Why Dentsu Creative’s DE&I lead says focusing solely on numbers won’t solve advertising’s diversity problem
By Kimeko McCoy
Over the last two years, calls for diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the advertising industry have seemingly gone from a fever pitch to a dull roar. In response to the height of the Black Lives Matter movement and the push for social justice, advertising agencies prioritized hiring diverse talent, and hiring DE&I leads to hold themselves accountable. Many made pledges and promises to report those talent numbers annually. But, according to one DE&I lead, diversity statistics alone aren’t enough.
“Where we left off in 2020, the major conversation was about data,” said Kai Deveraux Lawson, svp of diversity, equity and inclusion for Dentsu Creative in the Americas. “However, the challenge with only focusing on data is that it doesn’t tell the full story of what inclusion and equity actually looks like within an organization.”
Last April, Deveraux joined Dentsu Creative as the agency’s first diversity lead, reporting directly to Dentsu Creative CEO Jon Dupuis and Dentsu Americas chief equity officer Christena Pyle. In her new role, Deveraux said she’s pushing for a new narrative around DE&I within the ad industry — one that looks to leverage both qualitative and quantitative information. For example, just one month after joining, Deveraux helped launch Dentsu’s creative review council, which aims to add a facet of quality control to the agency’s work, ensuring that it’s culturally relevant, accurate and authentic.
Digiday caught up with Deveraux to talk about her work at Dentsu Creative, what qualitative measurement looks like and why conversations about diversity need more nuance.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
When you say agency DE&I statistics don’t tell the full story, what do you mean by that?
When we talk about representation, we’re oftentimes ignoring the fact that not everybody wants to self-identify, wants to candidly out themselves. Whether it be because they identify as having a disability, within a particular racial or ethnic community or want to identify their LGBTQ community identity. A lot of the time, the numbers we are able to share within organizations aren’t necessarily accurate, indicative of whether or not someone actually wants to talk about who they are.
So there’s a lack of nuance in reporting? Why do you think that is?
Because it is so complex. The reality is DE&I is not the catch-all for friendliness in the workplace. DE&I has a lot to do with our behaviors, personal experiences, trauma and how we perceive personal experiences. It’s so complex that it requires a lot of thought, studying [and] patience. I don’t think a lot of people make time, have time or emotional capacity to sit with the heaviness of what all of this means. That translates to what’s the easiest headline, and the headline is everybody was mad in 2020 about numbers. So, we’re only going to report about DE&I numbers.
What are some of the things you’ve done at Dentsu Creative to help change the narrative around DE&I?
One of the first things that we started doing internally was we launched our internal creative …read more
Source:: Digiday
Author: Aaron
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