MultiCultClassics

7219: Boschetto Bashings.

2009-11-03T16:41:00.003-06:00

Via The Big Tent, Draftfcb President-CEO Laurence Boschetto presented a perspective on minority vendors, likely reiterating points he made at The New Dynamics of Diversity event during Advertising Week. Hadji Williams, Harry Webber and Sanford Moore offered a few ~~bashings~~ rebuttals.

7218: Hockey Homophobia.

2009-11-03T16:39:00.002-06:00

From USA TODAY…

It’s time to end the use of gay slurs in hockey

By Justin Bourne, Special for USA TODAY

In my days as a hockey player, I did nothing but contribute to hockey’s culture of homophobia and prejudice against gays. I used gay slurs more times than I’d like to admit. Six months after I left my last professional locker room, I felt a twinge of regret, followed by a full-out, stomach punch of regret. And by the time I finished the first draft of this column, I was disgusted with myself.

At the time, it seemed harmless. After all — when you think about the NHL, AHL, ECHL and more, can you call to memory a single open homosexual among them? There was nobody in my team’s dressing room to offend, right?

The lack of a homosexual presence in hockey must mean one of two things: either homosexual men don’t play the game or they don’t feel comfortable admitting it — in which case I, and my brethren, were offending some teammates with our close-mindedness, and furthering what must have been unsettled feelings of fear and general exclusion.

For us as a culture, that means another two things. That either we need scientists doing research on professional hockey players ASAP, because apparently there’s a link between our sport and sexuality. Or, much more realistically, we need to alter the culture of hockey, because homosexuals are being forced to play entire careers masquerading as people they’re not.

As many times as I used these slurs, I heard it back tenfold. As well as I fit in behind the doors of a dressing room, I had pursuits that made me seem different. I kept a journal while I played. I’m into piano music and reading. In the hockey world, that’s your basic formula for eliciting more comments about sexual orientation than acting in “Rent.” It’s always the first shot fired.

Hockey culture is something I’ve known and loved, but I’m not oblivious to the disconnect between how players and coaches act behind that dressing room door and how society expects them to act in public. Since we have to change something about how we act and what we say when we leave the team room, we’re probably acting improperly in the first place. And during my playing days, I was aware that was the case.

There hasn’t been progress on this issue for years. When I ran the idea for this column by my uncle, a sportswriter and editor, he mentioned a piece he wrote 20 years ago after the general manager of a major junior hockey team in Canada said something like: “We don’t have any weak-wristed players in this locker room.”

Twenty years later, this attitude has yet to be shucked from hockey. We can’t wait another two decades ignoring the small but consistent strides of progress that the world outside sport is making.

We need to make a change now, because kids who move away from home to play junior hockey at 16 or 17 are still impressionable. If they don’t encounter a good role model, the seeds are sown for a person, who after trying to fit in, thinks it’s OK to drink, treat women a certain way and use homosexuality as a punchline.

I recently read a quote in the “Verbatim” section of Time from Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, encouraging African-Americans to support gay marriage. He said “black people, of all people, should not oppose equality.” But really, shouldn’t all of us have learned from the horrible mistakes of our past, not just African-Americans? There’s not a single good reason for any of us to continue to support inequality in any shape or form. We’ll look back at this time in our history and hang our heads for allowing this prejudice to continue.

Policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are the kinds of things that when our kids grow up, they’ll look at us and say “dudes couldn’t fight for their country because they kissed dudes? Wait; explain that again, I’m lost. They were fighting for their country, right?”

The goal is to get to a place where our differences aren’t so much as a blip on anyone’s radar. By the time we have our sixth black President, let’s hope it’s not a story anymore — he’s just the President.

And maybe the first openly gay NHL star will elicit stereotypical responses but hopefully the 100th is just a guy who will show up in my columns for being “a completely overrated, third-line defensive specialist at best.”

It will be hard to survive the dressing room for the first players to come out. That’s a fact. Very few things are off-limits for jokes and barbs. This is a place where “Right, but your girlfriend has cheated on you like, six times” is a witty comeback.

On the ice, the first gay professionals will likely take some verbal shots. Trash-talking is part of the game and we all look for the easy target. The stuff I used to hear was harmless: I was called “skinny” and “soft” and worse (but not much).

Whoever the pioneer is will have to know what he’s in for — he’ll have to be a strong man, possibly in the literal sense.

We’ve somehow made something totally irrelevant to hockey performance – sexual preference — such an issue that every gay player has been forced to conclude that their private life is something best hidden.

Hey, hockey players: not knowing doesn’t change the reality that there are gay men in the professional ranks today.

And maybe it’s not many, because we’ve driven so many away; players who didn’t want to be teased, shunned, and worse, a target for on-ice violence. Who knows how many great players hung up their skates in favor of some lesser talent, strictly to find acceptance and peace of mind.

So it’s time.

It’s time to acknowledge we’ve been unfair to the gay community, that the culture of our sport can be misogynistic, homophobic and cruel. More important, it’s time to make a stand that we want it to change.

