16813: Delayed WTF 62—Decoding Women For Delinquent Predators.

 

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

Muse by Clios spotlighted an International Women’s Day stunt—Decoding Women—designed to address gender abuse and sexual violence by helping predatory French men figure out women.

 

The 2,000-page book featured a single sentence repeated on each page: “If it’s not yes, it’s no!”

 

Quick! Somebody send copies to the skunks at Havas Paris.

 

 

To Combat Gender Abuse, This 2,000-Page Book Helps Men ‘Decode’ Women

 

It repeats a single phrase over and over

 

By David Gianatasio

 

There’s zero need to read between the lines.

 

Consentis, HandsAway and TBWAParis created a 2,000-page book that subverts expectations and crushes cliches to help men gain a clearer understanding of women.

 

“Courting women has always condemned men to hypothesis, trial and error, total doubt and sometimes even regrettable mistakes,” the tome’s synopsis says. “‘Decoding Women’ offers, at last, to lift the veil on feminine complexity by delivering exhaustively and without concession everything you absolutely need to know before embarking on the conquest of women.”

 

Of course, this isn’t about “complexity” or “conquest” at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. The book simply repeats these six words, over and over, page after page after page: “If it’s not yes, it’s no!”

 

A back-cover QR code guides readers to the HandsAway website and other resources.

 

Deployed ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, the book sells for 1 euro (about $1), with proceeds benefiting the two aforementioned nonprofits in their war against gender abuse and sexual violence.

 

The campaign follows a troubling report from France’s High Council for Equality Between Women and Men. That annual study found that 37 percent of women experienced “situations of non-consent,” while 25 percent of young French men believe it’s sometimes OK to engage in violent behavior to earn respect.

 

Those guys should pick up a copy of “Decoding Women” immediately. And make sure to read every single word. Commit them to memory. Maybe then the message will start to sink in.

16730: Delayed WTF 61—General Motors, General Market, General Mayhem.

 

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

GM Authority reported on the General Motors multi-car wreck, whereby the automaker decided to roll with a new line of White advertising agencies.

 

There are key issues in the GM fiasco that warrant rants, including:

 

• The GM Global Chief Transformation Officer gushed the car company “selected the very best-in-class agencies in the entire world.” Um, GM can’t manage to produce best-in-class vehicles, so their ability to identify best-in-class White advertising agencies should be questioned for sure.

 

• The corporation that took full advantage of a bailout in 2008 is now bailing out of Detroit—at least in terms of advertising—effectively decimating the Midwest marketing community. The destruction will include shops literally fabricated to exclusively service GM—as well as workers who ran the promotional assembly lines. Social media voices are reacting to the sad situation, along with even sadder regional White advertising agencies.

 

• In most of the trade journal content, there were no mentions of non-White advertising agencies affected by the GM move. On a related tip, does Shaquille O’Neal—co-founder of multicrumbtual marketing firm Majority—really know about the systemic racism in the industry? Does the NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer realize he’s playing on the B squad? Perhaps he ought to team up with Byron Allen.

 

General Motors has a shiny new fleet of White advertising agencies. But in the end, it’s the same old story.

 

GM Adding New Roster Of Ad Agencies

 

By Rhian Hunt

 

GM is significantly shaking up its advertising partners, hiring an assortment of new creative and media agencies to handle several key marketing aspects while keeping some of the “old guard” ad agencies for certain parts of its promotional strategy.

 

The General is looking outside Detroit for many of its new ad creators, ranging as far afield as both U.S. coasts and Texas as it tries bringing new blood to a challenging sales environment, as Ad Age reports.

 

Ad content creation will now be handled by a lineup of new ad agencies, including Media.Monks, Preacher, Mother, 72andSunny, and Anomaly, with as many as 16 different companies contacted by GM during its advertising review. According to Molly Peck, the automaker’s Global Chief Transformation Officer, GM “selected the very best-in-class agencies in the entire world.”

 

According to Peck, the company will move away from an “agency of record” or AOR model of advertising in which a specific agency is authorized to handle an enterprise’s advertising for it. Instead, GM will set an advertising strategy, and then “a roster of agencies” will execute “the creative vision—the brand, the look, the tone, the feel, the major campaigns” to give customers new ads in “a very fast, efficient and prolific way.”

 

Some of the “old guard” agencies will continue to have roles to play, such as Commonwealth/McCann, which will develop future international Chevy ad campaigns. Commonwealth/McCann created the “Together Let’s Drive” tagline for Chevy, an advertising slogan that also calls for unity at a time of strong U.S. political division.

 

Part of GM’s quest for a more flexible, customized, and varied ad development process seems to be a response to the challenge of marketing electric vehicles at a time when nearly half of previous American EV buyers are returning to ICE vehicles, but GM continues its mission to drastically expand its electric vehicles sales.

