Month: February 2021

Has it been difficult to find a mentor in advertising?

It’s been quite difficult, especially when you’re looking for a female mentor because there are certain issues and situations to navigate that would pertain to this particular experience. Other people I know have really struggled to find any sort of mentorship. Advertising is a tough industry to navigate, particularly in creative roles. There is a lack of consensus, or infrastructure and most of what we do is highly subjective. The subjective nature of the job leaves us highly exposed: A bad manager, a bad brief, a lack of structure or systems, can all lead to issues that us creatives oftentimes take the fall for. It’s oftentimes tough to know where you stand, know your worth, know how you’re doing and when or where to draw lines.

Is that why you’ve been seeking a mentor? 

Yeah, that’s when a mentor would be useful. Someone who can have an objective view and guide you. The added experience helps as they have a better understanding of the industry, more experience with various ways of working, people, clients, etc. So they’re able to judge a situation better, see it more clearly, see the full picture. And then advice on how to navigate it, with all the unspoken rules and nuances needed to do so safely. I started looking for a mentor last year shortly after starting the role at my current agency. The first few months were the toughest of my entire career. I was overworked, overthinking, my confidence was shot, I was doubting everything.

Do you think Covid and being out of offices, if that mentorship or lack thereof, became more obvious?

I think it became more obvious and also more important. I guess, one exacerbates the other. We used to socialize so you’ve discussed all of these things informally in private with your peers. But now, because you don’t get to have these informal conversations anymore, you realize that you don’t really have people to talk to. Also Zoom or video calls feel a lot more formal and don’t feel like it’s a safe space. It kind of makes you realize that maybe you don’t really have anyone to turn to. Also, I think mentorship is really important for growth.

How did you go about trying to find a mentor?

I emailed a few people. I tried to go more word of mouth with friends or people that I might know in the industry that I know people [who could be mentors but that didn’t pan out]. We’re quite busy at the time and I guess there’s a general industry issue that we are all guilty of where a lot of emails are sent to us [go unanswered].

Why is getting a mentor so important to you? 

I was having a lot of difficulty in dealing with creative directors that had toxic culture and some subtle sexism. For example, where you’re in meetings and you keep being talked down to it like a child, being called a girl, a lot of talking down to. Also, a lot of the bigger projects that were given to the [male teams]. I needed somebody who was unbiased and had an outside perspective to advise on the best way to approach feedback or raising issues. Sometimes you need to [gut] check with somebody, you need somebody who has maybe more experience or an outside perspective to help guide you.

How did that difficulty in finding mentorship make you feel about the industry and your path forward?

It makes you feel slightly isolated and it makes you feel like you are facing these challenges alone. Although if you speak to your peers, a lot of the people actually struggle with the same thing. A lot of my fellow female creatives are dealing with the same issues. So it’s universal, but it’s an issue that’s not being addressed. Nobody is solving it. 

What do you think the important thing for people to know about mentorship in the industry is?

Reach out to your network, whether you need to be mentored or have the capacity to mentor, reach out to people. If you know somebody who’s a junior ask them, ‘Hey, are you okay? Is everything okay? Do you need to speak to somebody?’ It almost seems like common sense and obvious, but it’s just a shame. It doesn’t actually happen.

Frustrations regarding the lack of diversity in the advertising industry aren’t new, as Digiday previously reported, though the topic has seen renewed attention after last summer’s civil rights protests. After these events, Six Cinquièm reported an uptick in business in which it grew its clientele by an estimated 30% YoY in 2020. Clients with more experience and bigger budgets were looking to work with Six Cinquièm, according to Phillips and LaFlaga.

But the two question whether the industry’s efforts are trite after seeing that uptick fall in the months that followed that unrest before ultimately creeping back up again in time for Black History Month.

“We do notice that it’s only during special events, like Black History Month, or only when something terrible happens that people will turn their eye towards us,” Phillips said.

Six Cinquièm was founded in 2018 and specializes in branding, creative direction and design services for startups, entrepreneurs and emerging artists. Currently, the agency has two full-time employees and works with five consistent clients. In the past, the agency has produced work for Montreal’s Museum of African Caribbean Art, Bulma Bar restaurant and artist Naya Ali.

In normal times, the agency saw an average of one or two inquiries for work per week. With the summer protests the shop saw increased interest inquiries for projects, collaborations and consultations. Now, during Black History Month, the agency is averaging two to three inquiries per week.

“When talk of diversity, racism and protests became more popular, it put more eyes on us as Black creatives,” LaFlaga said in an email.

