. 1 issue is wage equity. Agencies are starting to acknowledge that and restructure what salary bands look like. We want to empower Black talent on how to have those conversations with their agencies, make sure they have the receipts so to speak when it comes time for annual reviews, understand what it means to be more financially empowered. We are some of the most savvy people in business; we are people who influence the stock market, but we aren’t in touch with our ability to understand what a financial plan looks like for us when we are moving to a new market or taking a new job. We are holding fire to agencies to make sure they close the wage gap and work with partners that have engaged with us on wage equity.

 

We have been developing a study to use anonymous self-reported data to get the benchmarks for Black talent at this point. The equity study we are building out will show what the picture is looking like for Black talent for compensation, not just on the agency side. We are working with partners like We Are Rosie to address the freelance market. We are hoping to get at least this stuff out by June. The biggest Juneteenth goal is watching to see what agencies have to say about representation

 

One of the primary goals of 600 & Rising when it launched was to hold the industry accountable. Whose responsibility do you think that is now?

 

Anyone who has some sort of financial stake in the industry is responsible: activist shareholders, brands and also talent. For every executive who has said diversity is everybody’s business, I want to call bullshit, because it is put upon the DE&I leads.

 

What do you think of how the industry has responded to the Black Lives Matter movement over the past year?

 

It is very clearly a mixed bag. I always knew one year would be too soon for people to feel fully satisfied. The fact that Black talent feel comfortable telling us, ‘The agency I work for says it will support this creative idea and I feel empowered.’ Then on the other hand we do this wage equity survey and agencies put out numbers and again we will also hear from talent who are dissatisfied. I don’t think anyone who is Black in this industry feels like what has happened over the past year has been enough. There are people who have gotten promoted over the past year and they are getting their voice heard; and then there are agency layoffs.

 

What do you hope to see a year from now?

 

A year from now I want people to really, really, really appreciate the need for outside voices for good. I want the sentiment from Black Americans and Black people who watch advertising content to come with a sense of pride. There is so much breakthrough work that can be created when you allow voices to come in and do the work; I want us to be part of that. It has to be about consumers. It is a service industry, and we haven’t been treating it like a service industry at all.

 

What do you hope for 600 & Rising?

 

I can only hope for grace to those who want to give it for me and the organization. There needs to be a lot of egos shed to make this work.

15122: The Young And The Restless.

 

 

 

Researching the previous post on Nathan Young uncovered the image of a slightly younger Young depicted above, which led to an organization called SVP Seattle that proclaims:

 

“We are people for whom improving our community is part of our life’s journey—whether we work in the nonprofit or corporate world.”

 

An associated profile reads as follows:

 

Nathan Young is a digital marketing expert with a strong advertising background and a sharp hairline. As the founder and Principal at Tencount, a boutique digital strategy agency, Nathan leads a multi-disciplinary team to develop strategies, build out campaigns and drive lead generation for mid-market and enterprise B2B tech companies. Over the past 8 years, he has had the opportunity to help top brands handle tough digital marketing challenges including Microsoft, Concur, AXS, and Booking.com.

 

Nathan is a staunch advocate for diversity and inclusion, and works with American Advertising Federation’s Mosaic program and HERE Seattle to promote diversity in the advertising, marketing, and tech industries. Nathan also serves as Director of Programming for the Seattle chapter American Advertising Federation and is tremendously excited to join SVP.

 

In short, Young’s inspiration and dedication to diversity didn’t happen suddenly—or as a spur-of-the-moment reaction to recent civil unrest. He has been an activist and change agent—as well as a top-flight professional—for many years, which makes his departure from adland especially disturbing.

 

All the best to Young and his family.

15121: Nathan Young Resigns Again—As Black Opportunities In Adland Are At An All-Time Lie, Er, High.

 

 

 

Advertising Age reported Nathan Young, former co-founder of 600 & Rising, is now former group strategy director of Periscope—plus, Young remarked, “I had to step down from everything and I’m honestly not sure I’m going to come back to advertising.” While it will surely be lost on the ADCOLOR^® fanatics, Young’s statement represents the ultimate irony. That is, a true champion of diversity in adland has chosen to remove himself from the underrepresented, effectively lowering Periscope’s EEO-1 data and leaving a hole in the global community. At a time when Young should be inundated with offers from White advertising agencies desperately seeking to create an illusion of inclusion, the industry loses an allegedly-ever-elusive qualified minority. Meanwhile, the bland plays on, composed of a minority membership completely divorced from reality that sells the story that progress is being made on diversity in advertising and buys cover for holding companies.

 

Bonus irony: 600 & Rising is now reassessing its strategy without a strategy director at the helm.

