13517: Kiss My Black App, JWT.

Adweek interviewed JWT NY CCO Brent Choi, who discussed the Black Lives Matter app that now lets Blacks mark themselves “unsafe” for being Black in America. The Adweek story claimed the special app function was “[t]imed to Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President Trump’s inauguration.” Hey, it should also automatically activate for anyone coming within a mile radius of former JWT Worldwide Chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez. Plus, add a GPS feature to identify White advertising agencies like JWT as unsafe places of employment for Blacks.

JWT Explains Its Black Lives Matter App That Lets Black Americans Mark Themselves ‘Unsafe’

CCO Brent Choi also picks his 3 favorite ads

By Tim Nudd

In a powerful twist on Facebook’s “Safety Check” feature, which lets users in a crisis area tell friends they’re safe, J. Walter Thompson and Black Lives Matter recently launched “Unsafety Check”—a web app that allows black people on social media to mark themselves unsafe for being black in America.

Timed to Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President Trump’s inauguration, it’s a clever and sobering way to raise awareness of the impact of race and racism on American society.

Brent Choi, chief creative officer of JWT New York and Canada, revealed some backstory about the app when he sat down with Adweek for a video interview in our ongoing “Best Ads Ever” series.

Check out the [video], in which Choi picks his three favorite ads ever (including a recent masterpiece from another JWT office)—and tells us about a certain pop star who’s been inspiring to him (and his 11-year-old daughter) lately.

13516: Dance, Daddy, Dance!

This Honey Nut Cheerios commercial is cloying and annoying. Cheerios has gone from Black dads to gay dads to douche dads to dancing dads. In the Cheerios bizarro universe, there are no moms or sons. Look for a pool-out starring Nelly and his daughter soon. And while General Mills appears to love seeing Black men in its advertising, the cereal maker doesn’t seem to love seeing Black men in its advertising agencies, despite the bullshit mandates for diversity.

13515: Adland ‘17 Is Exclusivity 101.

Campaign published a painfully long piece titled, “This is adland ‘17: Part one: Gender”—including a bizarre subhead proclaiming, “All the signs point to a more diverse industry in our second-ever survey – more agencies took part this year, while comparisons for those that also participated in the inaugural survey showed improvement.” In keeping with the current diverted diversity trend, the trade publication opted to begin the examination by focusing on White women. “Ethnicity” will apparently be covered next week. Sorry, but “all the signs point to a more diverse industry” is only true when adding White women to the diversity equation. Hell, the image accompanying the report (depicted above) even featured White male and female icons. Campaign is literally and figuratively whitewashing the issue.

13514: Stereotypical Diverted Diversity.

Campaign reported Unilever CEO Paul Polman and Chief Marketing Officer Keith Weed implored political and business leaders to embrace diverted diversity by fighting against stereotyping, as it ultimately hurts White women. It’s still unclear why Unilever feels qualified to lead the charge, as the advertiser has historically created the stereotypes now being condemned. Polman declared: “Empowering women and girls offers the single biggest opportunity for human development and economic growth. It goes without saying, it’s crucial for business. … The World Economic Forum’s latest Gender Gap Report notes that we may not achieve economic equality among men and women for another 170 years. That’s just not good enough. We need to lead the change in tackling unhelpful stereotypes that hold women—and men—back.” If it’s going to take 170 years for White men and White women to achieve economic equality, how long will minorities have to wait?

Unilever calls on leaders to drive fight against stereotyping

Unilever’s chief executive, Paul Polman, and chief marketing officer, Keith Weed, have called on political and business leaders to recognise the effect of stereotyping and take action to tackle it.

The FMCG giant unveiled, a study that surveyed more than 9,000 people in eight countries: Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Turkey, the UK and the US.

It found that gender stereotypes both remain highly pervasive, and have a significant impact on people’s lives.

Among the findings were that:

• 60% of women and 49% of men say that stereotypes personally impact their career, personal life, or both

• 77% of men and 55% of women believe that a man is the best choice to lead a high stakes project

• Two thirds (67%) of women feel they are “pressured” to simply “get over” inappropriate behavior

• The majority of both men (55%) and women (64%) believe that men do not challenge each other when they witness such behavior

• A large majority, 70%, of respondents believe the world would be a better place if children were not exposed to gender stereotypes in media and marketing

• 75% said it was the responsibility of senior leaders to take action

The research comes seven months after Unilever launched #Unstereotype, its ambition to completely eradicate gender stereotypes for its ads.

