16655: Publicis Groupe CIO ESG DEIBA+ BS.

 

Campaign reported Publicis Groupe named its first Chief Impact Officer, whose responsibilities include overseeing the White holding company’s ESG commitments—which covers global DEIBA+ plans. In short, the executive works across a wide range of corporate heat shields.

 

The CIO will lead a team whose mission was stated as follows: “Together, they will design and deploy a consistent strategy on impact, with clear and measurable KPIs, to enhance and expand Publicis’ existing initiatives and implement new ones, at the service of its teams and its clients.”

 

Clear and measurable KPIs for DEIBA+ would constitute an unprecedented achievement in Adland—unless the acronym stands for Key Performative Indicators.

 

Publicis Groupe appoints chief impact officer to steer global ESG commitments

 

By Ben Bold

 

Publicis Groupe has named Nannette LaFond-Dufour as its first chief impact officer.

 

Joining from McCann Worldgroup, where she was global chief client officer and its first chief sustainability officer, LaFond-Dufour will report to Publicis Groupe chairman and chief executive Arthur Sadoun.

 

LaFond-Dufour will also join the group’s management committee.

 

In the global role, she becomes responsible for the holding company’s environmental, social and governance commitments. These include UN- and WWF-backed Science Based Targets Initiative climate goals; the holding company’s agency-wide DEI action plans; and initiatives such as the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society and Working with Cancer, the latter a personal mission for Sadoun.

 

LaFond-Dufour will be based in Paris and lead a centralised team across the group’s global environmental, social and governance community.

 

“Together, they will design and deploy a consistent strategy on impact, with clear and measurable KPIs, to enhance and expand Publicis’ existing initiatives and implement new ones, at the service of its teams and its clients,” the company said.

 

She will work alongside Agathe Bousquet, president of Publicis France and Directoire+ sponsor for ESG.

 

Prior to joining Publicis Groupe, LaFond-Dufour spent a dozen years at McCann Worldgroup, where she acted as president of the L’Oréal Paris beauty team. Before that, she worked at DDB Worldwide as a business director.

 

Sadoun said: “With the Directoire+, we are delighted to welcome Nannette to the group. Thanks to our transformation, we have been outperforming the industry on every business and financial KPI for the past four years.

 

“But we know that for our growth to be truly sustainable, on every front, it also needs to be responsible. That’s why we have also worked to lead the way through our best-in-class ESG initiatives.

 

“With Nannette on board and her proven expertise in delivering impactful change with some of the world’s biggest companies, we are confident we can take our ESG agenda even further, faster, for the good of our people, our clients, and our planet.”

 

Publicis recently shook up its governance structure, merging its supervisory and management boards into a single entity – the Directoire. Then-chief executive and chairman Sadoun of the management board took on the same roles across the combined board.

 

Maurice Lévy, the veteran chair of the supervisory board switched to an honorary role as chairman emeritus as part of the changes.

 

LaFond-Dufour added: “I deeply admire the work that Publicis has done to transform itself, demonstrating both the ability to anticipate the future, and do the hard work required to prepare for it through tangible environmental and societal commitments.

 

“At this moment when evolution is the mandate on every front, I look forward to joining such a visionary, courageous and agile team.”

16250: Dissecting DE&I Discussions.

Digiday published a report that reflects the current conversation on DE&I in Adland, which is really just revised rhetoric—or regurgitated bullshit. Here’s a sampling of the diversionary drivel, along with associated color commentary:

 

• While pooh-poohing the goal of recording measurable and specific numbers for staffers of color, the Publicis US Chief Diversity Officer babbled, “For us it’s a holistic approach grounded in qualitative elements like development of inclusive experiences; fostering accountability at all levels; and driving long-term organizational change and readiness for sustainably equitable practices. These elements are all interconnected and need to be equally prioritized in order to truly drive change.”

 

The “holistic approach” presents plenty of holes—and assholes—as no one will share how such pseudo-inclusive intangibles might be defined and assessed. For starters, there’s no timeline for the minority-friendly remodeling of White advertising agencies, further delaying actual hiring. Additionally, sustainability trumps racial and ethnic diversity—in short, green is valued over Black and Brown.