 

Nathan Young Resigns From Periscope, ‘Not Certain’ He’ll Return To Advertising

 

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

 

Nathan Young, the former president of the 600 & Rising organization he founded alongside Bennett D. Bennett to tackle systemic racism in the advertising industry, tells Ad Age he also quietly resigned from his role as group strategy director of Minneapolis agency Periscope.

 

“I had to step down from everything and I’m honestly not sure I’m going to come back to advertising,” Young says.

 

Periscope confirmed Young’s departure in a statement.

 

“We are grateful for the work Nathan has done with our team and wish him well as he takes some time to focus on his family and his future,” a Periscope spokesperson wrote. “Nathan helped to push the industry—and our own agency—to have important and often difficult conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion. Those conversations are not over. Periscope and Quad continue on our journey to invest in and remain committed to our DEI efforts. We say goodbye to Nathan with sincere thanks for his contributions to this journey and best wishes for his future.”

 

Young announced his resignation from 600 & Rising on Twitter earlier this month, noting how “Splitting time between my day job and this movement in the middle of a pandemic has placed enormous stress on both me and my family.” Young tells Ad Age he quietly stepped down from Periscope that same day, for the same reasons.

 

He says he “could not be more grateful for the support Periscope has shown me and continues to show me with my departure.”

 

“Periscope is home to some of the most brilliant, brave and kind talent I’ve ever encountered in the industry,” Young says. “Together we overcame an incredible number of obstacles and it saddens me that we won’t be able to finish what we started together.”

 

He says he is currently prioritizing his family. “That’s the only thing that matters to me right now.”

 

Young’s departure from 600 & Rising came after he tweeted criticism about the ADCOLOR awards, the advertising fete that has long celebrated the achievements of diverse industry professionals as well as work that has promoted diversity and inclusion.

 

“@ADCOLOR is an awards ceremony completely divorced from reality that sells the story that progress is being made on diversity in advertising and buys cover for holding companies,” Young wrote.

 

600 & Rising said at the time of Young’s resignation that it was dissolving its current structure and would be “taking the next 30 days to reassess, with the intent that 600 & Rising becomes an advocacy community led by the signatories—Black talent and non-Black allies—that works for the interests and with the input of all involved, moving forward.”

 

Young says that he since “regrets” that tweet and notes that “there needs to be more collaboration and less competition to tackle the “enormous” issue of racism in the industry.

 

He had served as a group strategy director for Periscope since March. Young previously was a managing director for Aux Creative in Seattle, Washington. He’s also held stints at other Seattle-area agencies including Crown, Tencount and Creature.

 

In July, Young led an agency walkout at Periscope to protest parent company Quad/Graphics’ actions regarding social justice. The company had acquired Periscope for $132 million in 2019. The complaint which Young and his colleagues had launched against Quad centered largely around what he says was the company’s aversion to using the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in messages addressing the current unrest.

 

This story has been updated to include a statement from Periscope.

15106: Sanford Moore Is Still Very Articulate When Speaking The Unvarnished Truth.

 

 

 

For those who missed the link in a recent post, Sanford Moore continues to be a powerful voice in Adland’s diversity drama, presenting provocative perspectives that prevent him from being embraced by the likes of ADCOLOR® and 600 & Rising.

 

Respect Is Good Business

 

Past time for industry to stop taking viewers of color for granted

 

By Sanford Moore

 

The public outrage from the murder of George Floyd has, in the current lexicon, “woke” up the corporate leadership of the broadcasting and advertising industries. A veritable cascade of diversity initiatives has dropped like manna from heaven to civil rights organizations, educational institutions and community programs. Both industries have long been among the least committed to diversity and black representation among the ranks of senior management and board membership.

 

Past commitments to increase diversity and black representation were not voluntary, but were conditions imposed as terms of settlements for past discrimination and promises made to obtain regulatory approval of strategic mergers. Why did it take the most massive protest in modern American history for them to act? Are they afraid of protesters at their gates, or bad PR for some of their corporate clients who share a similar history of discrimination and prejudice?

 

The two industries are intertwined by their business models and money. Broadcast television is dependent on ad agencies for revenue. This revenue is generated by offering content to the public for free, content that can deliver audiences large enough to justify ad rates and the commissions that agencies charge their corporate clients. Cable television has the additional revenue source of subscription fees paid by consumers for programming and content over premium channels.

 

Black consumers over-index for the consumption of broadcast television, cable networks and premium channels. Similarly, these consumers over-index for numerous brands and product categories, as has been documented by Nielsen for decades. Yet these consumers and viewers who are so crucial to the performance and profitability of both industries have been devalued, disrespected and denied credit for their economic contribution. In addition, they have benefited from black talent and creativity which are the primary drivers of American and indeed global pop culture.

