Ad Age is marking Black History Month 2025 with our fifth-annual Honoring Creative Excellence package. (Read the introduction and all the essays here.) Today, guest editor Lucien Etori, chief strategy officer at McCann New York, who writes about honing the ability to acknowledge and tell the truth about people and communities.
Diplomate (spelled the French way, with the e). The word always felt so ... important.
It perfectly fit my dad’s mien, too—his liberal use of the word Excellency and his precisely knotted tie. Just part of the job.
I remember he once explained to me that his job ultimately came down to promoting better understanding between the cultures of the world.
Growing up as a diplomat’s son afforded me an early training (his first overseas posting happened when I was 4 years old) on what would ultimately become a career-long vocation. Not in diplomacy, but in brand and marketing agencies.
But now let me explain why I think both professions are inextricably connected in a compelling and enduring way.
Consider the term cultural diplomacy. It was first used in 1959 by the esteemed Robert Thayer, the spectacularly titled Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for the Coordination of International Educational and Cultural Relations. The U.S. State Department, where he worked, says that the purpose of cultural diplomacy is “to connect cultures and build bridges.”
As anyone who knows me will tell you, I have a strong point of view on the pervasive use of the singular “culture” in the marketing sense—what it means, how to define it, push it, shape it or accelerate it as a KPI on a brief (!)—but that’s a story for another day.
I firmly believe that a significant part of my role today is to engage meaningfully in or embody said cultural diplomacy in the daily pursuit of furthering my and our strategy team’s understanding, appreciation and celebration of cultures, pop cultures, subcultures, microcultures—how they are all connected and how they ultimately create lasting business impact for the brands we partner with.
Doing so requires relentless humility, the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes and a determined beginner’s mindset. Qualities that I think I have been able to hone over a lifetime of travel, relationships and professional experiences.
Indeed, I’ve had the opportunity to apply these principles of cultural diplomacy over the past couple decades on projects I’m super proud of, ranging from naming Wi-Fi at Interbrand to writing for Monocle to shining a light on Black beauty at R/GA, to now telling the truth well at McCann in partnership with clients as varied and ambitious as Smirnoff, Prudential and the New York Lottery.
Joining McCann last year felt like a culmination of all those experiences, because by far the most critical element of being a skilled cultural diplomat in the ad game lies in your ability to acknowledge and tell the truth about people and communities.
Everything starts from a truth.
A lot of what ails us in the industry is that we all too often still start with assumptions and hypotheses, and at McCann, “Truth Well Told” lights the way.
“What do you do?” someone asked me recently.
“I’m a cultural diplomat.”
It does have a ring to it. No passport required.
