Page 29 - AdNews magazine Jul-Aug 2021

“The power of the digital citizen — that has traded placards for hashtags — is the stage on which brands are now held to account. And hell hath no fury, nor virulence like the scorn from the woke,” Gloster tells AdNews.
“But our community is not the same as the one that entered this crisis. #metoo, #BLM, #COVID-19 have changed our expectations for how brands build and contribute to a connected, inclusive and cohesive community. To misread the room is to trigger tone-deaf activism that impacts brand value and reverberates globally.”
#ONLYONEINTHEROOM, formed by creative leaders Ant Melder, Pia Chaudhuri and Avish Gordhan, has been working with global marketing management consultancy Trinity P3 to develop a diversity index for local advertising agencies.
“They found in the US and UK, specifically during the pitch process, advertisers are now asking for diversity breakdowns of agencies,” says Chaudhuri, who is also group creative director at BMF. “So they have been incorporating that into procurement processes over there.”
Multinational consumer goods corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G) has been a leader in this space. The company is using its power as a client to push agencies and fellow advertisers to put diversity as their number one priority.
Several commitments, backed by fellow advertisers on the Global CMO Council, have been made to set a standard within the industry to ensure diverse and equal representation filters through from behind the scenes all the way to who appears in the ads.
While Australian brands haven’t been requesting to see diversity break- downs of agencies yet, it is only a matter of time before they follow suit.
“If the people in our business are not representative of the audiences we’re talking to, there is a disconnect in the way in which we reach them.”
M&C Saatchi executive creative director Avish Gordhan
“It will be based on census data to create some benchmarks for agencies to measure against,” says Chaudhuri.
“The process will be similar to how they would do procurement during the pitch process and work with agencies to identify areas they are over-indexing with broader diversity — not just cul- tural diversity — and areas they are under-indexing on, and there- fore create plans to work on that.”
There is no recent data on the state of diversity within the Australian advertising industry. Industry body Advertising Council Australia (ACA) is set to launch a census later in the year though.
Integrated communications agency ThinkHQ and the Scanlon Foundation have launched a sur- vey to better understand diversity and inclusion across the market- ing and communication sector.
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