16457: Pseudo Revolutionary Reboots.

 

Adweek reported Antonio Lucio is returning to HP, reclaiming the CMO role and succeeding his successor.

 

Here are a few rewinding predictions:

 

• HP will have no recorded measurable progress in DEI initiatives since Lucio’s 2018 departure.

 

• The White advertising agency that Lucio partners with will have no recorded measurable progress in DEI initiatives.

 

• Lucio will take a performative stand with DEI demands for his White advertising agency—but will make no effort to enforce the demands.

 

• ADCOLOR^® will honor Lucio with a Comeback Human Heat Shield of the Year award.

16241: AAF AHOF ICYMI.

 

AgencySpy posted on the American Advertising Federation inducting the most diverse class ever into its Advertising Hall of Fame—a group that included Pioneer of Diversity John Wren. Why was such a momentous occasion only covered by AgencySpy?

 

The Advertising Hall of Fame Inducts Most Diverse Class Yet

 

By Emmy Liederman

 

When Antonio Lucio accepted his induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame, he asserted the industry’s collective social impact that does more than impress fellow ad veterans and award show committees.

 

“I believe in this industry’s ability to do good,” said Lucio, who concluded his speech waving a miniature Puerto Rican flag as a salute to the place he grew up. “We influence the way the world sees itself.”

 

Lucio, the former global CMO of Meta and the principal and founder of talent consultancy 5S Diversity, is part of the American Advertising Federation’s 72nd annual class. The April 27 award show at Cipriani Wall Street was kicked off with remarks from president and CEO Steve Pacheco, followed by board chair Tiffany R. Warren, who expressed her pride in inducting the AAF’s most diverse class yet.

 

The organization recognized Unilever as its corporate nominee and honored seven industry veterans:

 

• Raúl Alarcón, chairman of the board and CEO, Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc.

 

• Cathie Black, principal, Madison Park Ventures; former chairman and president, Hearst Magazines

 

• Louis Carr, president of media sales, Black Entertainment Television (BET)

 

• Antonio J. Lucio, principal and founder, 5S Diversity and former global CMO at Meta, HP, Visa and PepsiCo

 

• Renetta E. McCann, Chief Inclusion Experience Officer, Publicis Groupe

 

• Aaron M. Walton, CEO, Walton Isaacson

 

• John Wren, chairman and CEO, Omnicom Group

 

Several honorees said they hope this class popularizes the notion that careers in advertising, media and marketing exist for everyone—and that organizations failing to identify diverse talent probably don’t know where to look. Carr, who has been with BET Networks for 36 years, referred to his role as a “privilege job” in that he is able to “show Black excellence both on screen and off screen.”

 

The acceptance speeches were introduced with video montages for each inductee, which consisted of praise that spanned from industry leaders to grandchildren. In Black’s tribute, Gloria Steinem commemorated her fellow contributions to feminism—the former president of Hearst Magazines was also the first woman publisher of a national consumer weekly, New York Magazine.

 

In an email to inductees after the event, Advertising Hall of Fame council of judges chair Carolyn Everson expressed her excitement in honoring a group of leaders who embody and champion the progression of industry inclusion.

 

“Watching each of you step up and deliver extraordinary messages of inspiration, leadership, passion and provocation was something no one in that room will ever forget,” she stated. “Serving the AHOF has been one of the greatest honors of my career.”

15658: Antonio Lucio Talks The Talk…Blah, Blah, Blah.

 

The Business of Marketing podcast from Adweek and SAP spotlighted 5S Diversity Founder Antonio Lucio in an episode titled, “The Future of Leadership, DEI and Sustainability According to Former Facebook CMO.” Countering the headline, Lucio’s interview lacked a clear vision for moving forward.

 

For starters, Facebook experience does not necessarily translate to diversity expertise.

 

Lucio is seeking to impact “marketing transformation through the lens of DEI”—yet he didn’t define what that means or how he might achieve it. And much of his mumbo-jumbo mentioned “women and people of color”—literally and figuratively putting gender diversity ahead of racial and ethnic equality.

 

Even the first name of Lucio’s company—5S—is an acronym for five sisters, inspired by his five daughters. The preference to tackle gender diversity is not new for Lucio.

 

The droning discussion probed on mentorship, sponsorship and training, aimlessly regurgitating other non-new topics.

 

Herein lies the challenge for Lucio. Like it or not, he failed to ignite meaningful action when his CMO titles provided the influence and authority to dictate progress. Can he hope to affect reformation and revolution without the political clout?

 

Will Lucio become a bona fide change agent—or just a frequent guest on podcasts? Stay tuned.

15592: Delayed WTF 52—Does ADCOLOR Constitute False Advertising?

 

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.

 

Adweek published “sponsored content” highlighting the 15th Annual ADCOLOR Awards, penned by none other than Tiffany R. Warren. Why is this pseudo-philanthropic fuck fest still associated with the advertising industry? After all, its top trophy recipients are Hollywood celebrities. Even Warren bailed out of the ad game. Granted, the inaugural ADCOLOR soiree showed its true colors by praising Magic Johnson—and the key winners since then have been more likely to serve as paid ad spokespersons versus ad trailblazers.

