4A's Issues a DEI Manifesto, But Will Agencies Listen?

Back in late September I participated in Part 1 of the 4A39s inaugural Equity ampamp Inclusion Congress an interactive twoday virtual event bringing together talent HR leaders DEI officers and other industry stakeholders to share ideas acknowledge challenges and collaborate on developing a working antiracist manifesto to help the US advertising industry better hire retain and promote BIPOC talent It was an invigorating experience summarized with video content here that revealed the results from the 4A39s Diversity Survey featured leading CMOs discussing their Inclusive100 efforts and culminated in an extended breakout session for five workstreams to begin drafting the manifestoWhile grateful to be included I was a curmudgeonly presence in many of the discussions First I was dismayed that so much time and effort was put into a diversity survey that told us what has been known for decades and that holding companies confirmed this summer when they released their diversity numbers Advertising underhires underretains underpays and underpromotes Black talent Indeed I argued that by aggregating their survey results and granting anonymity to all the participating agencies the 4A39s ultimately protected bad actors by decrying a villainy with no villains After all how does one hold an entire industry quotaccountablequotSince it was people taking the streets this summer that got advertising to suddenly care about their historic and ongoing problem I implored the 4A39s to empower those activists by making public disclosure of diversity numbers at the agency level a 4A39s membership requirement Put another way if WK and Uber can say goodbye to clientscustomers who aren39t down with Black Lives Matter isn39t it high time for the 4A39s to take a similarly prophetic stanceTrue accountability requires the public establishment of baselines targets incentives and penalties Advertising39s race problem persists decade after decade because the symbolic expression of good intentions with no external mechanism for measurement or material consequences for failure has been allowed to count as quotprogressquot But of course the 4A39s is also clientfacing and walks a fine line between nudging and losing their members39 agencies In other words they clearly want to lead on this but can39t afford to be a drum major with no band behind them So where to march and to what tuneThe Equity ampamp Inclusion Congress met once again in early October to discuss the importance of transparency align goals and further calibrate the workstreams And now since the 4A39s just published the results in an Equity ampamp Inclusion Manifesto I thought I39d weigh in on where I think the manifesto gets it right and where it pulls a very important punchFirst off I commend the 4A39s for taking a congressional approach when drafting this document in order to include the widest possible array of voices in an open participatory and transparent process of deliberation Getting 300 people in the virtual room was a great start and positive step towards gaining broader buyin Second the manifesto frames the problem in terms of answering to shareholdersamp8212a tactic also used by As You Sow when they recently critiqued PampampG39s hypocrisy on diversity and published racial justice score cards for top corporations Third the manifesto39s five areas of focus recruiting retention learning and development reporting and measurement and building and sustaining teams nicely delineate concrete practical and targeted actionsteps and metrics such as removing the 30day timeline for PIPs establishing 13510 year goals and tracking diversity at the team level to address glass wallsFourth the manifesto also does well to both acknowledge that much of the nearly 8 billion spent on diversity training has not produced measurable outcomes and indeed often backfires while also calling for leaders and managers to have their annual reviews and bonuses tied to their performance on specific diversity KPIs And finally it sets out a tenyear challenge and charts out the pace of change required to align the numbers of BlackAfrican American and HispanicLatinx professionals in advertising with their relative percentage of the US populationIn sum the manifesto clearly has its heart in the right placeamp8212even quoting AdvancingDiversityorg39s mission statement to quotadvance diversity from advocacy to activismquot But while this document admirably demonstrates the expertise of the Congress39 300 participants it lacks the courage to demand public enforcement It extolls the virtue of quottransparency setting goals and measuring your progressquot but then implies that this can be effective internally quotas it enables you to bring the entire workforce on the journey with youquotWhen I conducted field work inside agencies I was repeatedly warned that requesting diversity data would jeopardize my access But thanks to BlackLivesMatter and 600 ampamp Rising many agencies and holding companies finally acquiesced This was a huge step forward but don39t forget all the outside pressure it took to make it happen History has taught us that using quotsunlightquot to disinfect only from within is like injecting Lysol to cure COVID It ain39t gonna workClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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4A's Issues a DEI Manifesto, But Will Agencies Listen?

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Christopher Boulton

FEMA and the Ad Council Encourage AANHPI Communities to Enhance Disaster Preparedness in New PSAs - Ad Council InSites

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4A's Issues a DEI Manifesto, But Will Agencies Listen?

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