I know I can’t take back the words I said during my time as a hockey player, but this is a start. I think if you asked any minority group that has won the rights and freedoms that all people deserve, they’d agree on one thing about change — it’s better late than never.

7217: All The Pennies In China…

2009-11-02T21:55:00.000-06:00

Call China now for just pennies? Um, there are lots of dollars worth of pennies here.

7216: Prime Talent Wanted.

2009-11-02T07:22:00.003-06:00

Prime BurgerHouse will apparently be checking all candidates’ buns.

7215: i-D P.Y.T. Issue.

2009-11-01T20:32:00.002-06:00

From i-D Magazine Pre-Fall 2009.

7214: White Power To The People.

2009-11-01T20:13:00.002-06:00

Advertising Age presented Power Players 2009. With a few exceptions, it looks like White Power.

7213: A Woman’s Nation.

2009-11-01T09:33:00.002-06:00

From The Los Angeles Times…

A woman’s nation: tears and empowerment
Women still want to change the world, on their own terms.

By Cathleen Decker

The state Women’s Conference, when it began almost two decades ago, was all about women changing the world. The speakers tended toward the practical. The frills were nonexistent.

Under the direction of First Lady Maria Shriver, last week’s conference was a two-day extravaganza, a Technicolor version of the event of old. Much of the focus was “The Shriver Report,” a collaboration between Shriver and a Washington think-tank, which declared two weeks ago that we have become “a woman’s nation.”

But the heart of the conference occurred at lunch on Day 2, when Shriver, her voice breaking, for the first time publicly reflected on her mother’s recent death. Her words brought thousands to tears in a silent arena.

It was hard to imagine the same personal scene at a conference of men. But that was part of the point, for the theme of the conference might well have been: We still want to change the world. We just want to do it on our terms.

The phrase “a woman’s nation” reflects potential as much as reality. As the report indicated, half the paid workers in the nation are women, and they are the primary breadwinners in four of 10 families. Most Americans, men and women, say that having women in the workforce is a positive.

But the rise in women’s economic heft has come about in part because the national recession disproportionately has hit male-oriented jobs in areas like home construction and finance. Women still earn substantially less than men and remain underrepresented relative to their share of the population in such jobs as law firm partners and chief executives, two traditional measurements of success.

In her report, Shriver declared the battle of the sexes to be over, replaced by negotiation. Translation: In all the difficult decisions of daily life, the things that get us from here to there, much still needs to be worked out.

That rang true to Barbara O’Connor, who attended the conference. O’Connor, a communications professor at Cal State Sacramento, has spent years counseling young women who want power on their own terms, who want a career and a family.

”I think we need a new definition of the women’s movement, and it has to include men,” O’Connor said. Her students, she said, look at her generation and shake their heads. “They all look at the women and what they have given up. There needs to be a discussion of how to do it differently.”

Differently, that is, than the 63-year-old O’Connor. She never married and never had children, “and I’ve struggled with that guilt all my life,” she said. “I think a lot of women are saying, ‘I played by the rules and have outward indices of success—and where has it gotten me?’ “

For her generation, of course, there was far more pressure to choose one over the other—usually home over career.

And there was less societal assistance if you went the other way. Even now, despite improvements, day care, flex time and other assistance are hard to come by.

Part of the reason is that women are no political monolith. Past decades have seen friction between working women and stay-at-home women, each nursing perceived slights and working against a unified insistence on things that could help both groups.(More than one speaker at the conference called for that to end, to much applause.)

Although women are the biggest voting bloc in California, they hold a small proportion of elective seats, in part because when push comes to shove, most women vote for ideology over gender.

That may be tested anew this year in the state’s two biggest races, for governor and U.S. Senate.

Former EBay chief executive Meg Whitman is running for the Republican nomination for governor, and so far is getting the same support from women as men. The same is true for potential Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, a former head of Hewlett Packard.

In neither case is there a gender gap in polls of potential primary voters.

Some political analysts surmise that the lack of a gap is because the pressure is off: There are now enough women in high-ranking positions that it is harder to invoke the passions that led to firsts, like election nationwide of several women senators in 1992 or Hillary Clinton’s close second in last year’s presidential contest.

For Kathy Hunn of Antelope Valley, who also attended the conference, politics is only one measure of success. Though happy to see women on the ballot, she said, “I won’t vote for a woman just because she’s a woman.”

Hunn, a high school counselor, was among the people at the conference for whom the old icons of success—the corner office or big salary—don’t matter.

She has attended for five years, and, inspired by what others were doing, found herself nursing a notion to create a reading program for homeless children. She called a nearby shelter and now operates a volunteer program in which she collects books, reads to kids and gives them the books to keep.

”I saw the need coming, and I got it going,” she said. “If I hadn’t been coming here, the idea would have been unformed.”

7212: Black Cats Face Discrimination.