 

• The RAPP Chief Diversity Officer spewed contradictory CRAPP, rejecting quotas while recognizing recruitment and retention are adversely affected when newcomers of color don’t see other historically underrepresented people occupying mid- to high-level positions.

 

• Many CDOs, Chief Impact Officers, and Human Heat Shields are quick to critique attempts at “checking a box”—seemingly oblivious to the reality that their very existence in the field constitutes a box-checking maneuver.

 

• Hyping heat shield initiatives, a Stagwell mouthpiece gushed, “These small micro progressions are really important.” Small micro progressions—besides being redundant—is a glittering generality to replace baby steps, the term commonly used by sycophantic drones who won’t openly admit that progress is being deliberately deferred, delayed, and denied.

 

Settling for half-hearted, half-assed efforts is truly sad for an industry fueled by a passion for excellence in execution—and symptomatic of satisfaction with systemic racism.

 

 

Three years after DE&I was jolted into action, how much progress has the agency world really made?

 

By Michael Bürgi

 

In the nearly three years since George Floyd’s murder shocked a nation and galvanized a movement toward better representation across all industries — but very much with marketing and media at the center of it all — how far we’ve come is subject to serious debate.

 

While some point to statistics that show an increase in employment of people of color, different sexual orientation or physical/intellectual disabilities, others argue that the industry has lost the plot line when it doesn’t empower the people in positions of authority to effect meaningful change.

 

On the one hand, the agency community — led by the major holding companies — tout elevated numbers of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ staffers. They also proudly discuss the millions of dollars they’ve earmarked for spending in media that celebrate and reach these cohorts.

 

But to at least one agency founder, many of the advancements still come across as sort of window dressing rather than substantive change. Steve Stoute, CEO and founder of creative agency Translation, and a longtime music and marketing executive and industry thought leader, told Digiday editor in chief Jim Cooper that CEOs enforcing diversity and inclusion into their ranks can have a less-than-positive effect.

 

“The fact that these companies are hiring DEI officers to police that — I’m not sure that’s the best solution or if it’s just checking a box,” Stoute said while being interviewed at the Possible conference in April. “If your C-suite doesn’t look like your customers, you have a problem.”

 

Several agency chief diversity officers argued that filling quotas is far from the highest priority in their jobs. “While measurement of representation is an important KPI, it’s far from the only one. Working towards diversity goals is not exclusively about quantitative metrics and ‘counting’ certain identities,” said Geraldine White, chief diversity officer for Publicis Group U.S. “For us it’s a holistic approach grounded in qualitative elements like development of inclusive experiences; fostering accountability at all levels; and driving long-term organizational change and readiness for sustainably equitable practices. These elements are all interconnected and need to be equally prioritized in order to truly drive change.”

 

Devin O’Loughlin, chief diversity officer at Omnicom’s RAPP agency, cited an important distinction between quotas and targets. “When you create quotas, instead of targets, it sets up the potential for the tokenization conversation,” she said. “It sets up the potential for diverting the narrative away from the changes in agency needs to make versus just sort of checking [that] box. There is value in targets, because if you’re not evaluating your progress, and how you’re continuing to diversify all different levels of your talent, you won’t be able to see if you’ve grown in a positive way from three years ago, when we hit this inflection point to now.”

 

O’Loughlin also acknowledged that acquiring and retaining mid-level and junior talent is going to be much harder if they don’t see themselves reflected in the C-suite. “People aren’t going to see themselves reflected in opportunities to grow and stay within the organization, or have opportunities like organic sponsorship and mentorship and things that a lot of white talent currently have access to, that that talent of color or diverse talent just don’t have,” said O’Loughlin.

 

“When you look at a workplace in a corporation, we all we all work under goals and accountability in every part of the business — the discipline of diversity is no different,” said Christena Pyle, chief equity officer at Dentsu Americas. “And adding in that business rigor of measuring your progress, measuring what your employee population looks like, to better achieve that representation of the consumer — we are a better company and a better industry when we measure what matters.”