 

The Adweek divertorial was headlined, “15th Annual ADCOLOR Awards: Honoring the DEI Champions Who Go Above and Beyond.” Two of the usual suspects saluted included:

 

Lifetime Achievement

 

Antonio Lucio, Principal and Founder, 5S Diversity; Executive Fellow, Yale School of Management

 

After 40 years as a celebrated marketing leader, Lucio stepped down as CMO at Facebook last year to focus fully on DEI efforts within the industry. He is known for his philosophy of empathetic leadership and for calling on marketing to become “bilingual and bicultural,” building bridges between what companies want to do and where consumers are.

 

Catalyst

 

Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble

 

Pritchard doesn’t want to see your ad storyboards if they’re not reflective of the diverse audience P&G serves. And the same goes for meetings, which is why Pritchard also champions the necessity of hiring BIPOC staff and demanding the same of partners within the industry.

 

Um, if the lifetime achiever and catalytic converter are so successfully stellar, why do their White advertising agency co-conspirators confess to having failed at DE&I diversions—and continue to annually admit that there is still much work to be done? Hell, their own companies are DE&I deficient. Why are contrived and clichéd excuses for cultural cluelessness regurgitated year after year? Why routinely erect heat shields to conceal and camouflage the abysmal lack of progress? Sorry, the alleged accomplishments should be accompanied by asterisks.

 

BTW, the traditional gift for a 15th anniversary is crystal. So maybe the organization will salute Crystal Langhorne. Although they’d probably opt for Billy Crystal, as he has greater star-fucker appeal.

 

Oh, and has anyone asked Nathan Young to weigh in on matters—doesn’t he qualify as a DE&I champion who goes above and beyond?

14752: Marc Pritchard & Antonio Lucio Setting New Standards For Status Quo.

Adweek presented a podcast featuring Procter & Gamble Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard and Facebook CMO Antonio Lucio, which could have been titled, “Divertsity and Divertisement Dumb and Dumber Duo.” Adweek declared the dimwits are “setting new industry standards.” Yes, new standards for hypocrisy and bullshit. The trade journal should have added Verizon CMO Diego Scotti to complete The Three Stooges of the status quo. Don’t bother listening to the gibberish and jabber. Appropriately, these guys are all talk.

P&G CBO Marc Pritchard and Facebook CMO Antonio Lucio Setting New Industry Standards

By Nadine Dietz

What happens when you bring two of the most influential marketing leaders in the world together on one podcast? I just had to find out, which is why I invited Marc Pritchard, CBO of Procter & Gamble and Antonio Lucio, CMO of Facebook to come together to interview each other in this very special CMO Moves Duos episode.

I had a front-row seat as Marc and Antonio dove deep into the topics driving the industry today, starting with an intriguing update on the challenges they face today in their respective organizations. One would think that a 182-year-old company and a 15-year-old company would be worlds apart. Also, the role of Chief Brand Officer and the Chief Marketing Officer would have fundamentally different objectives. And being “B2C” vs “B2B(&C)” would certainly be a dividing factor. Alas, the camaraderie, mutual respect, and alignment on what is most important for brands and marketing today was incredible and how both are championing their customers and consumers in new ways, as well as working well together for industry advancement.

We’ve all heard from or read about Marc and Antonio individually on the importance of transparency, trust, diversity, inclusion, credibility, reinvention and responsibility. Hearing them discuss the topics together and the rationale behind their shared perspectives only further underscores their impact in our marketing community and provides all of us a blueprint for becoming the best leaders we can be.

14619: Does Antonio Lucio Want To Give Facebook A Marketing And Multicultural Makeover?

Advertising Age reported on the latest escapades of former HP CMO and current Facebook CMO Antonio Lucio, who just launched a new advertising campaign to reinvent the social network as a friendly and diverse place. “What you’re going to see from us from now on is much more of a regular beat on all the progress that we are making,” declared Lucio. “We need to make sure that we are participants in the way that our story is told and not just on the receiving end.” That sounds like marketing mumbo jumbo from a world-class con artist. Hey, Facebook recently took heat from the NAACP for civil rights abuses—so the solution is to hand the propaganda reins to a guy whose patronizing stunt admittedly failed to bring racial progress to the advertising industry…? And is it a clever coincidence that the Ad Age article was illustrated with a photo of a Black family (depicted above)? Ad Age wrote, “The fight against abusive accounts is one of the main pillars of Lucio’s messaging strategy. Facebook needs to ‘eliminate white supremacists and nationalist groups’ content from the platform,’ [Lucio] says.” That’s a tall order, given that Lucio couldn’t even curb cultural cluelessness in a handful of White advertising agencies.

Facebook CMO Antonio Lucio plans to rebuild trust, starting with an ad campaign

New marketing chief looks to restore a sense of positivity

By Garett Sloane

Facebook’s new CMO Antonio Lucio is on the offensive against the offensive. The social network is about to embark on a feel-good marketing campaign to restore a sense of positivity around the company’s future, but first it has to extinguish the hate.

Lucio joined Facebook in September during a time of upheaval at the social media giant: The company was embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, there were investigations from Washington to Brussels into privacy lapses, and there was an aura of toxicity around the platform amplifying the most offensive voices. Those issues are all still ongoing, but in a rare interview since joining the company, Lucio says the plan to rebuild “trust and value” in Facebook starts with reclaiming the platform and message.

“What you’re going to see from us from now on is much more of a regular beat on all the progress that we are making,” Lucio says. “We need to make sure that we are participants in the way that our story is told and not just on the receiving end.”