2009-10-31T09:01:00.001-05:00

From The New York Daily News…

Ancient false myths leave bewitching black cats shunned by some

BY Amy Sacks
Daily News Writer

Halloween this year has gone to the dogs, with pooches dressed as witches, hot dogs — even the Pope — competing for prizes in contests around the city.

Meanwhile, black cats still get a bad rap. For centuries, sleek black felines in Western cultures have been associated with witches and demons, and have been thought to bring bad luck to those who cross their paths.

“The superstition that black cats bring bad luck is true — only if you’re a black cat!” said Dr. Robin Brennan, a veterinarian at Bideawee, which is teeming with cats and kittens for adoption.

Sadly, the stigma causes people to shun them, leaving many black cats without adopters.

In addition, it has long been believed that shelters shouldn’t adopt out black cats around Halloween, so they can avoid being used for satanic rituals or other abuse.

But local shelter workers say the myth is just that - a myth that was debunked long ago by data and scientific studies that show black cats are not at risk during this time.

The ASPCA’s Humane Law Enforcement department has not encountered an increase in abuse of black cats around Halloween, said Gail Buchwald, who heads adoptions for the ASPCA, where 36 black cats are available for adoption, along with many other kittens and cats of all stripes.

“The Halloween myth is not” true she said. In fact, when shelters refrain from rehoming these cats around Halloween, it creates a pileup of black cats in their shelters, which further hurts the cats’ chances of finding homes quickly.

Black cats — and dogs, too — are often overlooked because they are too plain or ordinary for some people’s tastes. The stigma means these animals tend to stay in the shelters the longest.

Still, adoptions are done on a case-by-case basis, and some shelters and rescue groups may be more vigilant around Halloween.

At the Animal Care & Control shelters, 39 black cats are among the hundreds of cats and kittens in the shelter.

Greek mythology taught that a woman named Galenthias was turned into a cat and became a priestess at the temple of Hecate, the “Dark Mother,” and is sometimes called the mother of witchcraft. During the 12th and 13th centuries, accused witches in Europe were often found with their “familiars,” usually black cats, and were said to turn themselves into cats at times. During the witch-burning era of the 17th century, accused witches’ cats were put into baskets and burned alongside them.

In many European countries and in the U.S., black cats signify bad luck, while in England, Australia and Japan, black cats are considered lucky.

Helene Zinszner says there is nothing ominous about her affectionate black kitty Monkey Girl, despite the stigma attached to black cats in her native France.

“Everyone loves her,” said Zinszner, an AIDS researcher at NYU, who adopted Monkey Girl when she was a young kitten found in a Staten Island backyard. “She sleeps with me, purrs every time I touch her or even talk to her with intent, and follows me everywhere in the house .”

Still, because there are some evil-doers, cats can fall victim to pranks and in some cases cruelty during this season.

To be on the safe side, animal experts say it’s best to keep cats indoors. Apartment dwellers might want to keep the cat and dog in a separate room so the animals don’t run out when trick-or-treaters come knocking at the door.

Shelters are teeming with cats awaiting new homes. To adopt a cat, go to Petfinder.com or contact your local shelter or rescue group.

For a complete listing of pet-related Halloween events this weekend, go to www.newyorktails.com.

7211: Enforcing Discrimination Laws.

2009-10-31T08:59:00.001-05:00

From The Los Angeles Times…

Top civil rights attorney promises increased enforcement of discrimination laws

U.S. Assistant Atty. Gen. Thomas Perez ushers in an era of ‘transformation and restoration’ with pledges to fight housing bias, hate crimes and predatory lending, among other things.

By Teresa Watanabe

The nation’s top civil rights attorney vowed Friday to step up enforcement of laws against housing bias, hate crimes, racially targeted predatory lending and other discriminatory acts in what he called a new era of “transformation and restoration.”

Thomas Perez, U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights, also said during a keynote address to an Asian Pacific American civil rights conference in Los Angeles that he would “depoliticize decision-making” and work to restore trust between career attorneys and political appointees in the Justice Department.

Perez said attempts to replace career civil rights lawyers with conservative Republicans, as documented in a U.S. inspector general’s report this year, was the “most problematic” of the Bush administration’s policies on civil rights. Between 2003 and 2007, he said, 70% of lawyers left the department’s civil rights division.

But that era, Perez said, is over.

“The civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice is open for business,” he said to applause and cheers from hundreds of participants at the conference, sponsored by four leading Asian Pacific American organizations.

Perez lauded the Bush administration’s work on ensuring voter access to bilingual ballots, combating religious discrimination and cracking down on human trafficking.

But he said that too few cases were filed to challenge alleged discrimination in other areas, such as voting practices, voter registration procedures and what he called “toxic predatory lending” targeted at minority consumers.

Such lending, he said, helped exacerbate the foreclosure crisis as the federal government failed to use fair housing and equal credit laws to attack the practices.

In contrast, Perez said, the Obama administration planned to use all legal tools available to enforce all civil rights laws.

