Are we there yet? Ashley Richardson-George on the industry's lack of progress

Ashley Richardson-George

By Ashley Richardson-George, Published on January 16, 2019

Partner and Chief Content Officer, Ashley Richardson-George, was featured on Campaign, a platform dedicated to celebrating creative excellence in the communications industry. Here'e the article if you missed it:

“Tell us about one thing that’s happened recently that leads you to believe there’s still a problem.

When people meet me, they tell me I’m the only senior-level woman of color they’ve met before, which is wild. And sad.  People keep saying they can’t find diverse candidates because they don’t exist, but they DO exist, they’re just being overlooked for management level positions, so they’re starting their own companies. These women are leaving the agency world because they were overlooked and not mentored, and now they’re elsewhere, making their own way.

How about something that proves we are making progress?

Honestly, I am not sure we are making any.  Conversation is a good starting point, but it is not action, so while a lot of companies are talking about diversity right now, they’re not hiring senior leadership so what’s the point?  Companies may be recruiting people of color, but they are typically more junior, which means they are not in a position to create true change.  It’s not because there’s no diversity.

What we ARE seeing is individuals and industry organizations standing up for change.  If companies aren’t willing to do it, people are going to push.  Whether that is the Ad Club of NY or social media forums, people are asking for transformation and making viable suggestions for how we can make a difference.

But while social media allows us to connect and share experiences and give advice, we now need to take it one step further to truly allow change to happen. That is going to require new hiring practices, elevating people of diversity into senior positions, mentorship efforts and more.

What else needs to be done to get there?

Time.  With the right mentorship efforts, things will likely be different in five years. The next generation of diverse leaders should feel empowered to speak up and ask for what they need to move ahead. It will happen but we can’t give up.As advertisers, we spend a lot of time learning our specific consumers for our specific target for our specific ad campaign. While that’s helpful information, we should invest more time in learning about cultural experiences as a part of our strategies.

Let’s be proactive in the various cultures that live here as opposed to placing the burden on one person of color to represent a whole ethnic experience. Someone at every company has seen the cycle of a tone-deaf ad, the social media backlash of not having the proper creatives at the table and thought to themselves that the work does not speak to them. Rethinking the way we run our advertising requires a shift in the way we think about building our companies, redefining the information we gather during strategy and looking at our executions beyond our own eyes through the experiences of consumers.

Your new chief diversity officer may be able to find you amazing and diverse talent, but your culture is what is required to keep them there. If you give someone a seat at a table that was not built with them in mind, they will knock that seat over and build their own seat—or move on to a seat better suited for them.”