Atlanta Advertising Agencies Join Forces to Bring More Diversity

Last week, all the buzz was JWT Atlanta, 22squared, Fitzgerald and Company, and Moxie joining forces in what’s called the Advertising for Change Coalition. The AFC is charged with bringing diversity to Atlanta advertising. By some accounts, the African American population of Atlanta proper, or inside I-285, is now 61%.  Atlanta is the perfect place to launch such an initiative.  We have never been known as a top tier agency market, but perhaps we have finally found the reason right under our noses. Maybe the lack of agency attention to this key resource has held us back for years. At the same time, it’s concerning that this coalition was limited to agencies with out of market owners. Of the four agencies, three are international network agency conglomerates and the other is owned out of Tampa.  Guys, why did you leave the other eighty percent of Atlanta agencies out of the program?

The real news is the coalition of agencies.  Diversity is not a new issue on the agency landscape.  All the agencies I know have participated in programs like Mosaic from the American Advertising Federation (AAF).  In truth, all large companies in Atlanta recruit diversity.  For years, agencies have been recruiting against Home Depot, UPS, Coke, Porsche, Chick-fil-A …you get the point.  The recruiting efforts of these corporate behemoths are planned and executed with the strategy of a small country going to war.  Their recruiting departments are larger than most agencies in town.  Now that these agencies have formed a coalition, they can compete for talent at the highest level with the big players outside our industry. 

The coalition concept does raise some questions. What’s the budget?  How do they split up the talent? Can these archenemies really split up the talent in a civil fashion?  Who funds the effort?  How do you address that training has all but disappeared in our business? Once program gets under way, all these questions and more need to be answered.  Let’s hope that this is not another politically correct sound.

--> In case you were wondering, VWA is small and diverse.  VWA: racially diverse 25% and gender diverse 75%.  And all of them were hired because they are the best.