Agency Production Heads Discuss Diversity Efforts

Agency Production Heads Discuss Diversity Efforts

By Anthony Vagnoni

Diversity was the topic at the most recent Heads of Production meeting, held at McCann-Erickson in New York and hosted by the agency’s Jonathan Shipman.  SourceEcreative sponsored the meeting, held on Wednesday, January 27, which was attended by ten agency production heads who gathered to discuss various diversity initiatives that their departments are undertaking. Specifically, the agency executives talked about their efforts to meet guidelines being established not only by their agency managements to diversify their own departments, but also benchmarks being set forth by clients that call for increased use of minority-owned vendors when it comes to producing TV commercials and web videos.

McCann has undertaken its own analysis of production suppliers to determine which are certified as minority owned, and Shipman was interested in sharing the agency’s overall findings with the group and exploring other efforts at identifying and working with not just minority-owned businesses in production and post, but also with minority talent in key areas such as directing, editing, music, etc.

Also on hand at the meeting was Sallie Mars, Director of Creative Services for the agency, who has spearheaded the shop’s diversity efforts not just in production but also in creative.

Many of the production heads at the meeting agreed that the industry needs to do more not only to mentor minority talent and foster their career development, but also to identify and promote the work of minority-owned suppliers.  Among the issues that present obstacles are the paucity of minority-owned firms that occupy the top echelons of the production and post industries, the producer noted, as well as the pressure that agency production departments are under to maintain quality standards and to work with experienced directors and producers who have proven track records in key categories.

Another issue was that frequently, agencies can collaborate with minority talent yet still not achieve any measurable credit in terms of supporting vendor diversity because these respective directors, editors, composers or digital artists are employed by companies that don’t qualify as having minority ownership.

Clients are driving this effort for a variety of reasons; consumer pressure is behind it, as is government scrutiny and an increased awareness of a company’s perception of its level of corporate social responsibility. Changing demographics and markets are also having an impact, it was revealed.

The producers recommended at the meeting that the two major industry trade groups, the AICP and AICE, work to heighten the awareness of minority talent and minority-owned businesses among their memberships.  They also suggested that production and post production companies explore ways to signal to the marketplace that they either qualify for minority-owned certification, or that they offer opportunities for agencies to work with minority talent.

Published January 29, 2010.