All of you from New York are probably familiar with the name of Brooklyn borough President, Marty Markowitz. He’s everywhere. Master of the press and all that. In a year end review, Marty highlighted his job creation abilities for the home of the Notorious B.I.G in the local journo, The Brooklyn Paper.
“…job number 1 in 2009 is creating jobs. Uniworld, which is the largest African-American advertising agencies, and that’s a very well respected, nationally celebrated advertising agency, [moved to Brooklyn] and I’m delighted. It’s the start of another possibility of ethnic oriented advertising agencies in Brooklyn. It goes hand in hand with the first advertising high school in Brooklyn. That was my baby. It started this fall. “
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Along with Omnicom, the advertising and marketing high school kicked off this past September and is very much Marty’s baby. He pledged $2M to get the school up and running this year. The High School For Innovation in Advertising and Media currently has 77 students and notes in its core mission statement that: “The buying power of African Americans is projected to be $950 billion dollars in coming years” and that only “around five percent of the product managers and advertising executives…..are African Americans.”
To that end, lets shout out their gold honor roll students. Congratulations to: Wendy Rivera, Ian Pelton, Maegan Francis, Jermaine Richards, Sigazie Brown, Tevin Jeffery and Walyn Moiseau. Keep it up. The industry needs some fresh blood.