On Friday, the first advertising component was unveiled with TV commercials, online videos and billboards, all with a focus on Groups, the niche communities that are now central to the platform. The slogan of the campaign is “More Together,” and it highlights the community-building aspects of Groups, which bring together like-minded people around shared interests like fatherhood, cars and barbecue.

Before debuting the fluffy campaign, though, Facebook first had some dirty-work to handle.

On Thursday, the company banned notorious instigators Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos, who represent some of the vitriolic accounts that have turned Facebook, and much of social media, into a combat zone. The timing of the bans, coinciding with the saccharine ad campaign, shows that Facebook is trying to retake control of how it’s talked about publicly.

“People are a bit tired of the fast-paced, loud, hyper-polarized environment in which we’re living around the world,” Lucio says, speaking just days in advance of the purge. “They want to find a common ground, things that they share with people.”

The fight against abusive accounts is one of the main pillars of Lucio’s messaging strategy. Facebook needs to “eliminate white supremacists and nationalist groups’ content from the platform,” he says.

Earlier in the week, Facebook had another message at its F8 developer conference, which brings together its most ardent supporters for a showcase of new products and updates. It was at F8 that CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a redesign to the main Facebook app and discussed the company’s new mission—a refreshed look to go with the refreshed strategy.

Zuckerberg talked about the new focus for his company: building encrypted messaging so communication remains private. He talked about impermanence, creating products like video Stories, which disappear so they don’t haunt users later in life. He also talked about “interoperability,” unifying the apps in the ecosystem—Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp—so that people can communicate across all of them.

As for the redesigned main app, it lost its signature blue banner, it is more airy with whitespace and modern. There is also a new emphasis on Groups, which will be clear from the marketing campaign that starts rolling out on Monday.

“What happens with Groups is that you are in a small audience that is more relevant to something that you want to talk about,” says Fidji Simo, head of the Facebook app. “We see a lot of people talking about things in Groups that they wouldn’t talk to their friends about in private.”

The ad campaign to promote Groups will serve as a public relations tool, too, showing off the more positive side of Facebook. Wieden & Kennedy, Freuds and Facebook’s internal team, Creative X, developed the marketing plan and creative strategy, which features “real people, real stories,” from among the 400 million people who use Groups, Lucio says.

“When they talk about their experience within the platform it is the experience that we all should have,” Lucio says. “This is the place where Facebook is at its best, where information is shared, joy is spread, problems big and small are solved, and even small businesses are born.”

14309: Champion Of Certain People.

Adweek reported Antonio Lucio left his Global CMO role at HP to take a similar position with Facebook. The article subhead proclaimed, “Executive championed diversity in advertising.” This statement demonstrates that it doesn’t take much to be crowned a diversity champion in adland. Indeed, Lucio was actually a divertsity champion, literally prioritizing the promotion of White women over others, and accepting the clichéd excuses for denying people of color into the field. So it’s fitting that he landed at Facebook, where White faces and White women are doing fine. In the advertising industry, true diversity champions get blacklisted, blackballed, black-eyed and blacked out. Divertsity champions, on the other hand, receive praise, respect, accolades, ADCOLOR® Awards, etc.—as well as elevated employment opportunities.

Facebook Hires HP’s Antonio Lucio As Its New Global Chief Marketing Officer

Executive championed diversity in advertising

By Patrick Coffee

Antonio Lucio, global chief marketing and communications officer at tech giant HP Inc., is leaving for the same role at Facebook, the company confirmed today. Lucio will report to Facebook chief product officer Chris Cox and start on September 4.

“[Antonio] has an extraordinary reputation in the industry as a leader, a marketer, an operator, and a wise, gracious, and deeply principled human being,” said Cox in a statement. “He has been outspoken on the need to build authentic global brands with integrity and from places of principle, and also on the importance of building diverse teams at every level in the organization. From all our interactions with him, he is a force of nature, and we are lucky to have him.”

Cox continued: “Facebook’s story is at an inflection point. We have never faced bigger challenges, and we have never had more opportunities to have a positive impact on the world—in our families, our friendships, our communities, and our democracy—by improving our products at their core, and then by telling the story outside that we all know to be true inside.”

“Purpose and impact have been at the center of every career decision that I have ever made,” said Lucio, adding that he will work to “support [Facebook’s] evolution. “Facebook is one of the world’s most impactful brands, at a pivotal moment in its history.”

Lucio spent more than three years with Palo Alto-based HP following its split from the The Hewlett Packard Corporation. During his tenure, he was perhaps best known as an outspoken advocate for diversity.

In 2016, for example, he gave each of HP’s agency partners 30 days to submit a plan explaining how they would increase the number of women and people of color within their creative departments. One year later, he shared each shop’s “scorecard” publicly, stating that they each had “more work to do with underrepresented groups.” At this year’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, he introduced the #MoreLikeMe initiative to diversify attendance, released a study showing that diverse ads are more effective and led a panel on the topic.

Prior to joining HP in 2015, Lucio held the global CMO position at Visa as well as top executive roles at PepsiCo and Kraft.

Vikrant Batra, who had been global head of marketing for HP’s printing division, will succeed Lucio. Additionally, the company promoted chief communications officer and head of communications, corporate brand and events Karen Kahn to its executive leadership team. Both will now report directly to president and CEO Dion Weisler.

