One student at a time

You'll hear a lot of things about the issue of diversity in Advertising. That the industry doesn't do enough, that diversity efforts are merely a box for agencies to check, that efforts to increase diversity are too little, too late. Read this article on Ad Age.com for more background on the latest issues facing the advertising industry regarding diversity (or lack thereof).

The film I worked on this summer, "Pursuit of Passion: Diversity in Advertising" went live online today. And I will be the first to admit it won't change diversity in industry. It won't all of sudden make agencies hire and promote more multi-cultural candidates. It won't make it easier for lower income ethnic students to access schools and programs to get them into this industry. This film doesn't claim it will do any of this.

Here's what this film will do: this film will encourage students to consider advertising as a career; this film will give students a perspective on advertising they haven't seen before, one that is honest and frankly, exciting; this film will allow multi-cultural students to see that there are successful, intelligent and pretty fun people just like them, making their way in this business; this film will ignite passion in students who are often too young to recognize their own creativity; and this film will give students a tiny bit of direction in their lives where they may have been none.

That's it. The film doesn't claim to be the be-all, end-all to this issue. But it will claim to be a concerted effort toward making a bigger change in our industry, starting one high school student at a time.