Why Have 49 Agencies Dropped Their DEI Pledges?

Last June, members of the advocacy group Three’s a Crowd (TAC) sought to actionably reduce systemic racism and create equity in advertising with the “In for 13” initiative, a three-year promise to increase the percentage of Black leaders to 13%, representative of the U.S. population. One year later the LA-based Black creative community is sharing its lessons and challenges in effecting change within Adland. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go according to plan. When TAC launched the pledge, 172 people from 71 different agencies signed up to create an environment where more Black and POC employees could be hired, promoted within and retained throughout the entire business. Leaders discuss their DEI initiatives As of Juneteenth 2021, 22 organizations (20 advertising agencies, 2 production houses) and 2 holding companies are currently committed to the pledge. So, how did these numbers get from 71 agencies to less than half of that? And what’s keeping the agencies who are IN FOR 13, committed? Commitment versus action For one, change is really uncomfortable. And agencies are not ready for discomfort, Tahirah Edwards-Byfield, "In for 13" core member and creative director at 72andSunny told Adweek. “Promising to increase Black leadership by 2023 is one thing. Committing to doing it—and the structural changes it will take for many companies to do so effectively — is another thing entirely.” TAC from the beginning made it clear that joining the pledge would include markers of accountability and transparency that the industry doesn’t usually demand. Most agencies who were initially interested in the pledge didn’t make it beyond the first ask to commit to being vulnerable. “We wanted agencies to use the same thinking they’d use to solve a client’s problem,” Reonna Johnson, co-founder, TAC said. “Remember, clients come to agencies to fix problems, so we wanted to activate that same thinking for our internal challenges.” Pledge takers also got swept up in the anti-racist sentiment of last summer, but tangible efforts fizzled quickly as the idea of being transparent, putting a real process in place and operationalizing the system set in, Johnson said. “Creating action around anti-racist practices felt like a lot of work that many agencies either weren’t equipped for or interested in.” Excuses, excuses and more excuses Johnson emphasized she was not interested in publicly shaming agencies that dropped out. There were many mid-level signees that were unable to get leadership to buy into the work, she said. She likened the drop-off to a romantic relationship in which a girl meets a guy, but gets scared away after the feelings get too intense too quickly. “It just got too real too quickly.” Other leaders felt they needed to focus on client retention, kept postponing updates to another month as well as disclosing how pandemic concerns readjusted their priorities. Agencies also wanted a simple ready-made solution and pushed back when they were forced to do most of the work. “They were questioning [TAC’s] credentials in the DEI space, yet they still wanted details about how our initiative worked,” Johnson said. She added "In for 13" is not actually a DEI initiative. “It is not designed to be a replacement for the work required systemically and culturally within for agencies to become truly anti-racist. The pledge is designed to be a marker of commitment to the work agencies, and our industry writ-large should be engaged in.” While many pledge takers did ghost TAC, many drop-outs “borrowed” TAC’s framework to institute their own internal programs. TAC’s six-phase multi-phase process was developed in consultation with DEI professionals, research specialists and race consultants, but is designed to serve as an addition to each agency overhauling their own internal cultures. “We are not doing the work for you. You need to overhaul your own internal culture.” TAC also learned quickly that each phase was going to take a lot longer than anticipated. The group finished the first phase in October 2020 before moving the second step of research and development. This included publicly sharing diversity employee data on agency website, developing a public page that’s updated as the agency makes progress and completing a questionnaire by partner, the 4As, to receive a custom industry comparison report. Bottlenecks and leadership hesitation “This phase got extremely bottlenecked,” Johnson explained. “Not because the IN agencies weren’t trying, but because they were doing something new and it required internal buy-in from leadership.” For some, there has been a bit of frustration with the pace of progress, she added. “In this industry, we’re used to moving at the speed of light to solve a brief. We want the business problem to be solved by a tidy project that we can summarize in a case study. That’s just not the reality of this work.” Behind all the industry razzle-dazzle, advertising is built on a century-old inequitable system that requires reforming, similar to the challenges the U.S. is going through in that there is no quick path to reformation; reorienting companies to be equitable to the traditionally disadvantaged within agency walls can’t be done overnight. Hiring Black talent TAC has also lowered its expectations for its timeline based on three reasons, Johnson said. For one, career progression is “sorely lacking” as most agencies cannot find Black staff. “The only way to address the lack of talent at directors and above is to hire outside the advertising industry. Advertising executives (and agency clients) will have to evaluate whether they have the patience to invest in leaders who didn’t grow up in advertising.” Leaders also need to address their challenges with talent retention. “There is heavy investment in college student hires but little to no investment in grooming managers and associate directors,” Johnson said. “Young Black talent can’t see themselves in leadership roles in advertising, so they leave. Or they don’t want to climb the ladder in which they’d like to assimilate into a culture that they don’t really identify with.” In addition, Johnson believes the HR process needs to reevaluate its hiring timeframes. “Agencies promise clients they’ll have a person in a role in 90 days, which doesn’t give recruiters any time to practice their new thinking or implement programs,” she said. “They can’t find Black talent because they continue to go to their old Rolodex.” The importance of diversity scorecards TAC recommends alternative incentives beyond the obvious, like establishing Juneteenth as a holiday, to help end this systemic inequity beyond the industry’s walls. Helping with student loan debt or homeowner’s down payment as forms of signing bonuses or financial and family planning are some examples. The entire industry must keep business-thinking at the forefront of these conversations, because if we don’t they become nice-to-have initiatives that aren’t taken seriously, Edwards-Byfield said. Clients can help push this consequence along by introducing diversity scorecards to hold agencies more accountable for creating more diverse work and hiring more diverse talent. “But it needs to be clearly stated in the scorecard, if any agency doesn’t adhere, they lose the project or the client, enforcing a direct consequence.” Edwards-Byfield pointed out the most recent ANA diversity leadership breakdown reported Black senior leadership at brands was at 2%. “Not only do they have to reach Black consumers and create more ads that speak to them, but brands need to hire and retain more senior Black talent as well.” Focusing on those that are engaged and ready Looking forward, TAC is not focused on getting more agencies to pledge, instead organizers are deepening the work with the 22 committed agencies. Each IN agency is starting to really look at its culture and how they can seriously retain talent, Johnson stated. To foster communication between these agencies, TAC is currently building a digital community with best practices, tracking and monitoring as well as live events to push each other with the same goal. “If last year taught the ad community anything, it’s that diversity, equity and inclusion had merely been on the periphery for the industry,” Johnson said. “Change seldom starts with a mass movement, but instead a few brave people who lead the charge.”

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Why Have 49 Agencies Dropped Their DEI Pledges?

Advocacy group Three's A Crowd discusses challenges in fighting for racial equality

Larissa Faw

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Larissa Faw