Omnicom Releases US Workforce Diversity Data as Part of Broader Action Plan

Less than 3% of executives are Black

By Minda Smiley

Omnicom has released the makeup of its workforce in the U.S. as part of a broader plan to achieve “systemic equity” at the holding company.

In a staff memo, Omnicom CEO John Wren shared its U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) data, which is broken into three categories: executive managers, mid-level managers and professionals. According to the report, 2.7% of its executive managers are Black, 7.2% are Asian, and 4.9% are Hispanic.

At the “professionals” level, 5.5% of employees are Black, 11.1% are Asian, and 10.3% are Hispanic.

Its numbers are largely in line with those of the other major advertising holding companies that have released similar data. At Dentsu Aegis Network, IPG, Havas and Publicis, Black employees hold less than 3% of executive roles. WPP and MDC Partners have not released their workforce diversity data, although the former has indicated that it plans to.

“Understanding and providing transparency in where we currently stand is a necessary first step in committing to change and paving a path forward,” Wren said in the memo.

The staffing breakdown comes roughly two months after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, which Wren called “tragic and heartbreaking” in an email he sent to staffers on June 1. In the email, he said diversity and inclusion are two of Omnicom’s “core values.”

In addition to revealing its workforce data, Omnicom has laid out an eight-part plan called OPEN 2.0 that Wren said will help the company reach systemic equity across the organization. According to Wren, it aims to “attain equal representation, development, support and retention of marginalized groups,” particularly in the U.S., for BIPOC employees.

The eight steps include:

1. Expand the OPEN leadership team: The Omnicom People Engagement Network (OPEN) encompasses its employee resource groups and diversity, inclusion and equity (DE&I) efforts, led by chief diversity officer Tiffany R. Warren and includes 15 other executives across its various agencies. According to Omnicom, the team will be “expanded and further supported.” Additionally, the CEOs of each network and practice area will have a diversity director as a direct report.

2. Attract and recruit talent: Omnicom’s agencies, which include BBDO, DDB and TBWA, will “promote our DE&I programs and initiatives,” though no additional information was provided.

3. Provide development opportunities: Establish a Talent Advocacy Program that pairs an individual with a mentor who can advocate for their mentee’s success and advancement.

4. Retain and grow employees: A new networking-focused Talent Advancement Program will allow HR and recruiting professionals to source talent across various agencies to “more efficiently and effectively provide career advancement.”

5. Update clients on progress: A new Client DE&I Communications Program will regularly update clients on initiatives and accomplishments. As part of this, Omnicom plans to expand supplier diversity programs.

6. Implement partnerships: Identify organizations that its agencies “enthusiastically support” to offer professional services on a pro-bono basis.

7. Expand training programs: Build training programs designed to “create awareness and sensitivity to issues regarding DE&I, such as global mandatory unconscious bias training.”

8. Establish accountability: Each agency “will have specified actions, with deadlines, to ensure advancement of DE&I initiatives,” with CEOs held accountable.

“We have always said our people are our No. 1 priority, and this plan puts our words into action. Small gestures, quick reactions and disparate efforts will never be enough to create the systemic equity we strive to achieve,” Wren concluded in the memo, adding that the plan was developed to maintain “energy and focus for years to come.”

Lorsqu’en 1988, Schweppes utilise pour un spot publicitaire un titre enregistré en 1969 par Chico Buarque, la France se met à avoir des sueurs.

Il serait toutefois très réducteur de limiter cet énorme succès à la sensualité torride d’un clip qui étirait sur 2’42 les images du spot TV.

“Essa moça tá diferente” est aussi un titre magique, faussement entraînant, empreint d’une douce mélancolie : pour cause, Chico Buarque l’a enregistré alors qu’il était exilé en Italie. Quelques mois plus tôt, il croupissait dans une prison, soumis au harcèlement de la dictature militaire qui tenait le Brésil.

Avec Caetano Veloso, Elis Regina, Gilberto Gil et quelques autres, Chico Buarque est à la fin des années 60 l’un des principaux acteurs du “MPB” : un nom de code qui désigne la “musica popular brasileira”, croisement de bossa nova, de samba, de jazz et de rock, sur fond de militantisme politique. Difficile d’imaginer que tout ceci se terminerait par un clip sponsorisé par Schweppes, devenu une ode magnifique à la beauté du métissage.

Ce spot de pub ouvrira la porte à toute une série de tubes de l’été latinos, particulièrement “La Lambada”, dont les clips magnifiaient tout autant la diversité.

30 ans plus tard, en 2018, Schweppes (via son agence BETC) produit un spot anémié, indigent et aseptisé, avec le slogan lunaire “What do you expect“, sur une musique soporifique des Chemical Brothers… Qu’on en juge : https://www.buzzwebzine.fr/what-do-you-expect-mannequin-musique-pub-schweppes-2018/

Face à la tornade de critiques et accusations reçues ces derniers jours, les dirigeants de l’agence de publicité “Rosa Park”, filiale du groupe Havas, songent à trouver un autre nom à leur enseigne…

L’agence tire bien évidemment son nom de Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, dite Rosa Parks, femme afro-américaine, figure emblématique de la lutte contre la ségrégation raciale aux États-Unis, surnommée « mère du mouvement des droits civiques » par le Congrès américain. Elle est devenue célèbre le 1^er décembre 1955, à Montgomery (Alabama) en refusant de céder sa place à un passager blanc dans l’autobus conduit par James F. Blake. Arrêtée par la police, elle se voit infliger une amende de quinze dollars. Le 5 décembre 1955, elle fait appel de ce jugement. Un jeune pasteur noir de vingt-six ans, Martin Luther King, avec le concours de Ralph Abernathy, lance alors une campagne de protestation et de boycott contre la compagnie de bus qui dure 380 jours. Le 13 novembre 1956, la Cour suprême des États-Unis casse les lois ségrégationnistes dans les bus, les déclarant anticonstitutionnelles.