“There are no buffet lines. … We are not here to pick and choose which laws to enforce,” he said. “We’re going to enforce all of the laws.”

Perez said the Obama administration’s renewed emphasis on civil rights enforcement was reflected in a 20% proposed budget increase that would allow his office to add more than 100 new staff members. At present, more than 300 lawyers in the division enforce laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion and national origin. Lawyers also oversee voting-rights cases, which are likely to increase after next year’s census and the resulting redistricting.

Perez, a 48-year-old Dominican American sworn into office two weeks ago, worked for 12 years as a civil rights attorney under both Republican and Democratic administrations. He most recently served as Maryland’s labor secretary.

His address highlighted a two-day conference featuring workshops on labor, immigration, education, health and other issues. It was organized by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Los Angeles, the Asian American Institute of Chicago, the Asian American Justice Center of Washington, D.C., and the Asian Law Caucus of San Francisco.

7210: WTF USF.

2009-10-30T21:53:00.002-05:00

What the hell is an Internet Marketing Certificate? It’s probably a downloadable pdf you can print and tack to your wall.

7209: Adversity Meets Adversity.

2009-10-30T20:49:00.005-05:00

For a first anniversary, the traditional gift is paper and the modern gift is a clock. Julius Dunn and his Adversity program received both, as The One Club handed him a pink slip and announced his time was up.

An official insisted the program is not going away; rather, the partnership between The One Club and Adversity has ended for financial reasons. Apparently, any long-term commitment plan was written with a Gold Pencil. The One Club website has erased all evidence of Adversity, replacing it with the following:

The One Club is extending its outreach to provide college students and young professionals of diverse backgrounds an opportunity to learn first hand about the creative side of advertising, new media and design. Through workshops, presentations and exhibitions, The One Club is working to diversify the advertising industry.

First, The One Club should hire an award-winning proofreader, as firsthand is a single word. Second, how does The One Club intend to extend its outreach efforts while cutting its lead diversity initiative? Guess you need to be a Gold Pencil winner to figure out a creative answer. Third, “The One Club is working to diversify the advertising industry,” sounds remarkably like, “O.J. Simpson is hunting for Nicole’s killer.” There’s a certain insincerity here, especially given that the award organization’s historical lack of interest in minorities might warrant a name change to The One Old Boys Club. And Adversity could be renamed The One-Year Club.

What’s the most unfortunate part of this affair? The only source to bother reporting on Adversity’s demise was the ever-useless Agency Spy blog. That’s the equivalent of having your obituary run in a high school newspaper.

Anyway, good luck to Julius Dunn and the other staffers who lost their jobs. Welcome to the advertising industry.

7208: Keeping Abreast Of The News.

2009-10-30T12:46:00.002-05:00

Busting out the news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Two Hooters waitresses in Brooklyn, New York filed a class-action lawsuit against the restaurant chain, charging they were forced to pay about $20 for their uniforms. The law in New York states that employers must provide workers with uniforms unless folks are permitted to wear regular street clothes. Streetwalker clothes would be welcome by most Hooters patrons too.

• Construction has been approved to begin working on the National Mall’s Martin Luther King Jr. memorial—about 11 years after originally approving the proposal. Wonder if the approval committee is also heading diversity efforts on Madison Avenue.

• Anti-Semitic attitudes are at an all-time low in the United States, according to a new Anti-Defamation League survey. The results showed only 12 percent of Americans are prejudiced against Jews. It would be interesting to see the survey questions that led to these numbers.

7207: Adopting New Ideas.

2009-10-30T12:03:00.002-05:00

From Target Market News. It seems peculiar that this assignment would be handled by a White advertising agency. On the other hand, minority shops have been known to avoid Ad Council projects, as the not-for-profit efforts can literally be without profit—and ultimately costly.

Ad Council, U.S. government launch campaign promoting adoption of black children

The Advertising Council, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Children's Bureau and AdoptUsKids, announced today the launch of a campaign designed to encourage the adoption of African American children from foster care.

According to the Administration for Children and Families, there are currently 496,000 children in the foster care system and, of these, 130,000 are available for adoption. Thirty-one percent of the children in foster care waiting to be adopted are African American; African American children are overrepresented in the foster care population relative to their percentage in the U.S. general population.

“We are optimistic that this campaign will result in a significant increase in inquiries to AdoptUsKids by families who are interested in adoption, specifically the adoption of older African American children and youth in foster care in the United States,” said Kathy Ledesma, Project Director, AdoptUsKids. Created pro bono by kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners, the new multimedia campaign which includes television, radio, and print PSAs, is designed to help prospective parents realize that “You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.” It also aims to significantly increase awareness of the need to provide loving, permanent families for children in the foster care system.