“The appointments are symbolic of the deep bench of talent within our Marketing and Communications organizations,” read a statement from Weisler. “Our corporate reinvention over the last several years has been fueled by the remarkable power of our brand—in our marketing leadership and emotional connection to our customers, and in our corporate narrative and purpose-driven positioning.”

Weisler proceeded to thank Lucio for his service, adding, “With a brand that has never been stronger, it’s a testament to his leadership that we are prepared with the right team to continue to reinvent HP and drive shareholder value.”

In January, Facebook CMO Gary Briggs announced that he would be retiring after four and a half years with the company. Briggs, who was formerly vp of consumer marketing at Google, said he would be consulting other companies, working on political campaigns and helping Facebook “hire someone great” to replace him in the meantime.

14206: Cannes Cons XI.

Advertising Age published a blurb on the HP- and Omnicom-sponsored Cannes Lions event titled: “Diversity—a Values Issue and Business Imperative—Requires Bold Action,” starring HP CMO Antonio Lucio, Omnicom SVP CDO Tiffany R. Warren, British Vogue Editor-in-Chief Edward Enninful and British Actress Thandie Newton. Can’t help but think this panel had an ADCOLOR® scent; that is, feature the usual suspects (Lucio and Warren) and sprinkle in celebrities to spike audience interest. When discussing the alleged progress being made in adland, Warren remarked, “I’m not happy. I’m content, but not happy.” It’s difficult to accurately comment on the happenings at Cannes without having attended, and the reporting has been uneven and likely uninformed. So this blog will forgo contemplating Warren’s contented unhappiness. But it is worth noting how Warren had earlier claimed her focus for the year would be on intersectionality. IPG SVP Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Heide Gardner also claimed her company started talking about intersectionality last year, and continued the conversation at the IPG annual breakfast this year. Um, are Warren and Gardner really qualified, willing and able to effectively present the topic—and is Cannes the best environment to host the discussion? If addressing intersectionality is truly imperative, then Halle Berry, Thandie Newton and Gloria Steinem should have been replaced with Kimberlé Crenshaw, Brittney Cooper and Latoya Peterson. Seems like the subject matter is too complex—and too important—for sound bites over breakfast. Sorry, but HP, Omnicom and IPG are too polite, political and patronizing to legitimately tackle intersectionality. Hell, they can’t even legitimately tackle diversity.

Diversity (to be continued)

By Ad Age Staff

The persistent lack of inclusion in advertising and marketing can make panels about diversity sometimes rueful or even painful, but the long line for Tuesday’s session on the subject at least demonstrated continued interest.

The actress Thandie Newton of “Westworld” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was clearly part of the draw, but the audience clapped enthusiastically for the other panelists as well, at their introduction and at points throughout: Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief at British Vogue; Tiffany R. Warren, senior VP and chief diversity officer at Omnicom Group; and HP Chief Marketing Officer Antonio Lucio, who has been pushing agencies to diversify their teams on HP’s account.

There is actual progress to celebrate, the panelists said. “I’ve seen 3 decades of change,” Newton said. “When I started out it was me, Halle Berry and Naomi Campbell who I would see often at casting calls. In the end it’s about demand.”

But Warren said she isn’t in any danger of succeeding her way out of a job. “I’m not happy,” she said. “I’m content, but not happy.”

Too often people rely on individuals to make change, Warren added. “Progress is made when every single person sort of stands up and says ‘I’m going to do my part.’”

“We’re all doing our best,” Enninful said, citing his project to depict a wide variety of people in his magazine, “but it will never be enough.”

14096: Colorful Cannes Contest.

Adweek reported on the latest divertsity deal from HP—#MoreLikeMe—which will pluck 15 “diverse” creatives from a stable of five predominately White advertising agencies and send the group to Cannes. Gee, that’s mighty White of the technology company, although it begs the question of why the damned agencies don’t send diverse staffers to the soiree on their own dime. But wait, it gets crazier. The “winners” will ultimately be charged with creating a plan to “inspire change and champion diversity within the industry.” In other words, now clients like HP are delegating diversity to minorities. But wait, the craziness continues. The program features ambassadors—ADCOLOR® Inventor Tiffany R. Warren and Free The Bid Representative Faride Schroeder—who will also help choose the #MoreLikeMe travelers. It’s a wonder Kat Gordon and Cindy Gallop weren’t included in the patronizing promotion. If the selection process is rooted in divertsity, the fifteen participants should display representation from categories such as White women, LGBT community, elderly folks, plus-sized people and individuals with neurodivergent conditions and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Oh, and a couple of racial and ethnic minorities too. But wait, the craziest part is that a diverse crew will finally arrive at Cannes—in the year that the gala event gets downsized per the demands of White holding companies.

HP’s New Program Will Help Develop Talent and Send More Diverse Creatives to Cannes

#MoreLikeMe will send 15 creatives to the festival this summer

By Katie Richards

HP is taking 15 diverse creatives to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year as part of the company’s ongoing push to promote diversity in the advertising industry.

The #MoreLikeMe diversity initiative will invite 15 creatives from the U.S., U.K. and Mexico to attend the festival this summer and participate in a number of mentoring and networking events during Cannes.

Outside of simply taking these creatives to the festival and providing them with opportunities to learn and connect with others in the industry, HP is taking things a step further, developing a post-festival plan for each participant. The idea is that each person will go on to inspire change and champion diversity within the industry.

