Despite negative news coverage, an exodus of industry chief diversity officers and CEOs declaring their anti-woke status, significant DE&I progress has been made in the advertising industry since 2020. Twenty years of data indicate that DE&I advocates and employee activists have achieved gains in racial diversity.

Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released industry employment data for 2023, and “advertising, public relations, and related services” had a shake-up: The Black workforce reached a 20-year high of 11.2%, while all other ethnic groups fared significantly better than in 2002 when the BLS started the tracker.  

These gains are the result of three factors: public oversight, public pressure and change management. 

Activating public oversight  

From 2004 to 2006, the industry faced a wake-up call. Only 9% of employees in 16 agencies scrutinized by the NYC Commission on Human Rights were Black, sharply contrasting with their 25% representation in New York City's population. Nationwide, Black individuals constituted about 3% of advertising staff. 

“We shouldn’t be comfortable with things,” Patricia Gatling, then commissioner of the NYC Commission on Human Rights, said this month in an interview, “Government can’t always fix things, but we can at least let people know what’s wrong.” 

In 2006, the commission’s legal team of former prosecutors reached oversight agreements with a dozen of the nation's biggest ad firms (including Ogilvy, FCB, BBDO, Saatchi and Grey) ahead of public hearings scheduled for Advertising Week, forcing them to bring more Black workers into a crucial sector of the city's economy. For the government, the stakes were protection and advancement of workers’ rights, pay equity and fair representation. For agency CEOs, surviving scrutiny was an exercise in balancing embarrassment, indifference, deflection and politics. 

From 2004 to 2012—as the advertising industry invested in a foundation for DE&I through forced government intervention—the stock price of every major holding company outpaced the S&P 500 with 25-50% growth (excluding IPG). While correlation does not imply causation, three factors co-existed: clear public DE&I goals tied to race, accountable third-party oversight and positive financial performance that led to business growth. And for the city of New York, which owned nearly $150,000,000 of pension fund stock in WPP, Omnicom, IPG and Publicis … it was not a bad ROI for a few years of public oversight. 

Rallying public pressure 

By 2016, progress unraveled, and the Black workforce reached a 20-year low of 4.1%—erasing all gains of the commission as the political tide turned. As the pandemic and social unrest spurred more attention to racial injustice during 2020, Black employees in advertising-related fields rose to 9.4% nationwide by 2021, compared to 14% in the general population as measured by the U.S. Census in 2020. That push took major public pressure through collective action: more than 100 brands making commitments; 400 agencies agreeing to data transparency; and 1,000 U.S.-based organizations putting principles into action through Stop Hate for Profit—a 2020 initiative demanding that Facebook address racism across its platforms. But effort must be sustained.   

In 2022, white individuals represented 85% of employees in advertising, public relations and related services, the BLS reported, compared to 55% in the general population as measured by the 2020 U.S. Census. At that time, the only industries that had more segregation in workforce representation were agriculture, aerospace and mining. According to 2023 research from the 4A’s, ownership of advertising agencies was 90% white—up from 73% in 2020, serving as a reminder that gains in workforce do not correlate to gains in senior leadership, ownership, or representation in decision-making.  

Catalyzing change management 

For continued progress, DE&I should die as a dependent function of human resources departments so it can live as a growth imperative under change management to future-proof an organization.  

When DE&I is a function of change management—a systematic approach to dealing with the transformation of an organization's goals, processes or technologies—it can be redefined an economic and cultural necessity rather than a humanitarian one that requires consensus on values, morality and ethics.  

There is no finish line for DE&I—it needs to change as people change—because population demographics, cultural expression, meaning-making and sustainable preservation are all ever-evolving.    

Shifting DE&I to change management is one business transformation that C-suite and board members should welcome to future-proof an organization.  

Now is the time for the advertising and marketing industry to find a new sustainable catalyst to propel meaningful action, perpetual change and system-level improvements—because the factors of 2020 that got us here likely won’t be the same factors that will keep momentum going. 

Tomorrow: How we intelligently fail toward permanent progress, building on principles from System Overload guest Amy Edmondson, who coined psychological safety and teaming.  

“System Overload” builds on the Ad Age video series that applied change management to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I)—amplifying winning strategies and tips from guests including Bob Liodice (Association of National Advertisers), Amy Edmondson (Harvard Business School), Michael Kassan (MediaLink) and Kristen Cavallo (The Martin Agency and MullenLowe).    

Take a small step toward fostering a more inclusive, culturally rich and dynamic advertising industry, visit www.DEIpledge.org to join others taking collective action.