How Four Agencies Are Focusing on DEI Initiatives

As agencies continue to focus on their internal DEI initiatives, four organizations are releasing projects that are influenced and inspired by their on-going missions to amplify positive messaging centered around people of color. Creative collective Saturday Morning, founded by leaders Geoff Edwards, Keith Cartwright, Jayanta Jenkins and Kwame Taylor-Hayford, is launching a platform to showcase up-and-coming Black filmmakers as well as honor the legacy of George Floyd and his final eight minutes and 46 seconds before he was murdered. The “8:46 Films” features four narrative stories developed with emerging directors and amplified through a partnership with Tribeca Studios and Procter & Gamble. Tonal challenges This was a collaboration from the start after Saturday Morning leaders brought the idea to Procter & Gamble, whom the group partnered with to produce The Look, an Emmy nominated film and experience about unconscious bias. P&G embraced the idea and incorporated it into its 2021 “Widen the Screen” initiative, a sustained program to address systemic bias and inequality in advertising and media. Making long-lasting DE&I plans work Saturday Morning selected Tribeca Studios as a partner to help bring this vision to life with collective leaders creating a brief to set the tone for the script submissions. And Tribeca Studios curated the talent. “The challenge was tone.” Geoff Edwards, co-founder, Saturday Morning told Adweek. “We all witnessed those horrific 8 minutes and 46 seconds—so using that time to tell a different story of levity and joy was difficult. But they did it." Tribeca first reached out to 36 filmmakers to ask for scripts based on the brief and ultimately received 25 scripts from 19 filmmakers. Saturday Morning finally narrowed these submissions down to four films. The films are streaming on Tribeca's channel and then will be viewable on P&G's Widen the Screen website. The films will also air on BET later this summer. Saturday Morning has already started working on next year’s films. “Saturday Morning’s mission continues to bring to light new ways to address racial inequality,” Cartwright said in a statement. “Moving our work into the world of entertainment is a next step in our growth as a movement.” Black goes first Anomaly is asking a simple question to open a broader dialogue on implicit bias and how the society operates with a white conscious advantage. This passion project from agency team members flips the narrative in which the white piece always moves first in chess through a celebrity-backed project that enables the black piece to have the “first move advantage,” Kristi Henderson, global head DEI, Anomaly told Adweek. “This rule also represents the unconscious bias and unwritten (and sometimes written) rules in society that directly oppresses and suppresses the Black community in daily lives, restricting education, access and opportunity.’ The one-of-a-kind stone composite chess board is now being auctioned off with signatures including chess fans Jay-Z, RZA and NBA superstar Carmelo Anthony. Chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley is also intimately involved as he hopes to increase the number of skilled players. There are currently only four Black Grandmasters out of 1,721. This project is designed by and for Black communities. Anomaly employed an entirely Black group of consultants and all celebrity support is from Black personalities. All profits from the auction will be donated to the Detroit City Chess Club, one of the largest, longest-standing, predominantly African American competing youth chess clubs in the U.S. “We constantly asked ourselves, ‘How do we get this right?’” Henderson said. “We wanted to make sure it brought attention to our communities.” Notably, while Anomaly could have pitched the idea to any one of its clients, the shop intentionally kept it unbranded. “We didn’t want it to be tied to deadlines, brand strategy or timelines,” she said. “It was hard to complete it while we still had our other client campaigns and billable hours. This is an unprecedented time in racial equity and we wanted to create a place for the community to come together. The Female Quotient, in collaboration with Facebook, is introducing the Speaker Equity Assessor, a first-of-its-kind tool to increase diverse representation at conferences globally. The tool, leveraging metrics and data inputs, analyzes a conference’s speaker participants and provides information to help organizations select a more diverse slate of panelists who will better represent those watching and listening. This project was developed based on demand and need. The long-standing challenge for organizers has been the inability to create more equitable programming, based less on big names and more on experts with diverse experience and representation. “When visible role models and spokespeople are predominantly male, the absence of diversity in leadership becomes normalized,” Shelley Zalis, CEO of the Female Quotient said in a statement. “Fewer women and people of color choose to speak and it limits the quality and range of vital discussions.” The Speaker Equity Assessor will provide private data intended for internal use only. Companies and organizations can use the tool for free for the first year by creating an account online at thefemalequotient.speakerequityassessor.com or speakerequityassessor.com. Making a difference While the Minneapolis agency remains “passionately focused on recruiting and hiring people of color, being a small agency, the realistic numerical impact of that is limited,” John Colasanti, CEO, Solve told Adweek. “We thought we could make a bigger difference by reaching out to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to offer to create awareness of an agency career among students. The bulk of these schools offer absolutely zero advertising course content.” Lastly, Solve’s effort to drive industry diversity is focusing on educating and inspiring Black college students for future careers in advertising. The Project Pipeline. Late last summer, Solve sent letters to 50 HBCUs, with Morgan State University (MSU) in Baltimore immediately interested in a long-term partnership. “The lectures cover everything from what is advertising, how brands are built to specifics of various agency positions,” Colasanti explained to Adweek. “Most HBCUs don’t offer any type of advertising content, so we’re starting from ground zero.” The program has run for two semesters (9-11 weeks of course content, delivered remotely by Solve employees). One fifth of the student grades are based on their lecture participation and scores on a handful of assignments. Last semester, the students presented to Solve’s client, Sunoco, allowing real-world interaction. Organizers are currently enrolling for the fall semester and hoping to add additional HBCUs. “Our plan is to continue bringing real-world challenges and opportunities to students,” Colasanti said. “We’re currently designing the upcoming fall course, which will include bigger, broader assignments and more client involvement.” This summer the agency hired three of the top Morgan State students for internships. “We’re excited about where this program goes and the potential impact it’ll have on driving diversity,” Colasanti said. “We’ll consider our effort a success if any of the students end up working in advertising, even if it’s not at Solve.”