“#MoreLikeMe complements our ongoing work to drive diversity and inclusion across the industry. We’re excited to be partnering with HP to support diverse talent in three of our key markets,” Louise Benson, executive festival director of Cannes Lions, said in a statement. “I hope the inaugural #MoreLikeMe program will inspire the industry at large, as well as provide role models and inspiration for the next generation of creatives from around the world.”

HP will work closely with its roster of agencies—BBDO, Edelman, Fred & Farid, Giant Spoon and PHD—to select the 15 rising stars who will go on to participate in the program. For its pilot year the program will only be open to candidates from those five agencies, but HP plans to extend the program in future years.

“Business powered by diversity can deliver transformative results. By partnering with our agencies to identify and elevate today’s diverse rising stars, we can continue to reinvent the creative industry to better reflect the communities we serve,” Antonio Lucio, chief marketing and communications officer at HP, said in a statement. “We are on a mission to demonstrate that diversity is a business imperative—financially, creatively and culturally—and that all businesses in our industry can and must play a role in driving systemic change.”

#MoreLikeMe ties closely to an ongoing effort from HP and its CMO to ensure that each agency it works with consistently focuses on improving the number of women and people of color working on the HP business, in senior leadership and creative leadership roles.

Last year HP released diversity scorecards from each of its agencies. The scorecards laid out the percentage of women and people of color working at each agency before and after the diversity mandate was set. The goal is that each year, the agencies will improve upon those numbers.

Tiffany Warren, president and founder of ADCOLOR and chief diversity officer at Omnicom, and Faride Schroeder, writer, director and Free The Bid ambassador for Mexico, will serve as ambassadors for the #MoreLikeMe program. The duo will help HP’s five agencies select the 15 winners.

The 15 lucky members of this pilot program will be announced in late May.

14021: Lucio’s Lip Service.

Advertising Age published a podcast featuring divertsity droning by HP CMO Antonio Lucio, who regurgitated the results of requests for inclusivity that he delivered to his White advertising agencies in 2016. Lucio revealed, “On the people of color side, we did not make as much progress as the agencies had agreed to.” He then coughed up the contrived excuses typically employed by White advertising agencies to explain the failure to embrace diversity. In the podcast, Lucio also covered the latest trends in marketing and technology. While Lucio appears to be on the cutting edge in certain areas of innovation, the man is woefully outdated in areas of inclusion.

Ad Lib Podcast: HP’s Antonio Lucio on Diversity, Devices and Depression

By Brian Braiker

There’s a lot of talk in the marketing and advertising industries about diversity—but not a ton of walking. Antonio Lucio is one of the walkers. In 2016 the chief marketing officer for HP called on the brand’s five agency partners to focus on improving diversity numbers.

“It starts from a company value: We believe that diversity is a business imperative,” Lucio tells Ad Age.

The results of year one were encouraging, but not stellar: The agencies employ more women, but still have work to do for minorities. “After a year, we went form 40 percent women working on our account to 60 percent,” he says. The number of women in agency leadership roles went from zero to 52 percent.

“That’s the good news,” says Lucio. “On the people of color side, we did not make as much progress as the agencies had agreed to.”

On the podcast, Lucio goes deep on his diversity drive, and also breaks down his view of the broader state of marketing in 2018. A veteran global marketer for Procter & Gamble and Pepsi (more than a decade at each) and Visa (more than seven years) before coming to HP two-and-a-half years ago, Lucio is an anomaly in CMO circles: He tends to last longer than the average four-year tenure. “I like to build things and stay in places,” he says.

And, of course, each marketing role has come with its own set of challenges. At HP, Lucio says the current quandary is getting millennials—and their kids—to forge an emotional bond with printing and PCs, no easy ask for a mobile-first Snap-happy generation.

“From a marketing standpoint … we needed to change several things,” says Lucio. “We were not talking to millennials,” who he characterizes as the IT decision makers: “We want them to print.”

So, you’ll be seeing HP product placement in shows like Amazon’s new series “Bartlett” and Disney’s re-booted Facebook-exclusive “Club Mickey Mouse.”

“Everything that we do in terms of placements or sponsorships or partnerships, you need to do three things: It has to be relevant to a target, have a reinvention component, and provide the tech to empower an experience,” says Lucio.

For HP, that means, says Lucio, “we’re moving from the information age, which was everything about devices, to the experience age, where everyone is expecting seamless, curated hyper relevant personalized experiences, where you flow from the digital world to the physical world and back into the digital world is completely seamless and completely tailored to you.”

In our conversation, Lucio also shares a little of his own personal journey—how his childhood in Spain and Puerto Rico shaped who he is today, and why a diagnosis of depression helped to change him for the better.

“I’ve made every single mistake on the book—on the personal and the professional side,” he says. “I lost a marriage because I was not balanced enough in terms of the amount of time I was dedicating to work versus the relative amount of time I was dedicating to my family.”

An encounter with a former pollster for Tony Blair, of all people, helped him reorient his priorities, he says. He credits Philip Gould with teaching him that if you’re a wired, high-flying businessman 24/7, a rift opens up between the spiritual self—the person you want to become—and the material self, the person you are day to day.

“It is only by living a life with purpose—and finding purpose in your life—that you bring those two selves [together], they become one, that you find meaning in work and family,” he says. “That sometimes means you have to make tough choices. When you are in a place that doesn’t allow you to live that purpose, you have to leave that place. And when you are with people who don’t allow you to live your purpose, you have to leave those people.”

