Black MBA - Spring 2008 - (Page 19)

are considered reasonable when advertising-related jobs are reckoned in the count – the advertising industry touches and in many cases supports a wide variety of other businesses. New York City holds the corporate headquarters (and often the creative heart) of many sectors of the nation’s communications fields. Public relations, the magazine industry, parts of the broadcast and music industries, Web design and a variety of other fields closely tied to advertising are concentrated in New York. Together, these industries have kept the city firmly at the center of American business life in a marketplace that is ever more diverse. The product of the city’s advertising firms carries an importance, nationwide and worldwide, that goes far beyond the jobs it generates in and around Manhattan. Advertising is the conjurer of images, the engine of dreams, the creator of needs and desires. Advertising powers the consumer economy we live in, selling us what it wants us to buy by showing us images of who we will be after doing so. And who creates these images? Who brought us everything from smiling Aunt Jemimas and Uncle Bens to Queen Latifah and Iman as beauty icons? Thousands of bright, idea-rich people – nearly all of them white. And that has been the case for far too long. THE NEW YORK CITY INVESTIGATION When the New York City Human Rights Commission began its investigation more than three years ago, the question of “how many Blacks, and why so few?” hadn’t been asked since 1974 – 30 years earlier. This time, the commission chose 16 of the city’s largest advertising agencies and began formally investigating their practices in hiring, promotion and retention of employees. To fix more clearly the reality of the situation, the commission did not confine its inquiry to the numbers and proportion of people of color in the business; it also examined salary levels. The commission reported its findings in the summer of 2006. NBMBAA immediately added the “Diversity: Diversion? Delusion? Delivered?” plenary to its 28th Annual Conference and Exposition. That plenary, scheduled for Sept. 28, was preceded by the Sept. 25 New York City Council public hearings. And it all hit in time for Advertising Week, the industry’s version of Fashion Week, though it’s likely festivities would have been subdued by what promised to be angry hearings on a report with findings that were nothing short of shocking. The commission’s investigation revealed that the representation of minorities, particularly African Americans, working in the advertising field had barely budged since the 1960s. In the half century during which the United States had tackled issues of race from every conceivable angle, the industry that tells us who we are remained overwhelmingly white. Adding insult to injury, the commission said, was the fact that Blacks were not entirely absent from the halls where image makers and dream brokers stride from meeting to meeting. Blacks are in the building, but they aren’t present in those high-level meetings. They’re busy in ill-paid, lower-level jobs. This skimpy presence and concentration at the bottom don’t square with the rich, robust diversity of New York City’s population. And by the time the commission, led by Chair Patricia L. Gatling, completed its investigation, the answers to the questions the commission had posed were clear and cold. “In a city where African Americans make up one-quarter of the population, with billions of dollars in purchasing power, the lack of representation in the advertising industry is completely unacceptable,” Gatling told a September 2006 meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C. “There are plenty of secretaries and clerks, but very few African Americans have risen much higher.” The 16 agencies the commission investigated employed about 8,000 people, Gatling explained, of whom about 22 percent earned more than $100,000 annually. Of those highly compensated employees, only 2.5 percent were Black. Specific agencies’ statistics told the The struggle to land and keep business can make advertising professionals themselves vulnerable – not just to the ups and downs of the economy, but to those of the volatile marketplace. story, the commission demonstrated. At the time of the investigation, commission records indicated, the New York office of DDB employed 476 people, of whom only 51 were Black. The percentage wasn’t bad, but the pay statistics were: of 159 employees who earned $100,000 or more, just two were Black. Twenty-nine people, none of them Black, made $200,000 to $300,000. Nor were any Blacks among the 22 employees making more than $300,000 annually. In an office roughly twice the size of DDB’s in terms of personnel, a remarkably similar pattern held. BBDO’s New York office held 1,077 employees, 104 of them Black. Six Blacks made at least $100,000, five of them falling between $100,000 and $200,000 – a level at which 140 employees ranked. Looking higher, the picture worsens: 89 employees, none of them Black, earned between $200,000 and $300,000, and only one Black ranked among the 59 people making more than $300,000 a year. In a much smaller agency, Merkley & Partners, just 10 of 207 employees were Black, not one of them making more than $100,000 annually. All three of these agencies are owned by the giant Omnicom, the largest corporate owner of advertising agencies, which in the wake of the commission’s scrutiny announced that it agreed with the New York City Council to take a variety of steps to rectify its poor record on hiring, promoting and retaining minorities. Though Omnicom’s deal with the city council does not set specific hiring goals, it does extend the minority reBlackMBA • Spring 2008 19

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Black MBA - Spring 2008 Passion, Purpose and Power Contents Web Browsing From the President & CEO Up Front Advertising for Change CEO to CEO: Straight Talk with Barbara L. Thomas and Renetta McCann The New Executive Search Wealth Building: A Head Start on Investing and Saving Young Continuing Education: Lifelong Learning is Easier than You Think Making Good: Catching up with some of NBMBAA’s 2007 Scholarship Winners On Campus: Universities Win Grants to Fight Poverty Public Service: Does Your MBA Fit in the Government Sector? Bridge Building: Make a Career of Giving Back Steady Speed: Kim Harris Jones Shares what Drives a Successful Auto Industry Career Financial Planning: A New Way to Work Your MBA Global Focus: Keeping up with the Competition Clock On the Move: Member News, Promotions and More Industry Focus: Biotechnology, Energy, Food & Beverage, Global Media and Entertainment Employer Profiles: Campbell Soup, FINRA Financial Finesse: Denise Hales Harrod and CompuCredit Advocate for the Financially Underserved Creating Lasting Change: GE Impacts Quality of Life in Africa William W. Wells Jr.: Finding Strength in Diversity Leaders of Tomorrow® Community Service Program: NBMBAA® and Wal-Mart Partner to Reward Students Who Give Back Reaching Out: NBMBAA® Chapters Give Back to Their Local Communities How To… Buy a Franchise: Understanding the Basics of Acquiring a Franchise After the Gridiron: Keith Sims – Dunkin’ Donuts Franchise Confidential: Paul Hubbard – Papa John’s pizza Strength Through Adversity: Bob and Hortense Bobbitt – McDonald’s On the Ground Floor: Valerie Daniels-Carter – Pizza Hut, Burger King, Auntie Anne’s Use Your Superstar Status: Black Entrepreneurs Break into Japanese Economy Marketing Maven: Odyssey Media Entrepreneur Linda Spradley Dunn Staying the Course: Black Marathoners Share Lessons from the Race Relationship Forum: Soul-Mate Strategies for the Career-Minded Vacations that Matter: Travel to Make a Difference Advertisers Index

Black MBA - Spring 2008

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