Page 30 - AdNews magazine Jul-Aug 2021

Investigation
The most recent data adland has is from industry collective Agency Circle which began survey- ing creative agencies in 2017. Its most recent survey, in 2019, revealed that despite some shifts in diversity across the board, the industry was still 77% caucasian.
This is compared to the Australian population, of which almost a third (29.8%) were born overseas, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). More than one-fifth (21%) speak a language other than English at home.
It’s a similar story when it comes to age in the industry. Only 5% were aged above 50 years in 2019, compared to 32.9% of Australians.
Sarah Palmer, chair of the Agency Circle and head of talent at Leo Burnett, says while more of the industry is getting behind D&I programs, the most important development will be seeing the data move. She says it shouldn’t just be seen as an HR policy but as something that will ultimately lead to better ideas and solutions for clients.
“I can’t believe there are still people around that don’t under- stand the benefits of it,” she says. “It’s quite surprising to me because I think in an industry where we work with creativity and ideas and innovation, it’s absolutely intrinsic to being able to produce great product. Being able to better rep- resent, through our people, the communities in which our clients operate in means we are able to provide better solutions to their client’s issues.”
When creativity
meets diversity
The correlation between creativ- ity and diversity is becoming more widely accepted. Gordhan, who is working with Chaudhuri and Melder on #ONLYONEINTHEROOM and as executive creative director at M&C Saatchi, says creativity is just diversity of thinking.
“Having more diverse people in our position will make our work more creative,” he says. “If the peo- ple in our business are not repre- sentative of the audiences we’re talking to, there is a disconnect in the way in which we reach them.”
Multiculturalism turns mainstream
As more brands become aware
of the opportunities diverse audiences present, especially
in multicultural markets such as Australia, agencies that specialise in campaigns and communications for multicultural audiences rise.
ThinkHQ is an integrated communications agency that also works with brands on their multicultural communications and has a dedicated localisation arm which can translate campaigns into 58 languages and localise the work based on cultural nuances.
Founder and managing director Jen Sharpe says for a long time, the industry has divided “mainstream” and “diverse” audiences. However, her team has been working with more clients
and other advertising agencies to make sure they aren’t missing diverse audiences.
“Mainstream tends to get all the money, all the attention, all the priority, and then diverse audiences are considered very much a secondary priority,” Sharpe tells AdNews.
“When you take into account our First Nations history as well, we have always been
a fundamentally diverse nation, and until we start broadening out the lens to include all audiences in our upfront strategies, then there’s never going to be the attention paid to what it should be.”
The rise and prevalence of movements such as Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate have
been what Lou Petrolo, managing director at WPP’s multicultural marketing agency Etcom, says are “a line in the sand” moment and “wake up call” for many brands as they realise diversity
is not just a HR policy.
“We have had brands that
previously we’ve approached, or we’ve had conversations with, come to us and say, ‘What are we doing? Are we doing well or not? And what do we need to do moving forward?’” Petrolo tells AdNews.
“It’s shifted the focus and put [diversity] front and centre, but from our point of view, we’ve been advocating for this for
a long time. It’s encouraging now that it seems it’s entrenched in people’s thinking.”