13992: Closing Remarks On CES.

Advertising Age drove the divertsity dirigible over CES 2018, delivering final dings and dents to the beleaguered event. Displaying disdain for the dearth of dames, Recode Executive Editor Kara Swisher snapped, “I cannot believe we have to fucking do this, people.” Swisher appears to be a graduate of the Cindy Gallop school of public speaking.

Meanwhile, HP CMO Antonio Lucio pumped up the patronizing posturing by initially tweeting, “All men should boycott @CES if women are not invited to speak!” And if racial and ethnic minorities are not invited to speak, well, Lucio will worry about that some other time—preferably in the next century.

Ad Age reported how Lucio “challenged [HP’s White advertising agencies] by setting goals for the inclusion of women and minorities,” but he doesn’t think a similar approach is right for CES. “I don’t know whether quotas is the answer to this,” said Lucio. “Because I think that it should also start with what are the objectives of the conference?” Lucio suggested identifying the best people to actually deliver the conference message. “Add a filter that says, my god, if women are a key consumer, we at least have some level of representation.” Okay, to be clear, Lucio allowed his White ad agencies to dictate their own terms for achieving divertsity, which is like permitting convicted felons to decide their own sentences. And when the exclusive shops failed to hit the racial and ethnic targets, Lucio essentially shrugged and vomited the standard excuses. Oh, and somebody tell Lucio that Blacks and Latinos are key consumers of technology too.

Lucio also allegedly spoke with CES organizers and declared, “I was very encouraged by their commitment to making sure that yes, diversity becomes one, not the, but one of the filters for selecting speakers in the conference. I’m actually very encouraged by their reaction and I hope by next year we have a conference that has some representations from amazing women.” This is essentially what Lucio communicated after charging his White advertising agencies to get onboard the White women’s bandwagon. And if CES 2019 features more minority waitstaff and janitors, mission accomplished.

“If it’s about the future of technology, how can you envision the future in which half the population isn’t represented at the leadership level?” wondered Sonos CMO Joy Howard. “That’s not a future we want to be a part of.” Of course, Howard—along with Lucio, Swisher and the other divertsity defenders—is completely cool envisioning the future of technology being void of colored people.

13984: High-Tech Hypocrisy At CES.

Adweek reported more on CES 2018, continuing to critique the trade show for its lack of diversity. Honestly, given that the tech industry’s exclusivity is common knowledge and openly acknowledged, why bother hammering an event for appealing to and reflecting its core audience? Divertsity was on display, with advocates including HP CMO Antonio Lucio, who declared, “[Diversity in tech] may take a bit longer than all of us anticipated, but let’s get started.” Yes, things tend to take a bit longer than anticipated when half-wits like Lucio promote half-assed efforts.

Voice Reigned at CES 2018, but Diversity Was Still Elusive

Heads up, tech giants: Alexa and Siri don’t count as real women

By Lauren Johnson

Every year, the Consumer Electronic Show sets the agenda for the biggest trends and gadgets. Thousands of marketers descend into the desert to discuss the tech that consumers will soon get their hands on—and what it means for brands.

As technology weaves more intricately into our daily lives and consumer adoption continues to grow, CES’s packed show floor—clocking in at 2.5 million square feet across 11 venues, to be exact—has become a bit of a running joke for marketers in recent years. Advertisers know well that 90 percent of the products (think smart litter boxes or noise-canceling devices connected by Bluetooth) they see during the weeklong event won’t go mainstream. But this year, they’re particularly bullish on the other 10 percent, namely voice and artificial intelligence.

Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home were on the lips of every big brand and agency exec in Las Vegas, popping up in dozens of companies’ pitches and demonstrations about the Internet of Things.

“We’re really interested in voice assistants—we’ve seen a lot with Alexa and Siri,” said Meredith Verdone, Bank of America’s CMO. “For us to understand how people are interacting with chat is really helpful for us to see the consumer behavior of what’s working [and] what’s not working.”

Tech giants flexing their voice muscles

Among Las Vegas’ miles of casinos and conference halls, voice got its big IRL moment. Google Home’s activation included a giant gumball machine showing how artificial intelligence works by asking consumers to play a game where they ask the voice assistant a series of questions. Google also conducted a large out-of-home and media campaign in casinos and on the monorail system.

Meanwhile, Amazon was unavoidable even during a quick walk around the show floor, as both major brands (like Sleep Number and Whirlpool) and smaller startups pitched AI-infused products. The commerce giant also hosted at least nine panels talking about itself.

Right now, voice technology is nascent, and virtual assistants can only understand a relatively small number of words, but not for long. Expect the vocabulary of your virtual assistant to grow as the technology becomes more sophisticated.

“Hopefully, at a certain point, it will be more organic—there will be more natural language understanding, so you can speak more eloquently, [more] fluidly and faster,” said Michael Bassik, managing director of MDC.

One thing not prevalent at CES: Marketers’ one-on-one meetings with the platforms. Instead of spending time talking with platforms, it seems like advertisers this year were focused on seeing the future through techy gadgets.

Tech’s diversity problem

While flashy and glitzy tech was the main attraction at CES, one thing that wasn’t on full display was diversity.