Weed said: “Stereotypes and social norms have a huge impact on gender equality issues globally. Whether consciously or unconsciously we are all subject to the biases in our mindsets.”

The survey sample was a mix of Unilever employees and members of the general public, and was split roughly equally between men and women. Polman and Weed unveiled the research at a panel discussion at the 2017 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Polman added: “Empowering women and girls offers the single biggest opportunity for human development and economic growth. It goes without saying, it’s crucial for business.

“The World Economic Forum’s latest Gender Gap Report notes that we may not achieve economic equality among men and women for another 170 years. That’s just not good enough. We need to lead the change in tackling unhelpful stereotypes that hold women — and men — back.”

13513: Johnnie Walker’s Political March.

Campaign reported on patronizing political pap for Johnnie Walker—created by White advertising agency Anomaly—that celebrates U.S. diversity with a contemporary spin on the classic tune “This Land is Your Land.” Based on the predominately White people section at Anomaly’s website, minorities should realize this adland is not your adland.

13512: Snowballing Diverted Diversity.

At Campaign, Cilla Snowball explained “How adland can crack gender equality in 2017”—which essentially means that diverted diversity will extend throughout the year as more White women are promoted in White advertising agencies. Snowball’s lengthy perspective isn’t worth re-posting, so here’s the condensed version:

Eliminate the gender pay divide; Unconscious-bias training for everyone; Know your diversity stats and set targets; Get more female creatives; Encourage women to say what they want; Encourage women to say what they don’t want; Get men to lead on equality; Balance shortlists, balance everything; Theworktheworkthework, and; Sponsor promising female leaders.

Heaven forbid a culturally clueless idiot like Snowball might replace the gender-based terms with racial and ethnic references to address true diversity. But given the current and historical attention paid to actual inclusiveness, the title of such an exposition would have to read, “How adland can crack racial and ethnic equality by 3017.”

13511: Bandwagons & Busses.

Advertising Age reported White advertising agencies are not only jumping on the White women bandwagon, they’re busing staffers to the women’s rights march in Washington, D.C. Why, WPP’s JWT New York is shuttling around 50 employees to the event—although it’s a safe bet Erin Johnson isn’t getting a free ride. And once again, minorities and true diversity are pushed to the back of the bus.

Ad Agencies Are Busing Staffers to Women’s Rights March in D.C.

By Lindsay Stein

A number of advertising agencies are supporting and organizing efforts around the global marches for women’s rights on Saturday, including several that are paying for transportation down to Washington, D.C.

The grassroots event, which started as the Women’s March on Washington, has vastly expanded, with more than 600 marches expected to take place worldwide one day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States, according to the Women’s March website. Marches are scheduled in cities across all 50 states and dozens of countries including Mexico, Canada, India, Iraq, Spain, Japan and the U.K.

Interpublic Group shop Huge is busing 50 staffers, men and women, to D.C. from New York on Friday ahead of the march, while also covering expenses for meals, Metro transportation and poster-making materials. Most of the team plans to sleep at Huge’s D.C. office, but a few will bunk with colleagues in the city.

As soon as Huge saw interest among staffers in New York to go to D.C. for the march, CMO Patricia Korth-McDonnell said the shop started thinking of ways to support them. When the numbers continued to swell, Huge decided to cover all transportation, food and lodging at the office, especially because Airbnb prices have been surging and all hotels are sold out.

“We definitely support people getting engaged in the community and we are an organization that celebrates activism and we are also really proud of the diversity of our team and of our gender mix across the board, including technology, design and leadership,” she added.

Similarly, WPP’s JWT New York is busing about 50 employees, nearly half of them men, to D.C. on Friday evening. The staffers plan to wear specially created matching T-shirts that say, “Keep It Coming #ShatterSomeGlass.” (All T-shirts were printed in extra-large sizes so the team can wear them over their coats in January D.C. weather.)

Leslie Ali, executive creative director at JWT, has been organizing the agency’s marching efforts “out of personal passion, as well as from just knowing from colleagues that there’s so many things people want to express and going to the march feels like doing something.”

“The agency just wants to see us go down there and support the things we love,” she added.

Among other agencies also participating, Publicis New York CEO Carla Serrano is taking two buses of employees to the march on Saturday. Badger & Winters is organizing march groups Saturday in New York and Washington under the banner of its #womennotobjects campaign. And Work & Co is sending two buses to D.C. from New York.

New York City-based Chandelier Creative is sending four employees from different departments—writing, social media, film and design—to participate in the D.C. march and represent the agency’s values. The team also plans to talk with people from all over the country during the march and share their stories and concerns.

