Why the sea of white faces?
I started in advertising in the late 1970s at an agency called Allardyce, working on Hoseasons and Brentford Nylons. Those were the days. Talented girls worked as secretaries and all us guys had our own secretary to type up contact reports and sort the coffees.
Women in senior roles in agencies were rare. There was a laddish culture, lots of booze, good living and long hours.
And some great advertising.
The business had to change. Obviously it did. And though advertising certainly didn’t lead the way when it came to the greater inclusion of women in business management roles, women slowly began to fill senior positions. Even now, women are still under-represented at board level, that much is certainly true – but you can argue that significant progress has been made.
What, though, about other forms of diversity?
“It has always bemused me that an industry filled with young, aware, intelligent people should be so slow to embrace other forms of social change. Take a quick tour of the “People'' pages of mainstream ad agency websites. What’s the first thing that strikes you? Yup. It’s a sea of white faces.”
It has always bemused me that an industry filled with young, aware, intelligent people should be so slow to embrace other forms of social change. Take a quick tour of the “People'' pages of mainstream ad agency websites. What’s the first thing that strikes you? Yup. It’s a sea of white faces.
The industry has been slow, too, in embracing ethnicity within ads. Not many brands have ever made much of this success in the past; and even now only a few seem to be making the effort to get this right. Some, like Dove, deserve to be applauded for getting their balance and approach right… but Doves are few and far between.
And hooking up with Eagle a few years back has opened my eyes even wider. Visiting some of the swankier agencies around town, I became ever more conscious of the fact that the only black guy in the office was often holding a broom in his hands.
So I often wish that some of my mainstream agency colleagues could sit in with us at Eagle when we’re recruiting young account handlers. The talent out there in the Stratford area and beyond is immense. So many talented young black applicants.
Maybe they don’t always do their CVs quite as I might have expected at earlier stages in my career; maybe they present themselves differently; and maybe they don't sound quite like the identikit applicants I used to interview.
But boy, are they talented!
In recent years, increasingly, knowing just how much these folk could bring to the wider ad agency world, not just Eagle, I’ve been directing them where possible to mates and contacts in more mainstream agencies.
Almost without exception, they’ve been a success. They have absolutely delivered – new approaches, great ideas, insights into a broader range of cultures. They have rewarded their new employers handsomely.
When I talk about this to recruiters at West End agencies, they come out with a defensive gambit along the lines of “Oh, we would have loved to have employed a black person, but none applied…”
And my response to that is, “Yes, well, maybe… But that’s because agencies are stuck in the same old rut when it comes to recruitment…”
Same approaches, same attitudes, fishing from the same old pool.
Thus the UK ad industry’s sea of white faces.
So… all in all, what a good time for us to be launching Eagle Eye.
We’re tapping into the vast knowledge we’ve acquired in running a Black owned and managed communications agency – and we’re linking that to our expertise on offering unrivalled access to the Black communities across the UK.
There is a growing awareness that things must change, a groundswell of opinion not just from individuals but from the boardroom and trade bodies too. The sector is on the cusp of something exciting – and we’re well placed to make a telling contribution.
We hope you agree.
GET IN TOUCH TODAY
We are highly-skilled diversity consultants with an aptitude for helping brands develop black-British cultural competency and launch culturally tailored campaigns. To get in touch, contact chioma@theemhglobal.com today!!
Written by
Mark Robinson OBE