Going into CES, much was made about the conference’s lack of female solo keynoters, with some marketers suggesting a boycott. While companies like Twitter, Sonos and Medialink hosted women-led panels and programming, the lack of diversity in both gender and ethnicity was prevalent at CES.

HP CMO Antonio Lucio, who has made a big push for more diverse teams for the past year, focused on attending non-official CES events—like Twitter’s #HereWeAre event with 150 attendees, which was live-streamed and racked up two million viewers. The two-hour event included Kara Swisher, cofounder and executive editor of Recode; Linda Boff, CMO of GE; and Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code.

Still, booth babes were in clear sight at several companies’ displays, and an event featuring sex robots at a nearby nightclub went viral after it was revealed that it was aimed at attracting women.

Diversity in tech “may take a bit longer than all of us anticipated, but let’s get started,” said Lucio.

13923: CES B.S.

Advertising Age published a report titled, “Marketers Lash CES For Lack of Women Keynote Speakers”—which provided diverted diversity darlings like Antonio Lucio and Brad Jakeman an opportunity to call for a boycott and brand the situation as unacceptable. Of course, the bold activists never hesitated to partner with the White advertising agencies of Omnicom, an exclusive organization that will gleefully give you an ADCOLOR® Award, but never give you EEO-1 data. The patronizing protestors better hope nobody at the tech trade show develops a hypocrite detector.

13839: FYI, HP BS.

Advertising Age reported that HP exposed the results of its diverted diversity dictates, where HP CMO Antonio Lucio challenged his White advertising agencies to hire and promote more White women—and maybe consider racial and ethnic minorities too. As expected, the White women numbers skyrocketed. Also as expected, the racial and ethnic figures sucked. Lucio presented the same tired excuses for his White shops’ inability to identify, recruit and retain minorities. But he also set new goals to address the matter in 2018. Lucio declared, “The game is not over.” Sadly, the game has been going on since at least the 1950s, with clients and White advertising agencies co-conspiring to maintain the exclusivity. HP’s patronizing stunt clearly shows that the game is far from over.

HP REVEALS RESULTS OF DIVERSITY CHALLENGE FOR ITS AGENCIES

By Adrianne Pasquarelli

Last year, HP was one of several marketers to push their agencies to include more women and people of color in senior leadership positions on the account, particularly in their creative departments. Today, HP Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Antonio Lucio shares the results of his call specific to action. Not all went according to plan.

The challenge: Last September, Lucio tasked HP’s global agencies—BBDO Worldwide, Fred & Farid, gyro, PHD and Edelman—with including more women and minorities in their ranks, specifically in senior and creative leadership roles. He set a goal of 56 percent women on account teams and 47 percent women in senior leadership roles. All agencies set their own goals for improved minority representation.

First, does HP walk the walk?: A year ago, the tech company, which recently posted a third-quarter net revenue increase of 10 percent to $13.1 billion, was 55 percent women, 43 percent of whom were managers or higher. When Lucio started in 2015, there were 20 percent in leadership roles. Overall, the marketing and communications department is composed of 63 percent women. Minorities represented some 26 percent of total employees in 2016, the most recent data available.

Now for the results.

The good: At HP’s agencies, women now represent 61 percent of the brand’s account teams—over 5 percent more than the goal. Women also now represent 51 percent of senior roles. When the challenge started, all brand account teams were less than 40 percent women overall, and many had 10 percent or even 0 percent women in leadership roles.

Regarding creative, BBDO’s creative leadership is 40 percent female and Fred & Farid’s is 55 percent female; neither agency had female creative leads on the account last year.

The not-so good: Three of the five agencies increased their minority representation, but even they failed to meet HP’s target of 60 percent. Last year, just under 20 percent of HP’s account teams were minorities; that figure has only risen to more than 25 percent today.

“As good as I feel on the progress with women, the progress on minority-represented groups was not as systemic as we wanted,” says Lucio.

New targets: Lucio has asked agencies to identify specific underrepresented groups by country and set new objectives and strategies for pursuing such ethnicities in 2018.

Part of the problem, Lucio says, is that the underrepresented groups are difficult to find through traditional means, such as recruiting firms. He’s encouraging agencies to pursue different ways of bringing new talent on board. In addition, HP is debuting a new diversity-focused talent search program, where minorities can network and share creative, with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and sponsoring the 3% Conference and Free the Bid.

“The game is not over,” says Lucio.

13829: Beam Diversity Up, Scotti.

Adweek reported on the dubious progress revealed by Verizon CMO Diego Scotti, who had mimicked HP CMO Antonio Lucio’s request for White advertising agencies to primarily promote White women and secondarily consider colored people. Sure enough, the fuzzy figures exposed by Scotti showed a big boost for White women and questionable results for people of color. When asked why he didn’t force quotas on his White ad shops, Scotti explained, “We don’t really believe in quotas, we believe in progress.” Okay, but how does one measure—and ultimately judge—progress if specific numbers aren’t applied to the equation? Scotti then segued to hyping his company’s latest diversity scheme, which involves an internship program for colored college students. Wow, that’s original. When discussing diversity, Scotti admitted, “This is not an easy thing to solve, so for me I never expected to have crazy results quickly, but I learned a few things that are important.” Whatever. But everyone should learn one thing that is important: High-tech companies like Verizon and HP are diversity dinosaurs—and these companies have maxed their quotas for conspiring with White advertising agencies.