 

GM began its ad agency assessment at the start of this year, following its appointment of Norm de Greve as senior vice president and chief marketing officer last July. Molly Peck assumed the mantle of General Motors’ global transformation officer, following years of marketing experience at Buick and GMC, in April of this year and immediately began work on changing GM’s marketing operations to align better with the needs of the times.

 

General Motors spent $2.9 billion in U.S. advertising in 2023, a major chunk of its $3.6 billion global advertising budget, though the amount is down 10 percent year over year, according to Ad Age. 

16695: Delayed WTF 60—Aunt Jemima’s Farewell Breakfast…?

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

This is not really a Delayed WTF; but rather, a Delayed 👍

 

In 2020, the Columbia Law Review published Aunt Jemima’s Resignation Letter. Hey, PepsiCo claimed it was a retirement. Regardless, the letter is definitely worth reviewing.

16632: Delayed WTF 59—Havas CEO Yannick Bolloré On AI, DEIBA+, And BS.

 

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

The following Cannes interview is about a year old—and a companion to the WPP CEO Mark Read performative PR covering the same AI and DEIBA+ topics—yet warrants color commentary too.

 

Havas CEO Yannick Bolloré—poster child for nepotism in Adland—delivers another monologue that feels AI-generated and Chief Diversity Officer-delegated.

 

Bolloré’s DEIBA+ dedication is declared via heat shields advocating for girls with autism and people with disabilities, worthy causes that represent divertsity vs diversity—and Eurocentric divertsity to boot.

 

Contrary to their canned contentions, the CEOs of holding companies—especially those like Read and Bolloré, who are White male multimillionaires leading lives of extraordinary privilege—might be least capable of grasping the imperatives for authentic diversity. Hell, their true understanding of AI is probably equally uniformed.

 

The result is a mindless merger of corporate cluelessness and cultural cluelessness, rivalling the clumsy combinations of White advertising agencies routinely orchestrated by White holding company leaders.

 

Holding company chiefs on AI and inclusion: Yannick Bolloré

 

In the first in a series of interviews with the holding company chiefs ahead of Cannes, Havas’ Yannick Bolloré answers questions about the role of both in his business

 

By Yannick Bolloré

 

With the Cannes Lions festival about to celebrate its seventieth anniversary, and with pressure from both within and outside holding companies for demonstrable change, we asked the holding company chiefs to talk about the role of diversity — and how AI could impact upon it.

 

As CEO of Havas, what lessons have you learned about the role of diversity in the success of your business, and the work you do for your clients?

 

Diversity is paramount to us at Havas, as our business relies on individual talent, vision, and creativity. We would not even exist without all the different backgrounds, cultures, and languages that fill our offices around the world, and work together to achieve better outcomes than they would alone.

 

We believe it is crucial to include a diversity of voices within our agencies, leveraging different perspectives to constantly push us forward. That is why we are committed to building an inclusive culture where everybody feels they belong, can be themselves and thrive. We have made it a priority to increase the diversity of our teams and ensure that inclusive thinking is at every stage of the strategy ideation process so that perspectives are integrated from the beginning to the end, to inform how the work gets created.

 

We also help brands better engage with their communities through authentic messages and experiences, by using the power of our creative ideas to drive meaningful change in the world we live in. Our recent campaigns “Me, my autism and I” for Vanish, which aims at giving a voice to young girls with autism, and “Paris Anne de Gaulle airport”, raising the visibility of disability in our society, are great examples of this ambition.

 

Critics say that AI is already reinforcing and exacerbating many challenges already faced by society, such as bias, discrimination and misinformation. How do you think this is going to impact the use of AI in advertising and marketing?

 

The development of generative AI is a revolution and there is no doubt that AI will play an increasingly important role in our industry. While exploring its fast-growing potential and using it as a source of inspiration and acceleration for all our areas of expertise, it is crucial for us to be very cautious about its legal implications, as well as its limitations in terms of inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and inherent biases.

 

It is our collective role and responsibility to focus on how AI can assist us and our creative minds in the development of our work, not the other way around, and continue making a meaningful difference to society as a whole.

16469: Delayed WTF 57—Drumming Up The Gender Pay Gap In Adland.

 

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

The Drum published a lengthy report on the gender pay gap in Adland, spotlighting how Havas Media actually increased its cash chasm. Hey, at Havas, men enjoy distinct advantages—and even more for male heirs.

 

Pay gap at Havas Media rises 22% as progress on adland equality stalls

 

By Sam Bradley

 

Latest figures for UK ad agencies show lack of industry-wide progress on pay equality.

 

Analysis of pay gap data released this week shows that adland’s gender pay gap – 15.3% – remains higher than the UK average of 12.1%. The data suggests that the industry is still failing to make real progress on pay equality.