The new PSAs illustrate to potential parents that children in foster care don’t need perfection, they need the commitment and love a “forever family” can provide. The PSAs direct audiences to visit www.adoptuskids.org, or call 1-888-200-4005 for more information on the adoption process.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with the Children’s Bureau and AdoptUsKids on this humorous and heartwarming campaign that has inspired thousands of Americans to consider adopting a child from foster care,” according to Peggy Conlon, President & CEO of The Advertising Council. “I am confident that these new PSAs will help increase the adoption of African American children.”

The new PSAs are an extension of the previously successful campaign, launched in 2004, which focused on the adoption of children from foster care. The need for adoptive homes for older children, sibling groups, and children of color is especially great and the campaign has therefore targeted prospective homes for those populations. In the first 18 months following the launch, calls to the AdoptUsKids toll-free number increased by 236%. Additionally, more than 11,000 children whose pictures and biographies were featured on the AdoptUsKids website have been placed with a “forever family.”

“The insight that you don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent is a great platform that continues to allow us to create both meaningful and entertaining work across all channels. The campaign is a classic for the agency yet we continue to evolve and find fresh ways to inspire prospective parents to take action,” said Izzy DeBellis, Managing Partner and Network Creative Director, kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners.

The new television, radio, print and Web banner PSAs are being distributed to more than 33,000 media outlets nationwide this week. Per the Ad Council model, the PSAs will run and air in advertising time and space that is donated by the media.

The Administration for Children and Families/Children's Bureau Within HHS, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is the agency that is responsible for Federal programs that promote the economic and social well-being of families, children, individuals, and communities. The Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) administers national programs for children and youth; works with States, Tribes, and local communities to develop services that support and strengthen family life; seeks joint ventures with the private sector to enhance the lives of children and their families; and provides information and other assistance to parents.

Many of the programs administered by ACYF focus on children from low-income families; abused and neglected children; children and youth in need of foster care, independent living, adoption or other child welfare services; preschool children; children with disabilities; runaway and homeless youth; and children from Native American and migrant families.

Within ACYF, the Children's Bureau (CB) plans, manages, coordinates, and supports child abuse and neglect prevention and child welfare services programs. CB is the agency within the Federal Government that is responsible for assisting child welfare systems by promoting continuous improvement in the delivery of child welfare services. CB programs are designed to promote the safety, permanency, and well-being of all children, including those in foster care, available for adoption, recently adopted, abused, neglected, dependent, disabled, or homeless, and to prevent the neglect, abuse, and exploitation of children.

AdoptUsKids is a multi-faceted, federally funded project whose mission is to recruit and connect foster and adoptive families with waiting children throughout the United States. The project is managed through a cooperative agreement with the Children's Bureau of the Administration of Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services.

kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners is a leading integrated creative advertising and marketing services organization with $700 million in billings and 300 employees located in New York. Our dedication is to provide High Value Creativity that drives financial performance for our clients. The members of the kirshenbaum bond senecal+ partners group include kirshenbaum bond senecal advertising, Company C, Dotglu, LIME public relations + promotion, The Media Kitchen, Open Mind Strategy, and Varick Media Management. The Clients of the Group include BMW, Berkshire Hathaway/NetJets, Cablevision, Diageo, Delta, HomeGoods, Kao Brands Company (Jergens, Biore, Ban, John Frieda, Curel), Mohegan Sun, Panasonic, Starz Entertainment and Weight Watchers among others.

The Ad Council (www.adcouncil.org) is a private, non-profit organization that marshals volunteer talent from the advertising and communications industries, the facilities of the media, and the resources of the business and non-profit communities to deliver critical messages to the American public. The Ad Council has produced, distributed and promoted thousands of public service campaigns on behalf of non-profit organizations and government agencies in issue areas of health & safety, community and education.

7206: King Is Crowned.

2009-10-30T11:57:00.002-05:00

From CNN…

Bernice King elected president of SCLC

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) — Bernice King, the youngest child of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., has been elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a spokeswoman for the group said Friday.

King, 46, was elected as the SCLC’s first female president, said Renee Richardson.

King’s father was SCLC’s first president. The organization was founded in 1957.

The other finalist for the post was former Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen, 57, who lost his recent bid for re-election.

Griffen, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, is also pastor of New Millennium Church in Little Rock.

King is a minister at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia. She also is a motivational speaker and author.

“It is a destiny call,” she told the Atlanta Journal Constitution last week. “It is part of my father and mother’s legacy and a continuation of the legacy he started in the ‘50s and ‘60s through this organization. I believe that the hand of God is leading me.”

Her brother, Martin Luther King III, was president of SCLC from 1997 to 2004. They and sibling Dexter King were locked in a bitter legal battle over their parents’ estates until late September, when a judge ordered them to begin negotiations. The three were able to reach a settlement.

King succeeds the Rev. Byron Clay, who has been interim president since the Rev. Charles Steele Jr. resigned earlier this year.

CNN’s Debra Krajnak and Maria White contributed to this report.

7205: Blacklisted Is Not Beautiful.

