“Diversity” as a buzz term.
Diversity is a touchy issue in a supposedly cutting edge environment like the communications industry. No one whose job is to stay ahead of the curve wants to be told their office looks like the set of “Mad Men”… except for all those gorgeous Art Deco furnishings and wardrobe and martini lunches and… okay okay…so we’re nostalgic for the eye candy.
Nostalgia is normal for aging marketers who are forced everyday to look into younger and younger segments of the population. Even nostalgia for things we didn’t experience.
But here’s the thing. We think we’ve come a long way since black-Americans were relegated to holding elevator doors, women were parked semi-permanently behind typewriters, and Jews worked only with other Jews… on discount merchandising. And we have come a long way. We better have! And yet we need the NAACP to tell us to do a better job. And we do.
So what’s the difference between an oblivious 1960s ad agency with too few employees of color, and today’s self-aware ad agency with too few employees of color?
Diversity wasn’t a buzz word in 1960. It is now.
That’s the conundrum with the NAACP imploring ad agencies to be more diverse. You can’t tell people to actively be something that ought to be natural. A typical trend-center responsible for identifying buzz words, can’t be condescended to think they don’t know what diversity is. That’s like telling a stand-up comedian to be “raw” or a man to be “sensitive.” There shouldn’t be anything cutting edge about it, yet we claim these things make that comedian or man exceptional. It’s the same thing with a diverse ad agency.
It’s 200-friggin’-9. Of course you should have a diverse office. Are you kidding?
Let me try a tired cliché here and quote the company with arguably the most diverse market-share in the U.S. Just do it.