 

At media planning and buying agency Havas Media, the difference between men and women’s median pay was 19%, a 22% increase on last year’s benchmark.

 

It wasn’t the only agency that saw pay equality efforts backslide. The pay gap at agencies owned by WPP, the largest ad group in the world and also the largest in the UK, rose 1.6%.

 

Overall, the median difference between men and women’s hourly pay in advertising decreased by just 0.57% between 2022 and this week’s snapshot deadline.

 

Publicis Groupe, which is the next largest agency group in Britain, saw its pay gap close by just 0.6% in the last year.

 

Annette King, chief executive of Publicis Groupe UK, said: “We made headway in six out of our seven agencies that report their gender pay gap. I’m pleased to see the progress but, overall, it’s too slow and we can do better. I am committed to making Publicis Groupe UK a place where anyone can thrive, no matter where they come from or what they’re going through, and we will continue to do the work to achieve this critical goal.”

 

All British firms with over 250 employees must publish detailed figures on their gender pay gaps in the first week of April.

 

Based on analysis of that data, we’ve collated the gender pay gaps of almost 50 agencies in the tables below, including a comparison with the pre-pandemic snapshot from 2018-2019. Agencies are ranked by largest pay gap reported in 2022-2023.

 

On average, women’s hourly pay at WPP agencies is 17% lower than men’s. But excluding GroupM UK (which only began reporting this year) as well as WPP Health and Mediacom North (which no longer report due to changes in headcount) from the dataset provides a better comparative view. With those companies removed, the average gender pay gap at WPP’s British agencies is 18.1% – 3.5% higher than last year and less than a 1% improvement on the same figure in 2018.

 

WPP Brands, the corporate entity which includes VMLY&R, Landor & Fitch and BCW, showed the worst increase, the gap rising 12.7% since last year, while Wunderman Thompson’s gap rose 9.8.%.

 

Jennifer Remling, WPP’s global chief people officer, said that although female representation in high level roles was increasing at the group – when its new CFO formally joins this year, 46% of its board positions will be held by women – a disproportionate number of women hired into entry-level positions had skewed its figures.

 

“The gender pay gap is driven by an underrepresentation of women at the most senior levels in our UK companies. Another factor is that we have attracted more female early-career talent into entry-level roles,” she said. “Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in and prioritize the development of women at all levels, focusing on promoting a culture of continuous self-development. As part of this, it is our commitment to ensure we give women the support and skills they need and to identify opportunities for progression so that we can unlock their full potential at WPP.”

 

Publicis Groupe managed to close the average gap at its UK agencies 0.6% in the last year and 1.44% since 2018. Those numbers are dragged down in particular by Zenith – an outlier, but also one of the group’s biggest growth engines – while BBH and Digitas boast some of the widest gender gaps found in our analysis.

 

The median gap at Zenith increased significantly over the last 12 months, by 12.8%. Zenith’s British chief executive officer Natalie Cummins told The Drum that the company “had work to do” to close the gap.

 

“This year’s report shows that we have work to do, as our gender pay gap has increased for the first time since we began reporting in 2017. This is largely due to a significant number of our most senior women recently moving from Zenith UK to other roles in Publicis. We’re proud that our agency is a breeding ground for senior female talent and fully supports the progression opportunities that exist within our wider network, but we are not complacent and know we have work to do.

 

“The gap has dramatically narrowed since the snapshot date, but the numbers do give us a good indication of where we need to focus to improve the imbalance, and we are confident we will resolve this over the coming year.”

 

Publicis and WPP’s agencies aren’t the only ones required to report. IPG, Omnicom, Dentsu, Cheil and Havas’s businesses are also included, but since there are fewer of them we’ve collated them into a single table. As a group, the picture is only slightly sunnier; the average median pay gap is 14.5%, which is slightly lower than WPP and Publicis but still higher than the UK average.

 

Havas Media’s swing over the last 12 months was the worst of any agency in our analysis, though the group’s chief people officer Ewen MacPherson argued that the severity of the change was down to the end of a pandemic-era bonus policy.

 

MacPherson told The Drum: “Bonuses across the industry are one of the significant drivers in the gender pay gap calculation. For the reporting periods during the pandemic – namely 2020 and 2021 – our senior leadership team elected not to take a bonus in order to split the pool equally among all other employees as a way to recognise their extraordinary efforts during those challenging years.

 

“This decision positively skewed our reported figures during this period, leaving our figures from 2020 and 2021 unrepresentative of our ordinary situation. That said, while our overall trajectory – from 29% (mean) in 2017 to 24% in 2022 – is heading in the right direction, there is much more to do and we are actively working to continue to reduce this figure further.”