 

Added Publicis’ White: “We have to continue to carefully navigate what I call the representation retention paradox — which is the idea that when an organization becomes so closely focused on representation it can lose focus on retention, sentiment and creating growth and sustainably equitable environments for that talent to thrive in. When too much focus is placed on numbers and not enough on retention and employee experience, the opportunity to elevate and grow talent into leadership positions can be missed.”

 

But it’s not unheard of for some leading diversity chiefs to be given the job on top of other responsibilities — or worse, being tasked with the responsibility but not really having the support from the rest of the C-suite.

 

Said one holding company CMO: “The skepticism toward these DE&I goals from agencies is right because it shouldn’t be a check box exercise. And yet a lot of times it does — and that’s me speaking as someone who oversees those efforts for an agency. I still don’t have a full-time role around it… Right now I’m 505/50 and I’m still managing a client. There’s a lot of nuance from leadership as to whether or not they mean what they say about this issue.”

 

And Dentsu’s Pyle acknowledged that “we still have work to do” when she looks at C-suites across the marketing and media industries. But she also sees progress. “Ten years ago in this business, a lot of the chief marketing officers were white males,” she said. “If you look at the shift in who is the CMO now, you’re seeing a lot of female leadership, and you’re seeing a lot of diverse leadership.”

 

Still, according to a Forrester survey in 2022, DEI ranked a lowly 14th place in terms of business priorities. Which is why almost all the holding companies have dedicated minimum spends devoted to minority media — in effect, forcing the matter.

 

Stagwell’s Assembly recently created a Partners for Progress effort, which is similar to many other media agencies’ efforts to formalize commitments to minority media. Shannon Pruitt, chief content and partnerships officer at Stagwell Brand Performance Network, was instrumental in forming Partners for Progress, and explained it’s another step toward getting all industries to work together to advance the cause.

 

“These small micro progressions are really important,” said Pruitt. “With Partners for Progress, Assembly is the partner — we’re not reliant on everybody else. The intention is that we will lead this conversation as far as it will go, and the more inclusive, the better. It doesn’t have to be that one holding company is doing it better than any other, as long as we’re all doing it together. The data is all there to tell you this is really great for business. And for now and in the future, it’s absolutely necessary.”

 

Seb Joseph contributed to this story.

16237: Will Chief Impact Officers Make An Impact…?

 

Advertising Age published a rambling report on Chief Impact Officers, a role that appears to be an extension of Chief Diversity Officers—covering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.

 

Based on the Ad Age piece, the executives have close ties to CMOs and communications teams, supporting MultiCultClassics’ contention that Human Heat Shields are evolving into performative PR pimps—to make an alliterative nod to Sanford Moore’s classic summation.

 

What’s more, it looks like the expanded responsibilities have resulted in the position being held by lots of White men and White women, further diminishing any components faux focused on racial and ethnic equality.

 

Another consideration is the research indicating the average CMO tenure is 40 months, while the typical CDO lasts two years. It ain’t easy to make a meaningful, measurable, and momentous impact in such a short period—especially in Adland, where systemic racism has been raging for generations.

 

Chief Impact Officers Explained—Why Some Companies Are Adding The Position

 

McDonald’s, IBM and Unilever’s Seventh Generation are among the companies embracing the role to raise the profile of environmental, social and governance initiatives

 

By Jade Yan

 

At a recent marketing conference, IBM’s first-ever chief impact officer Justina Nixon-Saintil addressed the fact that companies are reportedly dropping their DEI roles.

 

Companies need to “step up,” Nixon-Saintil said at the Association of National Advertisers' Brands of Impact conference in March. Part of this entails understanding what “real commitments we need to make under the S, like we did for the E,” she said, speaking of ESG, which stands for environmental, social and governance.

 

For companies such as IBM, boosting these efforts includes adding the chief impact officer as a new role—Nixon-Saintil was just appointed to the position in January. She described the role as focused on “leading the strategic initiatives across the business that really focus on having a positive societal impact.”

