BBDO New York Is Offering a School Curriculum to Promote Diversity in Advertising

BBDO New York hopes its ADiverse curriculum program has benefits far beyond the agency. The Omnicom shop is partnering with the New York City Department of Education to get the advertising curriculum program to diverse groups of students in New York schools, beginning last week with a virtual pilot program for students at the High School of Art and Design. BBDO chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer Jason Rosario explained that the program was designed to extend the agency talent pipeline into high school and provide broad exposure to the industry. "When you think about talent and where we are in the industry, if we can dig deeper into talent pools farther removed from college, we can establish longer term relationships with talent ... that may not have considered advertising as a career because of a lack of exposure," he told Adweek. "We don't require a college degree to be employed at BBDO, for that reason. Our goal is to open our aperture to where talent may be and remove barriers to entry in any way that we can." High School of Art and Design Principal Max Re-Sugiura explained that some students choose not to attend college or do not end up graduating because of economic disadvantages or frustrations with general prerequisite requirements in college after attending a specialized high school. The pilot program and building forward Hosted as webinars led by school staff and BBDO professionals, the program's six sessions will be open to all students with the goal of raising awareness of and building interest for careers in advertising. The curriculum will focus on the impact of advertising through real case studies for recognizable BBDO clients such as AT&T and Mars, culminating in a BBDO executive leadership panel around breaking into the ad industry. Participating students will then have the option to enroll in smaller classroom courses focusing on skill-set building and development in the fall semester. In addition to developing and teaching the curriculum, BBDO New York is also offering an externship program to school staff and internship opportunities to participating student candidates. The School of Art and Design was a natural fit as a first partner, given the skill sets of its students and an existing relationship with BBDO. Re-Sugiura explained that the school even has its own agency of students working from within the school, adding that their activities "correspond with the same type of professional work that BBDO has been engaged with for the better part of a century." "It's about respecting their cognitive level and making sure we continue to challenge them and give them opportunities," he added. "A larger part of our discussion is refining the curriculum with a cultural approach to make sure students already know how to set up a business and be self-sufficient as artists without commodifying every aspect of what they do." "BBDO is the perfect partner because of their mission and philosophy around work and opening up access to professional opportunities for underrepresented communities," he added. BBDO views the pilot program as just the beginning of a more expansive program. After the inaugural sessions, the agency plans to expand the program to other New York City high schools, including Edward R. Murrow, during the next school year. "This is an opportunity for us at the agency to create a deeper pipeline, but this is really about creating pathways to success for students that come from marginalized communities and giving them exposure to our industry and immersing them in an experience that they can draw value from and use not just from an exposure standpoint but a skill development standpoint," Rosario said.