The U.S. marketing industry is taking small steps towards diversity, ANA reports

U.S. marketers are making small strides to achieving racial and gender equity, but progress is still slow going, according to the fourth annual diversity report from the Association of National Advertisers and its Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing. Looking at a cross-section of entry-level, senior-level and C-suite marketing professionals, the ANA found that a higher percentage of employees now identify as “ethnically diverse” than at any time since the report’s inception in 2018. At the same time, the report found that Hispanic, Black, Indigenous and multiracial individuals remain systemically underrepresented in the industry. But there is some year-over-year progress: 13.7% of chief marketers say they’re a race other than white, up from 12% in 2020; the same is true for senior-level employees, with industry-wide diversity up to 28.5% from 26.4% last year, as well as those at entry-level, with diverse workers now comprising 33.1% of that sector versus 31.9% in 2020. “This report reveals that [the] marketing industry is making important strides toward improving diversity among our ranks at all levels,” Bob Liodice, CEO of the ANA, said in a statement. “However, it also shows that we still have work to do to achieve a truly diverse balance in our workforce,” he added, urging the group’s members to continue to pursue fair and equitable workplace representation. Register for Ad Age Next: CMO at AdAge.com/NextCMO. While the ANA’s “A Diversity Report for the Advertising/Marketing Industry” study found that many employers have taken strides in improving their multicultural parity, the demographic makeup of the advertising industry at large still does not closely mirror the wider racial composition of the U.S. Among employees at ANA board and select member companies—a group of roughly 16,500 individuals—non-Hispanic white is the single largest ethnic demographic; 69.2% of marketers fall into this category, which is an outsized number compared to the roughly 57% of Americans who identify as white, according to U.S. Census data. Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and those in the ANA’s “Other” category are the only additional groups that have larger representation in the marketing industry than in the country as a whole. As of 2021, Hispanic and Latino marketers make up just 8.9% of all advertising employees despite their 18.7% share of the entire U.S. population. Black Americans in the industry face a similar disparity, equaling 6.6% of the workforce at ANA member companies despite their 12.1% share of the population. This was the first year that the ANA’s report has listed “American Indian/Alaskan Native” and “Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander” as separate categories. “While we still have a long way to go, I am confident that if we come together—advertisers, agencies, news organizations, NGOs—through conscious and sustained efforts, we can effect real change in the industry,” Alicia Enciso, chief marketing officer of Nestle USA and vice chairman of the AIMM’s board of directors, said in a letter at the beginning of the report. Gender equity across the advertising industry is faring better. The ANA’s report found that across the group’s entire membership base, 67.1% of marketers are women; comprehensive gender statistics broken down by employment seniority level were not available. That number has held steady in recent years, with between 62% and 64% of marketers self-identifying as female each year since 2018 that the ANA has conducted this study. And while women hold the majority across every professional level, it’s far from uniform; 54.8% of senior-level marketers are women, versus 70.8% of individuals in entry-level roles. Non-binary or gender non-conforming respondents currently make up between 0.1% and 0.3% of all employment levels in the marketing industry. In addition to self-identification questions, respondents in the ANA board of directors and member companies category were asked, “Are there any key action steps that have helped your company improve diversity within the marketing department?” Strategic framework for diversity and inclusion initiatives, talent recruitment and retention, external engagement, and multicultural marketing were some of the broad areas people cited as needing to be addressed. The same group was also asked if their employees have the opportunity to self-identify as LGBTQ+ or as a person with a disability, with 56% and 79% reporting that they offer such an option, respectively.

The U.S. marketing industry is taking small steps towards diversity, ANA reports

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