 

Other brands that have filled the role in the past few years include McDonald’s, cosmetics brand Beautycounter, Unilever’s Seventh Generation and multivitamin brand Ritual.

 

In her role, Nixon-Saintil, who holds a VP title, reports to Jonathan Adashek, IBM’s chief communications officer and senior VP of marketing, who reports to IBM's CEO. “There are three hats I wear at IBM,” Nixon-Saintil said—creating community initiatives related to sustainability and education; leading the company’s response to evolving ESG regulation; and leading a team to communicate and market the corporation’s social impact.

 

A chief impact officer’s job description can vary widely between companies or industries, with responsibilities ranging from sustainability and lobbying to marketing and DEI efforts, said Robb Henzi, senior VP of strategy and head of policy and philanthropy consulting at Omnicom culture consultancy Sparks & Honey.

 

This wide focus means companies run the risk of having the chief impact officer title becoming “a bit of a figurehead role to house a bunch of things that organizations think are important,” he said.

 

The role isn’t limited to brands. IPG-owned agency Weber Shandwick named former McCann Chief Creative Officer Sung Chang as its chief impact officer in 2020, with a focus on creating relationships to help give client campaigns the widest impact.

 

Questions remain about the future of the role. “I think it’s a fad,” said Lisa Mann, chief marketing officer and managing director at executive search firm Raines International Inc. The role seems like a response to criticism around how a company has handled diversity and ESG efforts, or a company’s reaction to “feeling like they’re not getting credit for (existing) work,” she said.

 

“Some companies are trying to use this role to say that they are focusing on ESG, and I don’t think that needs to be done that way,” she said, adding that “what it’s missing is the associated scorecard” that measures the success of the role and accounts for factors such as where its funding comes from.

 

Below, a look at why some companies added the role and how their chief impact officers are approaching the job.

 

Seventh Generation: ‘More weight and more importance’

 

Cleaning products brand Seventh Generation named Ashley Orgain as its first chief impact officer last April. Orgain, previously global director of advocacy and sustainability, described the creation of the role as spurred by “a need to level up a bit more of the social impact side,” rather than just sustainability.

 

While the “scope is somewhat similar” to her previous role, this new title has “more weight and more importance” because it focuses on creating and executing strategy, said Orgain.

 

The position primarily focuses on launching initiatives and lobbying related to Seventh Generation’s eco-friendly brand messaging. Part of this involves marketing the brand’s sustainability efforts, such as an upcoming campaign that focuses “educating, inspiring and activating conscious consumers,” which “will only happen if we have solid communications and a robust plan to tell that story,” said Orgain.

 

“Of all the members on the leadership team, the CMO and I work most closely,” said Orgain. “I’m influencing how he’s prioritizing his goals and objectives this year,” she said, referring to Seventh Generation’s John Moorhead.

 

Because Seventh Generation is a Unilever subsidiary, Orgain wants to see its sustainability solutions “scale(d) within our parent company,” such as “sustainability goals that were inspired by Seventh Generation.”

 

McDonald’s: ‘Position the company right’

 

McDonald’s in August announced that it was hiring former PepsiCo Executive VP of Communications Jon Banner as its global chief impact officer. The role—and the global impact team that it oversees—was created in October 2020, as DEI job postings increased by 55% after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent demonstrations for racial justice. It was previously occupied by Katie Fallon, now executive VP of corporate affairs at Fidelity Investments.

 

“At a time of great global complexity, there is an increasing expectation on companies to play a leading role. We welcome that challenge and are raising our ambitions,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a statement in 2020, when the world’s largest restaurant company announced the creation of its impact team. “Our ability to make an impact in the world will be deeply strengthened by bringing together expertise from across our organization to create a function that is focused on purpose and guided by our values.”

 

As head of the global impact team, Banner oversees the company’s communications, government relations and public policy, sustainability and social initiatives and social giving. The team encompasses roles including the president and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities, a global chief communications officer and a chief sustainability and social impact officer.

 

The team was expanded in April to be “mirrored in markets,” said a representative over email. That includes the addition of a chief impact officer for North America and a senior director impact lead of international developmental licensee markets as well as an international chief impact officer, who has not yet been hired. Banner described his role as “setting the agenda and strategy” as well as working with the senior executive team and the board.