In Montreal, where the creative agency is based, conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion had only just begun last year, according to Six Cinquièm. “Diversity, equity and inclusion is not a trend. It should be something that just goes without saying,” Phillips said. “Unconsciously, (non-POC) treat it like it’s a trend, when really people’s livelihoods are at stake.”

Since last summer, there has been louder calls for diversity and inclusivity initiatives. Currently, industry-wide organizations like 4A’s offer databases for Black creatives, fellowships and other resources. But according to LaFlaga, hiring Black talent is just the tip of the iceberg. Instead, the creative challenges more Black people in advertising to start their own shops and industry titans to collaborate and invest there.

“We have a world view by being exposed to Black folks from all different [backgrounds],” he said. “When we collaborate, they bring their cultural backgrounds into these conversations and it becomes a melting pot and I think that’s an advantage.”

Earlier this year, BIPOC nonprofit Hue released its inaugural State of Inequity Report citing, “more than 75% of BIPOC report a lack of meaningful progress towards building an equitable environment at their companies for employees of color.” The report also noted that, “nearly 80% of those surveyed reported a lack of financial investment in promoting racially diverse employees within their company.”

The scene isn’t much different here in America, said Bennett D. Bennett, a principal at Aerialist and co-founder of 600 & Rising, an advocacy group for Black talent in the ad world.

When the summer protests hit, U.S. agencies instantly reacted, embracing messages of Black Lives Matter and calls for justice. And to Bennett, it makes sense for action to die down for the holidays — not to mention a global pandemic and turbulent presidential election — only to pick back up in time for Black History Month.

“This is just the ebb and flow of where we are in the world,” he said. “Everything after February 28th is on the industry.”

As far as Bennett is concerned, the industry is past the point of the DE&I buzzword — after Black History Month comes Women’s History Month, Pride Month and more. Instead, marketers should keep in mind intersectionality and intention this year and beyond, he said.

And there’s a long history of Black-owned agencies, Bennett said, noting multicultural creative shops like Carol H. Williams and the now-defunct GlobalHue. The industry just needs to commit to investing in them, he said.

“[Black creatives] need to be legitimate partners. They’re embedded in their communities and know where to find Black talent,” he said.

For LaFlaga, there’s the hope that more Black agencies will populate the ad industry, creating collaborative opportunities and ultimately more man power.

“There’s more power to us by us owning our agencies because we’re more in control of our own narrative,” he said.

A number of different organizations have sprung up to try and restore trust in the news business, and this year could see the rise of another one: trust.txt.

WTF is trust.txt?

A machine-readable text file that news publishers add to their websites to signal their affiliations with other trusted news organizations.

Trust.txt is a technical specification run by a non-profit called JournalList, a kind of chamber of commerce that oversees the spec and guides its development. JournalList was founded by Scott Yates, a former journalist and serial founder based in Colorado.

Why would a publisher put one on their site?

The stated purpose of trust.txt is to distinguish legitimate news organizations from non-legitimate ones, in a way that’s optimized for a lot of the internet’s important automated processes, such as programmatic advertising and web crawling. While most media-literate people can distinguish between a real news publisher and a fake one with some scrutiny, the bots that crawl through web pages or the algorithms that decide what to surface in newsfeeds don’t take those steps.

Like ads.txt, a trust.txt page is easily accessible by human readers, but normally kept out of view.

Creating a machine-readable file that answers that question for them should make it easier to separate real from fake.

Does it cost any money?

No. Joining JournalList does, though.

Who’s going to care?

In theory, advertisers and platforms will, once it scales. To date, the standard is mostly used by local publishers; Yates did not share a top-line audience number.

Trust.txt’s founder, Scott Yates, has mostly been targeting independent publisher groups since last year, though the spec got a boost this week when Digital Content Next, a trade association whose members include BBC News, The New York Times and News Corp, endorsed it. Yates said he’s in active conversation with the Associated Press about ways to offer the spec to AP licensees.

What’s in it for them, though?

Historically, publishers including Facebook and Google have struggled to differentiate between established news organizations and purveyors of misinformation. The trust.txt file is designed to correct that by listing not only a website’s affiliations and ownership, but also which social channels and accounts it controls.

The presence (or absence) of a trust.txt file could help either limit the spread of content from non-trusted domains.  

But trust.txt is an open-source spec, right?

It is.

So what’s to stop bad actors from uploading trust.txt files to their sites to dupe advertisers and platforms?

Technically, nothing. The hope is that the files will elevate affiliations that organizations have to trusted groups, such as Digital Content Next, or the Institute for Nonprofit News; trust.txt files list organizations that a site owner is part of, but the format checks with the organizations listed to confirm the affiliation.

“The fact that [a news publisher] belongs to an association is a symbol of trust,” Yates said. “And right now that symbol is invisible to the online world.”