A moment of truth...2 of 3

When I first moved into multicultural marketing at one of the country's oldest and largest African American agencies I received a call from one of my colleagues with whom I had worked for years at a general market agency. Naively, I thought he might be exploring a business relationship, turning to us to help them develop targeted marketing communications they couldn't otherwise develop on their own. I was wrong.

He needed something else. "I was in a meeting with one of our very big clients,” he said, “and she looked around the room and said, "our business is all over the world but everyone working on my brand is white. Why aren't there any people of color in this room?” I could only imagine the stammering that ensued -- how could they answer that question? “Well, we've been looking and couldn't find anyone.” Or, “we do have a black account person but she is already on all our other accounts and spread a bit thin...but if you want, we'll put her on your business too.”

So my friend was calling to ask if I could help him find a black writer to work on the account. That was over 15 years ago. Good for him that he reached out to me to help him; he is a smart man, after all. Even better for the client who insisted that people working on her global business be diverse. Clients don’t do that enough these days and their business suffers as a result. Carly Fiorina and I don’t share many political beliefs, but I like what she long ago said about diversity: "Diversity is at the heart of creativity...and creativity is at the heart of this economy of ours." She couldn’t be more right.

Two years ago I was in a meeting of agency CEOs and one of them actually said he had “other more pressing business concerns than spending time and resources to find people of color [he]
didn't know how to find anyway.” Is it good business when everyone in upper management at your global agency is cut from the same cloth and shares the same set of narrow values and perspectives on life? Is that good for your clients’ brands? I don’t think so. Don't get me wrong; it is very important that people working within any company embrace the ethos of the agency brand. But where are the diverse views and opinions that lead to passionate debates about the clients' brands and fuel their growth around the world? That CEO didn’t have a clue, which is perhaps why he is no longer CEO and someone else has come in to try and turn the agency around.

part 3 follows...