 

Truth be told, would the National Football League be the leading television franchise without black players? Would VH1 still be in business were it not for black reality shows? Would Fox have achieved standing as the fourth network without the black shows and the black audiences they attracted? Black viewers are the underserved audience whose critical mass has paved the road to success for every new network.

 

Do the corporate contributions and funding pouring forth even remotely begin to equate the generations of discrimination, exploitation and cultural appropriation? Before CEOs proclaim that black lives matter, they need to acknowledge that black dollars, black eyeballs and black talent have mattered for a very long time to their personal and corporate success.

 

Sanford Moore has been a long-time ad industry critic, former agency executive and black talk radio co-host. He has also been an advocate for parity for African-American media with Madison Avenue and the ratings services. He can be reached at thecutmancv@hotmail.com.

15105: For Adland Diversity, It’s Out With The Young, In With The Old.

Shoot reported 600 & Rising Co-Founder Nathan Young resigned from his presidency position with the organization. The decision appears to have stemmed in part from Young’s recent critique of ADCOLOR® as being an impotent heat shield for holding companies. If so, the scenario essentially underscores Young’s observation. It also indicates that—when it comes to the titanic shipwreck of diversity in advertising—anyone seeking to rock the boat gets thrown overboard.

 

Nathan Young steps down from presidency of 600 & Rising; group continues to seek progressive reform

 

Nathan Young, group strategy director at Periscope, has stepped down from the presidency of 600 & Rising, the organization he co-founded in order to give a strong voice to Black advertising professionals, advocating for their hiring and advancement. 

 

Young resigned during a special meeting of the 600 & Rising board of directors and officers on Thursday (8/6). The move came after “careful consideration and deliberation with the board members,” according to an industry letter sent out by 600 & Rising. There had been some controversy over Young questioning the efforts of the longstanding ADCOLOR Awards Fest, which reportedly wasn’t well received among factions within and outside 600 & Rising.

 

This in turn has caused 600 & Rising to reassess its approach while remaining steadfast in its mission of dismantling systemic racism in the advertising and public relations industries. Board members and officers thus are dissolving the current structure of the organization and taking the next 30 days to reassess, with the intent that 600 & Rising becomes an advocacy community led by the signatories—Black talent and non-Black allies—that works for the interests and with the input of all involved, moving forward.

 

Hold The PRess will continue forth as a separate initiative, remaining focused on transforming the public relations industry for the betterment of Black talent.

 

The Board members stand by the initial Call for Change open letter, 12-step action plan for the advertising and public relations industry and the #CommitToChange campaign.

 

Industry letter

 

The 600 & Rising letter read in part, “Ultimately, the initial goal of this movement was to leverage the collective power of the more than 3,500 signatories to spur the advertising industry to take decisive action in beginning to break down the systemic barriers for Black talent. In that, 600 & Rising was successful. All five major advertising holding companies and more than 100 independent agencies released their diversity data and made public commitments to make meaningful change.

 

“However, in the haste to keep the industry focused on diversity issues, the signatories were not provided a chance to give input and support for actions of the movement that reflect them. The Board members understand that this has not centered their voices in the movement, particularly those of Black woman, who are the most marginalized among us.

 

“This mission is too important to structure an organization around it in an inadequate and inappropriate way,” the letter continued. “The Board members are now available to the signatories as a coalition of individual peers who are also signatories and can help see through the mission.

 

“The voices of the signatories to the Call for Change open letter must not be muted nor erased, and the need for immediate action from the advertising and public relations industry remains pertinent.”

 

In this vein, the 600 & Rising board will reach out to signatories, committed agencies, advisors and like-minded initiatives over the next 30 days to truly collaborate on creating a better future, including:

 

Leveraging the perspectives of Black talent and non-Black allies on how this advocacy group can better operate

 

Collaborating with diversity, equity and inclusion leaders and organizations who can advance the efforts of the advocacy group

 

Conversing with agencies regarding their questions and perceived hurdles in continuing to enact the 12-step action plan

 

In addition to getting sought after diversity data from the alluded to agency holding companies, 600 & Rising in its relatively brief tenure has made progress on another prime industry front, having back in June formed a partnership with the 4As.

 

Back in June, Marla Kaplowitz, 4A’s president and CEO, said that the organization has come together with 600 & Rising to help ensure that Black voices at all levels “play a role in guiding the industry forward.” The 4A’s—which serves more than 600 member agencies across 1,200 offices in the U.S. (collectively having a hand in more than 85% of total ad spend in America)—will support 600 & Rising in a concerted effort to get agencies to hear, hire and promote Black professionals, as well as advocate that advertising be inclusive.