Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Fundamental Reason Why Ad Agencies Lack Diversity

At breakfast with a colleague today the discussion of advertising agency diversity came up.


Being a black male who spent about 13 years in ad agencies, a lot of people ask me how I managed to be successful and what I think are the reasons why ad agencies can’t seem to tackle the diversity issue.


Although I do think agencies have traditionally “self-selected” its staff which is really just human nature, I do not believe there to be any significant mal intent. And I say this fairly confident that I’ve been discriminated against at least a few times in my agency career.


That being said, my view on the agency diversity problem is exceptionally pragmatic.


The most fundamental reason for why ad agencies lack diversity so much lies with simple economics.


Ever noticed that account service staffs at big agencies are generally made up of good looking white kids who look like they came out of a j. crew catalog? There’s a reason for this. Ad agencies don’t pay well at the entry level and generally the big agencies are in urban centers. Expensive ones. NYC, Chicago, Boston, LA, San Francisco. These two factors are critical. Most of my peers when I was a lowly AAE were subsidized in some way shape or form and almost no one had the burden of a student loan to pay off (including myself). In walking around agencies these days, things haven’t seemed to change very much. If you haven’t read a book called “The Hidden Cost of Being African American” by Thomas M. Shapiro that might be a good place to start in beginning to address the diversity issue in agencies. It’s a fact. Most African Americans coming out of college have significant student loans to pay off. Living in a very expensive city on an assistant account executive’s salary in many cases isn’t even an option.


Most of the best and brightest African American college graduates are pursuing careers in law, medicine or business. This is largely a financially driven decision. Any of the best and brightest kids of color who might have been marketing majors are getting cherry picked by guess who?


Your clients.


And they offer a much clearer career path, training programs, benefits and better salaries in areas where the cost of living is far more sustainable. If a potential client has a diversity requirement as a part of an RFP, might I suggest you request to borrow a few of theirs? And I’m not kidding.


Ad agencies might want to look at organizations like The Posse Foundation which provide access to students of color to generally small liberal arts colleges and further work to ensure retention. I would suspect that ad agencies might find similar challenges to that of small liberal arts colleges.


However, until the wealth gap closes significantly or entry level agency salaries increase significantly, I wouldn’t expect much to change.

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