 

McCann Erickson’s gap was the largest, with male staff paid on average 23.1% more than female co-workers, while Havas Media recorded the largest change – up 22% from a previous 3% difference in favor of women. OMD managed to close the gap 14% at its EMEA business, bringing it down to 12%. IPG Mediabrands also succeeded in reducing its difference by over 13%, down to 5%.

 

The agencies shown here are indie businesses large enough to be required to report, including luminaries of the UK scene such as VCCP and Oliver. Though there’s encouraging signs – Oliver’s pay gap sits at zero – there’s also evidence of a lack of progress at Kantar, Framestore, PHD and The Mill, all of which saw their gaps increase.

 

Note: WPP Health, Mediacom North, Spark 44 and M&C Saatchi have been excluded from our industry-wide analysis as they were not required to report this year. WPP 2005 isn’t an agency, but the holding company for the group. Dentsu Manchester had not reported its figures at the time of publication.

16449: Delayed WTF 56—Thanksgiving Cartoon Classic Cultural Cluelessness…?

 

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

Completely missed the controversy sparked in 2018, reported by many sources including the New York Post, over perceived disrespect for Franklin in “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”—where critics noted the sole Black character was relegated to a lesser seat at the dinner table. Given the menu items served at the cartoon celebration, it’s a wonder no one made references to the infamous Texaco “Black Jelly Bean” scandal. Hey, it’s all reflective of performative DEI initiatives in Adland. Expect Franklin to be named the Peanuts Chief Diversity Officer.

 

Critics blast ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’ as racist

 

By Natalie O'Neill

 

You’re a racist man, Charlie Brown!

 

Critics are slamming ABC’s “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” for seating its only black character, Franklin, alone on one side of the holiday table — in a rickety old lawn chair.

 

Meanwhile, white friends — including Peppermint Patty, Charlie Brown, Sally and even Snoopy — were all seated across from him in real chairs as they feasted, Twitter users pointed out.

 

The special, which debuted Nov. 20, 1973, aired again on Wednesday — prompting social media outrage over the gang’s highly unwoke picnic table arrangement.

 

“Why is Franklin in Charlie Brown Thanksgiving sitting all by himself at the table. Man. Things that I did not notice as a child,” @Asharp52 blasted on Twitter.

 

Others said good grief over a seating chart that would have thrilled George Wallace.

 

“Not watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving anymore, until they sit some people on the same side of the table as Franklin,” another critic tweeted, along with two black power-style fist emojis.

 

The scene in question centers on an impromptu holiday feast — of toast, jelly beans and ice cream — in Charlie Brown’s backyard.

 

At one point, poor lonesome Franklin topples over in his half-broken chair.

 

“They give our friend the busted chair and won’t even sit on the same side of the table, more proof that Charlie Brown and his cohorts are RACIST,” slammed Twitter user @mwizzy128.

 

But others defended the classic special, pointing out its creator Charles Schulz fought to add Franklin to the cast to stand up against racism in 1968.

 

“Seriously please get some historical context. Charles M. Schultz was a trailblazer and bucked racism in those days by adding Franklin to reflect the issue… and challenging what was then going on in society,” tweeted California radio show host Mark Larson.

16270: Delayed WTF 55—Mad Men On Memorial Day.

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

The 2023 Memorial Day post inspired additional thinking.

 

In the AMC series Mad Men, lead character Don Draper was a military veteran. Apparently, the man’s real name was Dick Whitman, who served in the Korean War. When a comrade—Lt. Don Draper—was killed in an explosion, Whitman swapped dog tags and assumed Draper’s identity in order to desert the conflict. Hell, he even accepted an undeserved medal.

 

This is symbolically reflective of contemporary Mad Men who have found the DE&I battle too much to handle—abandoning their duties and pledges for justice in deliberately deceptive style. And many are deserting after receiving undeserved accolades including ADCOLOR^® Awards.

 

In short, most Mad Men are cowardly, opportunistic, and racist Dicks.

 

10672: Delayed WTF 54—TRG 2.0 2023.

 

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

A recent social media post from TRG celebrated the White advertising agency winning an AAF District 10 2023 Mosaic Award. What’s more, the honor saluted Workforce Inclusion.

 

Wow, it looks like the erasure of Stan Richards continues. The place has even moved into a different office space and embraced a fresh kumbaya spirit. And now there’s a shiny new trophy for the awards case. Forget that the workforce inclusion was fueled by the founder’s forceful exclusion.

 

A “stan richards” Google search identifies the old man as an author, so the information technology platform is purging and revising his history too.

 

BTW, would Richards think a Mosaic Award was too Black?

 

To keep things in perspective, simply review the “competition” in AAF District 10. Lots of honors went to GSD&M—those wonderful folks who gave you Annie the Chicken Queen. Nuff said. Other victors included Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University, institutions that probably edged out the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations. Better luck next year.