Les dirigeants de l’agence Rosa Park prétendent cependant que le choix du nom de leur agence est le fruit d’une simple coïncidence, rien à voir avec l’héroïne américaine ! Ils précisent qu’ils sont fans de skate, en font dans les parcs, et que le prénom Rosa ajoutait une touche de féminité au nom de l’enseigne !

A titre d’information, ci-dessus une pub réalisée récemment par l’agence Rosa Park pour Monoprix… La “Salade Aleykoum”… Hey Monoprix : vous avez vraiment payé pour ça ?… 😉

Et voici le détail de l’embrouille décortiqué par un magazine de publicité américain :

French Firm Moves To The Front Of The Culturally Clueless Bus.

Adweek reported a White advertising agency in France is rethinking its name—Rosapark—after getting trashed on Twitter. The founders claim they labeled the agency in 2012, completely oblivious to the similarity to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, which ultimately underscores their collective cultural cluelessness. To add comedic value, the company boasts having an “urban” personality. And while the place insists the name is spelled as one word, the website graphics display it as two words. Regardless, Rosaparks is now debating renaming itself. Hey, why not? If Land O’ Lakes dumped the Indian Maiden, PepsiCo is retiring Aunt Jemima and companies are reevaluating Rastus, Uncle Ben and Mrs. Butterworth, surely the French firm can do the right thing. Free and friendly advice: steer clear of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Ditto Josephine Baker, despite her ties to France. Sorry, guys, the most appropriate monickers—Cracker Barrel and Cracker Jack—are already copyrighted.

French Agency Rosapark: ‘We Will Be Rethinking the Name of Our Agency’

Exclusive: Founders “fully understand” why the name is being scrutinized

By Minda Smiley

The founders of Havas-owned Rosapark are “rethinking” the agency’s name after facing criticism on Twitter earlier this week.

On Tuesday, Nathan Young, president of 600 & Rising and group strategy director at Periscope, tweeted an image of Rosapark’s founders—all of whom are white men—with the following comment: “Advertising’s race problem in one image.”

Young’s tweet prompted a response from someone named Louis Duroulle, who—according to LinkedIn—is an account director at Havas Paris. While Duroulle’s tweets have since been deleted, he essentially accused of Young of “trash talking” Rosapark.

Later that day, Young tweeted that he’d “had a conversation with U.S. leadership” at Havas. 

“I won’t disclose details, but I did speak to several issues of importance to our members and received assurance that U.S. diversity data would be forthcoming,” he tweeted. The members he’s referring to are those of 600 & Rising, a nonprofit Young founded alongside Bennett D. Bennett earlier this month that’s dedicated to advocating for Black people in the advertising industry.

In a statement sent to Adweek, the founders of Rosapark said they “fully understand” why the name is receiving criticism.

“We are aware of the various comments on social media related to the name Rosapark, and we would like to assure you we are taking them very seriously,” they wrote. “We are sincerely sorry if the name of our agency, which we chose 8 years ago, has caused any offense. In the current climate and in light of recent world events, we fully understand why.”

They also said they are “particularly sensitive to the issue of diversity in our industry.” According to the founders, Fichteberg—who earlier this year was named president of the Association of Communication Consulting Agencies’ advertising delegation—“has put diversity at the heart of his program, which aims to profoundly transform our industry in this area.” 

“In light of the above, we will be rethinking the name of our agency,” the statement concluded. “Please rest assured that we are fully committed to this subject.”

Since its inception in 2012, the founders of Rosapark—which was named Adweek’s International Agency of the Year in 2018—have maintained that the agency was not named after Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist who famously refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery, Ala.

In 2015, French publication L’ADN interviewed Chiquiar and Fichteberg. In the article, they discuss how they landed on Rosapark, explaining they were inspired by parks, skateboarding culture and the desire to add a touch of “feminine softness,” hence “Rosa.” A translated version of their comments is below:

One of Rosapark’s prerogatives is to understand the times. What it brings, what technologies can be useful for brands, decipher trends … “We try to understand people better.” A philosophy that is embodied by the agency as a whole. “The agency’s name, Rosapark, translates what we are. Urban, city children … The city has a particular rhythm: How to create a parenthesis to the frenzy?” The idea of the park is becoming a “breathing lung.” The “K” translates the skateboarding culture of the founders. And to bring a touch of more feminine softness, Rosa goes to the park. For them, there was no question of having an acronym for their agency’s name. “It prevails over egos, personalities, willingness to put themselves forward. Here, we speak with one voice around Rosapark,” Chiquiar said.

The following year, former Rosapark creative director Mark Forgan said the agency wasn’t deliberately named after Parks in an interview with the Epica Awards.

“The guys wanted to name it after an urban location, and they liked the idea of ‘park.’ Then they felt that ‘rose park’ or ‘rosa park’ made it feel a little less masculine since they were three guys,” Forgan said. “The link to Rosa Parks was almost incidental.”