2009-10-29T22:47:00.002-05:00

By Harry Webber at MadisonAveNew…

ISSUE 269: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

I had really fucked up this time. I think the first time I realized it was when the plane began its descent into the San Juan TCA and more than a few Puerto Rican ladies actually dropped to the cabin floor on their hands and knees and kissed off a hasty prayer. I had convinced the President of Compton Advertising, Milt Gossett, to give me a job in their San Juan affiliate to get me out of hot water with the head of Young & Rubicam, Edward L. Bond. It was Mr. Bond who had assured me one night while I was working on yet another all-nighter, “Young man, consider your advertising career to now be null and void,” and then walked away without ever looking back. Not my job, but my entire advertising career. If there was ever a Madison Avenue "black list," the name Harry Webber was now indelibly inscribed in blood.

Ed Bond was pissed. The day after our cryptic encounter, he had fired off a staff memo stating that henceforth and forever no employee would be allowed to talk to the press without the express permission of Mark Stroock, head of Corporate Affairs. My offense? I had been the first person to go public about Madison Avenue’s dirty little secret. In matters of equal opportunity for all, the advertising industry had seceded from the Union. Madison Avenue did not consider itself part of America when it came to liberty and justice for all. Only whites need apply.

Since I was only the second or third black person to be hired by a Madison Avenue advertising agency, I was certainly the last person anybody would expect to speak out. But this was 1969 and blacks were being beaten, bitten and bloodied in the streets of America. So when civil rights advocate and attorney Flo Henderson showed up with picket signs to protest a Clio Award for the Wells, Rich, Green campaign, “This is What Love is Like” for Love cosmetics, it drew a crowd. And since the Clios were being held at the New York Hilton across the street from the corporate offices of the CBS and ABC Television Networks, the press showed up. And they were greeted by posters that said “This is what Wells, Rich, Greene is Like,” showing a picture of a black uniformed man servant (one of six) hired by the agency to wait on the all-white staff of the prestigious advertising agency owned by the flamboyant Mary Wells Lawrence. At issue was the fact that WRG put them down as black professionals in their government mandated headcount. Oops.

Mrs. Wells-Lawrence was the wife of Braniff Airlines Chairman Harding Lawrence and a legitimate member of the Paris, New York and Dallas jet set. She lived in a series of amazing residences around the world including a castle in the South of France and an amazing hidden and totally soundproof “villa” behind the Braniff ticket counter at the Dallas airport. Black servants were a way of life for Mary Wells Lawrence. But not for the black folks who were being routinely turned away from the advertising industry. Those folk were offended that such behavior was being not just accepted, but being awarded by the advertising industry.

Just one month prior to this demonstration, I had been voted in as the new President of the Group for Advertising Progress (GAP), an advocacy group for promoting equal opportunity for minorities within the advertising industry. The government was demanding that advertising end its apartheid and several agencies with large government contracts had started training programs to raise their minority headcount. So as fate would have it, I was pointed out, while waiting to get in to the awards show, to the chairman of the Clios. The chairman swept me out of the line with a nervous request to address the assembled black tie, all-white assembly of the most powerful people in advertising. He figured I would be a better choice than the fiery Flo Kennedy who was already blasting Madison Avenue on the 6 o’clock News and was demanding to be allowed to address the attendees. So, against my better judgment I got up and spoke.

I spoke of the Booth Commission’s findings about employment practices and bias in the advertising industry. I mentioned that what was going on outside their awards show was much like what had gone on for Italian art directors and Jewish copywriters a decade earlier. That’s when the boos started, from the Italian art directors and Jewish copywriters who were highly offended that I would lump them in with Flo’s chanting masses that were now stopping rush hour traffic on Avenue of the Americas.

I went on but nobody heard. Nobody but the guy from Advertising Age. He got down every word. Along with my name and my agency affiliation. The whole sordid affair was published on page two the next day. Of course what I didn’t know was that along with the top brass of the ad business, the top brass bed of their clients’ businesses were also in attendance. And when they got wind of what was happening, they beat a hasty retreat for the rear door. The head marketing guy from Coke or Pepsi was not about to photographed by the press wading through a picket line of angry black folk from Bedford Stuy.

Later I was told that was exactly what happened at the Y&R table that night. Y&R had made itself famous by entreating New Yorkers to “Give Jobs, Give Money, Give a Damn,” for the Urban Coalition, a group of the Fortune 100 who were headquartered in New York City. This was a PR disaster in the making for the agency.

So that’s what got Edward L. Bond, Jr’s tights in a bunch 24 hours later. Mr. Bond was on a take-no-prisoners, burn-and-churn empire-building campaign for Y&R. It was not in his playbook to have his agency linked to such scandalous behavior from one of his company’s lowest of the low. I could certainly say whatever I wanted to say as Harry Webber, President of the Group for Advertising Progress. But as Harry Webber, Young & Rubicam, I should have known better and limited himself to “No comment.” I was out.