 

“I have to try to spread the love” across various focuses given the role’s broad scope, said Banner. In particular, when he started “we saw some need” on government relations and policy in the EU and the U.S., he said.

 

When it comes to marketing, Banner said that the team is only responsible for campaigns related to “pushing our policy agenda, protecting our business model.” These campaigns have a “much lower budget,” he said. The role also entails “working closely with HR on internal communications,” said Banner, such as how the company handled recent layoffs.

 

“There’s not a lot of chief impact officers around, there are chief corporate affairs officers that have the same duties” such as at Walmart, said Banner. Bringing a team around a chief impact officer made more sense to “position the company right,” he said.

 

“Traditional Corporate Affairs scopes don’t necessarily encompass Sustainability & ESG, Policy and Philanthropy (RMHC) alongside Communications,” a McDonald’s representative said via email. “McDonald’s Global Impact does. The design of the Global Impact function positions us to go from storytelling to story-doing.”

 

Ritual: ‘Larger scope’

 

Multivitamin company Ritual hired Lindsay Dahl in the newly created role of chief impact officer in March 2022. Dahl was previously senior VP of mission at cosmetics brand Beautycounter, which created its own chief impact officer role in August.

 

Although Dahl’s role focuses on sustainability, Katerina Schneider, Ritual’s founder, “knew she wanted the scope to be larger than” chief sustainability officer when creating the position, said Dahl.

 

At Ritual, the role focuses on overseeing sustainability, advocacy and the brand’s traceable supply chain. This has included policy work such as sending a letter to Congress in March about dietary supplement regulations, building the company’s sustainability program around ingredients, packaging and climate change, as well as its certification strategy, including prioritizing where it needs to be certified such as having its products become non-GMO certified, Dahl said.

 

The role includes working with the marketing team every day, said Dahl. “I’m most involved at the beginning and the end of the (marketing) process,” from deciding what story to tell to checking everything is accurate at the end, she said.

 

Her role doesn’t focus on diversity and inclusion, which Dahl attributes to the fact that Ritual already had a DEI team. “We already had the team set up, so the question was, why move it?” she said. She added that “while sustainability work always has an intersection with social justice, my background and training is not in DEI.”

 

Dahl plans to amp up the brand’s lobbying efforts and communications with the new Congress, as well as continue to outline the brand’s traceability initiative for its supply chain.

 

Beautycounter: ‘Embedding our mission’

 

Beautycounter appointed Jen Lee as its first chief impact officer in August to meet growing consumer demand for broader corporate responsibility initiatives. Lee was previously the brand’s senior VP of supply chain.

 

Lee focuses on overseeing product safety, as well as the brand’s sustainability and advocacy initiatives. “When we see sustainability, we think of waste reduction, but I think our consumers demand that we’re looking at general responsibility as a whole,” she said, such as a company’s charitable giving or safety standards, which don’t fall under sustainability.

 

Given the role’s broad scope and her background in manufacturing and supply chains, Lee is focusing on addressing the company’s so-called Scope 3 emissions, which are the greenhouse gases from an organization’s supply chain that are trickier to measure and reduce.

 

“What I think is valuable about my role is I’m sitting on the executive team embedding our mission” throughout the organization, whereas “usually it would be a department inside an executive’s team,” said Lee. This includes being “part of all non-mission activities,” such as financial discussions.

 

Lee works with the CMO on a “rolling” basis, including “continuously briefing our marketing team” about any initiatives or awards her team is working on. This has included publicizing the company’s work on government regulation such as the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA) in December, she said, which intends to give the FDA more authority to regulate cosmetics such as giving it the ability to issue a mandatory recall if it deems a product unsafe.

 

To encourage employee participation beyond the leadership team, she runs a “mission power hour” which provides training for associates on topics such as lobbying, personal sustainability and the company’s carbon net zero goal.

 

Lee noted that the company plans to focus more on social governance including diversity and inclusion, responsible sourcing and continuing its corporate giving strategy.