Get ‘Em While They’re Young
April 5, 2008
Look around your agency on Monday morning and count the number of minorities. Did it come to more than ten? Really? Okay. Take out the guys in the mail room. Now what the number? The deficit of brown faces in agencies is appalling. Just ask High Jive or just check out the ever growing complaints and “supposed” resolutions. Well, one Philadelphia agency isn’t going to take it lying down. No sir.
David Brown, who owns Brown Partners in Philadelphia, is going to try and change the game, as he knows to well about the barriers against minorities.
“For a long time, a good many years, with the agencies in Philadelphia, you had a Jewish agency, a WASP agency, an Italian agency,” Brown recalled. “When I started at Spiro & Associates, I was the only African American. It’s moved at a glacial pace, but it is changing.”
In 2004, Brown started The Big Pitch, a six-week program in which students in Philadelphia’s public schools are given an assignment to produce an advertising “pitch.” The students are matched up with mentors from the business, as they learn about advertising principles and careers. That’s right! Get them when they’re young! This spring, the mission was to create a voters’ campaign. Students from Charter High School of Architecture + Design, as well as Roxborough High School competed in “American Idol” format for $1,500 and receive scholarships to the University of the Arts Pre-College Saturday School program.
Brown said: “We try to ask what’s going to motivate an 18-year-old who has to go through a war zone to get to school every day.”
Here’s the rub… While the program has willing support via the schools and the kids, agencies in Philadelphia have been dragging their feet on becoming mentors. The program has gotten strong help from Red Tettemer founding partners Steve Red and Ed Tettemer, as well as Tierney Communications CEO Mary Austen and Brownstein Group President Marc Brownstein.
Okay…. where’s everyone else? Philly Ad Club, um hello? Avenue A on North 8th? What about Domus or Gyro Worldwide or Paragraph and The Star Group and Stick and Move?
April 5, 2008 at 7:32 pm
We’ve always tried to keep our staff diverse. Unfortunately, in the creative department, there just are not that many in the graduating pool.
People tend to stumble into this profession. They just find it. Unless there is a dedicated recruitment effort from the schools, the problem will continue. However, I will not hire someone soley to ‘diversify.’ The most capable and talented always gets the job.
April 7, 2008 at 3:55 am
Where are the black creatives in 2008. Its a real shame. Its 2008, even in the large agencies in nyc you can’t find one woman or man in the creative staff. Its the big elephant in the room people try to ignore and avoid. Id love to see for once a african american pitching in the brainsorming session or creative meeting. Its mostly white. Agencies are supposed to be so hip and cool, and u don’t have one person of color on the creative staff. Thats amazing as it is sad.
Finding a upperlevel creative of color in advertising is like finding a needle in the haystack. There out there but there hard to find. Its hard enough to find a great portfolio much less finding the face behind the portolio. Most african americans will not post there face because of discrimination. — I know this for a fact. So recruiters will have to sort through the many job applicants sites and hopefully out of luck a person of color will pop through the door for a interview.
You go to most portfolio or design schools you will be lucky to find one person of color in the graduating class after 4 years. Why arent there college recruiters going to every school in nyc.
April 7, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I agree, the absence of color of any type in the advertising industry is so obvious.
There’s an art/animation studio in New York called
The STUDIO. There they cultivate young artists of all ethnicities from early on, showing them that they can make a career of illustrating in the advertising industry. Several of their staff illustrators have come from this type of recruitment. Maybe agencies should take note.
April 7, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Thanks for this post. While I’m not in the ad industry, I notice that there are a lack of minorites in the the industry I work in as well, which is PR. Mentoring students at a young age about various professions is the best route to ensure diversity.