‘Only the beginning’: GroupM multicultural president Gonzalo del Fa on agency’s pledge to commit 2% of ad dollars to Black-owned media

By Kristina Monllos

GroupM is aiming to make its media buying and planning more responsible and purposeful. Earlier this year, the media agency rolled out its responsible investment framework with five pillars: brand safety, data ethics, diversity, equity and inclusion, responsible journalism and sustainability. Now, when it comes to DE&I, the agency has recently unveiled its new 2% plus pledge, which aims to get clients to spend at least 2% of their media dollars with Black-owned media brands.

Digiday caught up with Gonzalo del Fa, president of GroupM Multicultural, to get a better sense of how that pledge came to be and how much clients are currently spending with Black-owned media brands. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Tell us how you landed on a 2% goal for the pledge?

I want to be clear: We’re saying at least 2% and we’re starting with Black-owned media. That 2% plus should be [spent with] Black-owned media. This is only the beginning. We have a much longer road map ahead of us. We’re moving towards all diverse audiences. We said let’s start somewhere and we’re going to keep going, keep adding. We decided to go with 2% because we want to be realistic about what’s achievable. Based on all the estimates that we did, the 2% plus [pledge] is something we can actually effectively drive.

Give us a sense of the landscape now re: Black-owned media brands.

This is why the initiative is two-fold. One is the 2% plus pledge and the other is to increase the supply chain. One of the challenges we have with minority-owned media in general, but if we just speak about Black-owned media, is that there are not so many outlets out there that are actually Black-owned. We wanted to keep the balance between how much money we’re talking about when we say 2% on behalf of our clients, what that means from a pure media perspective — can we drive that 2% through what is out there?

So are you saying there’s not enough Black-owned media brands out there for a larger commitment to be achievable?

We could’ve said 5% but the reality is that it would be almost impossible if you really want to commit to this — we’re absolutely committed and we want to make this happen — if I threw 5% out there we would’ve had a hard time achieving that number. Not because we didn’t want to but because there’s not enough inventory in the market to drive through the money that we manage. We do have clients that are extremely committed and they are making massive efforts to go way beyond the 2%, but when you convert that into dollars there’s a problem with the supply chain. The second piece [of our initiative] is the Diverse Voices Accelerator [which will support diverse creators]. We truly believe we need to help the system get better. In order to get better, they need to have the funding for Black creators, Black producers, …read more

Source:: Digiday