Being “out” is far worse than being fired. You know, all too well, when you are fired. When you are “out” it takes a little more time for your situation to make itself apparent. Right after Mr. Bond fired off his corporate gag order, I became persona non grata at the agency. My work assignments dried up, I was moved to an office at the end of a long dark hallway where nobody could possibly be infected by whatever had come over me. I was in Siberia.

The worst way you can punish a creative guy is to cut off his ability to do his work. People who make their living harvesting other people’s ideas know this all too well. And they use it to great effect. They use the pain of no work and the pleasure of great work to keep us rowdy “creatives” in line. I had seen this done to monstrous effect when I worked at Motown Records in Detroit, before coming to Y&R NY for the pay cut of the century. The Gordy family played their newcomers off their standard-bearers to fire off their non-stop stream of hits. Ad agencies and movie studios use the same management tactics to keep the ideas coming. Of course the ultimate effect is burnout: the lack of any desire or will to play any more. I was determined not to go out like that. I still am.

7204: Blacks For Broadband…?

2009-10-29T10:06:00.002-05:00

Not sure what to make of this Broadband for America campaign. Is it some sort of Diversity/Digital Divide message? Hit the refresh button.

7203: Processed Garbage.

2009-10-29T09:58:00.002-05:00

Drinking up the news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Two Wisconsin men managed to win a $1.26 billion judgment against PepsiCo, insisting the soft drink company ripped off their idea to sell bottled water. Funny thing is, PepsiCo never responded to the charges, and didn’t even realize the case was being tried, because the paperwork was mishandled in the company’s internal processing system. Ironically, PepsiCo’s bottled water processing system has always been suspicious too.

• Sears is getting an early start with holiday sales, holding its first “Black Friday” event tomorrow—almost a month before the traditional after-Thanksgiving period. Gee, why not just have the after-Christmas sale on Saturday? Oh, and Sears probably celebrated Halloween in September. Sorry, kids.

7202: Tagged For Bankruptcy…?

2009-10-28T13:26:00.003-05:00

From The New York Post…

Ecko slam-dunked

By James Covert

After years of lavish spending that took him to the brink of bankruptcy, Marc Ecko has been forced to give up control of his own trademark.

Confirming a Sept. 22 report in The Post, the hip-hop clothing kingpin yesterday signed over a 51 percent interest in the Marc Ecko brand to Iconix, a New York company that owns a slew of fashion brands including Joe Boxer, Candie’s, Rocawear and London Fog.

Scrambling to avoid yesterday’s defeat and keep creditors at bay, Ecko this year had laid off workers and auctioned off his watch trademarks and Avirex brand.

Sources said Ecko is still struggling to lease out pieces of his luxurious 280,000- square-foot headquarters in Midtown, which houses everything from a recording studio to a basketball court.

Still, in an exclusive interview with The Post, the debt-ridden designer took it all in stride.

“I’ve had a crazy, wild ride. I’ve done a lot of things that have been naive,” Ecko told The Post. “I’ll take my lumps for a lot of things that, in retrospect, were a little indulgent. Life happens. I don’t regret any of it.”

Ecko likewise noted that, with creditors breathing down his neck for the past year, losing the title to his brand name yesterday wasn’t such a big change.

“I’ve lived through a leveraged position,” Ecko said. “I don’t know whether, once you grow up your business like that, you have full control anymore anyway.”

Under the terms of his deal with Iconix, Ecko is surrendering majority control of his trademark in exchange for $63.5 million in cash plus $90 million in financing for a newly formed joint venture.

Iconix, which will keep Ecko as chief creative officer for the joint venture, projects between $42 million and $44 million in yearly royalties.

While critics say the urban styles that fueled Ecko’s growth have fallen out of fashion, Ecko said his designs are still evolving.

“Reports of my demise have been reported often and early,” he said.

“Kids are not wearing big, baggy things with logos on them—it just looks different now,” added Iconix CEO Neil Cole, noting that Rocawear’s sales are up recently. “I promise you these kids are not naked out there and they’re not wearing my father’s clothes.”

Still, Marc Ecko’s sales at Macy’s, the brand’s most important wholesale account, dropped by $18 million last year—more than 10 percent. No improvement at Macy’s is expected this year, Marc Ecko’s longtime business partner, Seth Gerszberg, admitted.

On the bright side, comparable sales at Marc Ecko’s overgrown retail chain are now up 7 percent from last year’s steep declines that had fueled big losses. Helped by even deeper cost cuts this year, the brand expects to swing back to profitability.

Elsewhere, Gerszberg and Ecko bristled at reports that they’ve been squabbling through their recent business woes.

Asked if they planned to keep the basketball court at their offices despite the cost cuts, Gerzberg said he was trying.

“What do you care?” Ecko chimed in. “You gonna come down and shoot? You got game?”

7201: DWSE—Driving Without Speaking English…?

2009-10-27T10:19:00.004-05:00

From USA TODAY…

Dallas police dismiss 39 cases of ‘driving without speaking English’

Dallas police say they will dismiss 39 cases from as far back as three years in which police officers ticketed motorists for driving without being able to speak English, The Dallas Morning News reports.