One Year After Calling on Agency Partners to Be More Diverse, Verizon CMO Shares the Results

Diego Scotti on new hires and Verizon’s Ad Fellows program, which kicks off today

By Katie Richards

One year ago, Verizon CMO Diego Scotti sent a letter to all of the brand’s agency partners. In that letter, Scotti called on each of the 11 agencies on the Verizon roster to focus on improving the number of women and people of color working for them.

Scotti’s letter came around the same time that HP and General Mills put out similar demands, laying out quotas for their agency partners to reach. Verizon didn’t ask for agencies to meet a certain quota because as Scotti explained, “we don’t really believe in quotas, we believe in progress.” Instead he asked that all of the agencies share the current state of their workforce 30 days after the letter was sent out and deliver an action plan to improve upon those numbers in the future.

“Now we meet every quarter with all the agencies together, and everybody needs to report their progress in front of everybody else, which in and of itself is changing the dynamic of how we are having this conversation,” Scotti explained. It holds everyone accountable.

Now one year after making that call to action, Scotti shared how both Verizon and its partners are doing on the diversity and gender front.

At the agencies, 31 percent of employees at the leadership level are people of color, up nine percent from last year. Eleven percent of those in leadership positions are hispanic, up 5 percent; 51 percent are female, up 3 percent.

“This is not an easy thing to solve, so for me I never expected to have crazy results quickly, but I learned a few things that are important,” Scotti said. One of those important lessons Scotti learned came from starting an in-house agency that launched in February.

There are already 70 people working on Verizon’s in-house team and the staff is split, 50 percent white and 50 percent people of color. Additionally, 52 percent of the staff is female and 48 percent is male.

“The number one lesson is when you build something from scratch and you put the filter of diversity in it, you can do it,” he said. “If you create the right environment, then you can do it.”

Looking specifically at new hires, 210 employees have been hired in the past year to work on the Verizon account across agencies; 41 percent of the hires were people of color and 53 percent were women.

Creating an in-house agency and focusing on improving agency and internal diversity numbers was the first prong in Scotti’s diversity-focused approach for Verizon. Another prong is the Ad Fellows program, which officially kicks off today.

The Ad Fellows program selects 20 college graduates from across the country, all with diverse backgrounds, to participate in an eight-month fellowship program. Scotti hopes that at the end of the program, 90 percent of the fellows will score full-time jobs at one of the six companies participating in Ad Fellows.

What makes Ad Fellows different than your typical fellowship, though, is that Verizon tapped five of its agency partners—McCann, Momentum, Rauxa, Zenith and Weber Shandwick—to participate in the program.

Over the course of eight months, the 20 fellows will be split into smaller groups and rotate between Verizon and a handful of the participating agencies (which cover creative, media and PR). That way the recent graduates have a chance to explore different parts of the marketing and advertising business and find out what it is they want to do with their career and what parts of the business they excel in.

The program is fully paid and covers housing and expenses for all 20 fellows to ensure that people of all backgrounds can have the chance to participate.

While the program just kicked off today, Scotti already has big plans for its future. Outside of holding more cycles each year, Scotti hopes that the idea of an Ad Fellows program can extend beyond Verizon. He hopes one day that, “every company in America has an Ad Fellows program and they gather agencies to work with them. I would love to partner with the ANA or The Ad Club or some organization that could help bring other clients to partner with the ad agencies and make it a really big thing.”

13822: White Girls Rule!

A MultiCultClassics visitor pointed to a MediaPost story spotlighting research from COMvergence that shows how White advertising agencies have appointed 195 new leaders over the past 16-18 months. The report appears to provide categorized breakdowns indicating the promotion of White women, but ignores racial and ethnic minorities. While White holding companies like Omnicom have steadfastly refused to publicize EEO-1 data, Omnicom President-CEO and Diverted Diversity Pioneer John Wren vowed to double the number of female creative leaders at BBDO in one year. In other words, Wren won’t share figures for racial and ethnic hiring, but he’ll put an exact quota on gender boosting—and the COMvergence report signals the female totals are being actively and openly revealed. Chip in HP CMO Antonio Lucio’s promise to expose his White advertising agencies’ success in accelerating the White women’s bandwagon, and it’s clear that gender diversity has leapfrogged true diversity. What’s more, advocating for White women has become the smokescreen du jour, deflecting attention from the exclusivity that has forever tainted the industry.

Report: U.S. Creative Agencies Appointed 195 To Leadership Roles In Last 16 Months

By Steve McClellan

New research from agency research firm COMVergence has found that over the last 18 months, major creative agencies in the U.S. have appointed 195 new leaders, of which 130 were recruited from the outside and 65 were promoted from within.

By gender, 120 of the newly appointed leaders were men and 75 were women.

The research defines leaders as among 10 key titles comprising the typical agency leadership team. However, similar titles are assigned the same title code (i.e., President, Chairman, Founder, Partner, Managing Director and General Director are assigned to CEO.)

Most of the appointed executive creative directors and chief creative officers were men.

However, nearly half of the 45 reported CEO/MD/Chairman appointments were women.

The report found that among the top 25 U.S. creative agencies FCB, Deutsch and Grey were the most aggressive leadership team recruiters during the 18-month period covered by the research (January 2016 to June 2017). Combined, those agencies accounted for 25% of the recruited leaders.

FCB, DDB and Droga5 were found to be the top women leadership team recruiters, while Havas and Leo Burnett were the top promoters of women to leadership positions.