Laundry Service has a number of people going to marches in various cities and is allowing them to take over the agency’s social channels throughout the event, said Jason Stein, CEO and founder of the agency. The shop is also posting in social media a video about empowering women that it created and it’s handing out “Future Is Female” T-shirts to staff, clients and friends, as it did on Women’s Equality Day last August.

“Our support is not a statement about our political beliefs,” Mr. Stein said. “It is a reflection of our continued commitment to gender quality, women’s rights and empowerment of female leadership.”

While Iris Worldwide has nothing formally planned around the marches, the agency provided all staffers with information about them and gave them the option to take off on Friday afternoon to travel to D.C.

Marie Davidheiser, the agency’s New York managing director, also sent a note to employees that said: “Participating in politics is our civic duty; it’s one of the ways we can continue to have a voice, protect our diversity and individual rights.”

A team from TBWA’s Backlash offering, which provides all 12,000 employees with daily cultural news and insights from around the globe via internal videos and Instagram, will attend the march in D.C. to capture footage for its next agency-wide post.

Agency executives said staffers hadn’t asked about attending the presidential inauguration.

13510: White-Bread Women.

Adweek reported two White women in advertising launched “Not This White Woman”—an anti-Trump clothing and products line.

“Normally, of course, we’d want to be inclusive of all races in any product that we make, but because these aren’t normal times—because right now racism and white supremacy are on the rise—and because white women played a key role in this election, speaking out as a white woman specifically here feels necessary,” explained the co-creators (Freelance Copywriter Michelle Hirschberg and Droga5 Group Creative Director Karen Land Short). Actually, for the advertising industry, these are very normal times, as racism and White supremacy are an established part of the norm. Land Short need only scan her own agency’s hallways to confirm the truth. Additionally, diverted diversity makes speaking out as a White woman quite common.

Unique? Not these White women.

Why 2 Agency Creatives Launched ‘Not This White Woman,’ an Anti-Trump Clothing Line

Proceeds benefit Planned Parenthood

By Erik Oster

If you were disappointed with how certain demographics voted in the 2016 presidential election, you’re not alone.

Freelance copywriter Michelle Hirschberg and Droga5 group creative director Karen Land Short found a way to channel their frustrations with fellow white female voters, who supported President-elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by a 53-43 margin last November and contributed to his surprise victory. The duo made clear that they were decidedly not part of that group with the launch of Not This White Woman, a clothing and merchandise line featuring the slogan. Smaller font below reads, “#StillWithHer.”

“Normally, of course, we’d want to be inclusive of all races in any product that we make, but because these aren’t normal times—because right now racism and white supremacy are on the rise—and because white women played a key role in this election, speaking out as a white woman specifically here feels necessary,” said Hirschberg and Land Short.

All profits from the sale of Not This White Woman merchandise will be donated to Planned Parenthood, which has seen a spike in fundraising since election night. In addition to various t-shirts, Not This White Woman also sells sweaters, buttons and mugs. So far the “boyfriend tee” has been their best seller.

Hirschberg and Short considered other nonprofits such as the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center, but ultimately decided on Planned Parenthood because they guessed that the incoming Congress would attempt to defund the organization. Last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan promised to introduce related legislation as part of an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

“A t-shirt is, of course, a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things,” Hirschberg and Land Short tell Adweek, “so we’re also staying vigilant and active in dozens of other ways. We hope others are too.”

The project’s genesis can be traced back to Hirschberg writing the phrase on a sticky note she left on the Subway Therapy Wall in Union Square Station in Manhattan. After commiserating about the outcome of the election, the two creatives decided to create a t-shirt featuring the phrase.

Hirschberg and Short explained, “Obviously this election was different from the others. It went so far beyond policy. Trump labeled people. Mexicans were rapists. Muslims were terrorists. Women were objects.”

“After the stat came out that 53 percent of white women voted for Trump, it seemed like there was one more label. White women were Trump voters. We were part of the problem. We were okay with racism. Okay with sexism,” they added. “Whether those white women voted in spite of Trump’s divisive rhetoric or not, it felt important to stand up for inclusiveness in any way we could. And we will continue to find ways to do that.”

In speaking to others who remain wary about the Trump administration, they said, “If we have any advice for those also struggling, it’s to keep moving. Keep trying things. And to breathe.”

13509: Chicken & Rice.

A MultiCultClassics visitor pointed to a Yahoo! News story showing this blog isn’t the only one criticizing the Annie the Chicken Queen and Jerry Rice buffoonery for Popeyes.