Sunday, July 09, 2017

13745: Diversity Drives Creative Lies.

Campaign published a report titled, “Diversity drives creativity: the most inspiring campaigns from the past year”—accompanied by a blurb that read, “We asked a selection of Campaign’s global editors to pick the most inspiring diverse and creative campaigns they have seen over the past 12 months. The work they chose provides a compelling case as to why diversity continues to be the advertising industry’s greatest opportunity.” Okay, except it’s highly debatable that the spotlighted spots really represent diversity. While the messages display diverse casting, as well as diverted diversity and diversity themes, it’s unclear why anyone would conclude the commercials make “a compelling case” for diversity in the advertising industry. The teams responsible for the ads aren’t diverse—indeed, they’re mostly more exclusive versus inclusive. Perhaps Campaign meant producing campaigns with diversity-focused imagery “continues to be the advertising industry’s greatest opportunity.” That is, adland can fabricate an illusion of being diverse by churning out patronizing and hypocritical bullshit versus actually embracing diversity.

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