The ticketing procedure came to light after 48-year-old Ernestina Mondragon came forward to complain after being stopped for making an illegal U-turn Oct. 2.

In addition to the moving (and speaking) violations, Mondragon, who has been a legal U.S. resident since 1980, got a ticket for not having a valid driver’s license.

Her daughter, Brenda, says that her mother in fact has a valid license, but had left it at home in a rush to get a second daughter, 11 year-old Vanessa, to school.

She says the officer did not speak Spanish and Vanessa was not asked to translate, the newspaper reports.

Dallas police say the linguistic charge is on a menu of the police department’s in-house computers, but applies only to commercial operators like bus, truck and limo drivers, the newspaper says.

This weekend, Dallas City Council member Steve Salazar thanked the Mondragon family for raising the issue and also apologized for the incident.

“Dallas is a diverse city with many languages,” Salazar said. “This was a charge that should not have been in the system.”

Update at 7:50 a.m. ET: The Dallas News says that records show that at least 20 Dallas police officers from five patrol divisions were involved in wrongly citing motorists for not speaking English since 2007.

The paper says almost all of the 38 people cited were Hispanic. The News says the officers involved ranged from rookie to a 13-year veteran.

The newspaper quotes Senior Cpl. Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, as saying the response from the public and the department is overblown.

“Now there is going to be a big internal affairs investigation into what?” he said, according to the newspaper. “They’ve corrected the problem; they’re going to make it go away or refund the money. It’s done.”

7200: Don’t Click Here Now.

2009-10-27T10:14:00.000-05:00

Can’t help but think this ad is an enigma, hidden in a paradox, wrapped in an irony and sprinkled with bullshit. First, candidates are encouraged to get a Master’s Degree in Internet Marketing via an online university. Next, the university is offering to make you a “Web Traffic Controller.” Sorry, the Web will not be controlled—anyone promising to teach you otherwise doesn’t know dick about the Internet.

7199: More Reasons For Lack Of Diversity.

2009-10-26T16:09:00.003-05:00

The Advertising Age column below offers a smart perspective that actually points to more reasons why our industry lacks diversity. Agencies traditionally replace executives with like executives. Plus, there is an increasing obsession with hiring based solely on category experience. The exclusivity on Madison Avenue is often attributed to racism, sexism, nepotism, etc.—which allows those with hiring authority to vehemently (and even honestly) deny they are racist, sexist, etc. Yet other common practices and habits are just as destructive to equal opportunities, and these maneuvers ultimately create an end result that is identical to anything produced by racism, sexism, etc. Of course, Whites-in-charge will vehemently deny participating in such acts too.

Stop Hiring Based Only on Category Experience
The Best Person for a Job May Have Far More Important Skills

By Paul S. Gumbinner

There’s no question that there are far more job candidates than there are job openings. With advertising-industry unemployment at historically high levels, there are many excellent candidates available. Among them, agencies are being very selective, often hiring people only with similar category experience to their clients’ business. But are they hiring the best candidates? In a buyer’s market, employers can and should be choosy—they are able to bring in wonderful people at all levels and in all disciplines. But because most companies are limiting their candidate pool, they are missing out on some very good talent.

By hiring people who already have brand or category experience, agencies are screening for résumés rather than talent. In fact, during the past year, we have had jobs for advertising people with backgrounds so specific, it was a nearly impossible task. We have been asked to look for people with dog-food experience; a person with at least three years’ experience advertising GI tract medications to physicians, but who also has direct-to-consumer experience; a restaurant person who has worked on quick serve, but not fast food; a consumer-electronics person who has experience marketing package goods, computers and, possibly, appliances. Perhaps the most absurd job was for an agency executive, who had to have been an actual investment banker, but also had to have retail-banking advertising knowledge with 10 to 15 years of experience. If that weren’t enough, the job paid $125,000 (we turned down the assignment).

We understand that sometimes it is simply a matter of a client’s dictating who they want on their account. The fee system has put clients in full charge of their agencies so that clients can dictate how their accounts are staffed. But when clients leave the hiring open, many agencies often take the safe alternative and hire category experience anyway. There’s no question that bringing in someone who knows the brand or category has its advantages. Familiarity presumably shortens the learning curve. It also makes sense that clients often request new agencies to hire people who have previously worked on their account, which is totally understandable.

But this need for experience can get carried to extremes. We have had job orders for junior account executives and even assistants that require finding someone with category background. At this level, that makes little sense.

In trying to understand this situation, the clearest answer I have received was some years ago by Bob Berenson, former president of Grey Advertising. He once told me that hiring experience often occurs because of panic among mid-level account people when someone resigns. He called it “fear of client.” This fear leads a person to reassure the client that the departing employee, no matter how good, will be replaced by someone better who knows the category. Once said, hiring category experience becomes a mandate.

There is a paradox when hiring people with this line of thinking. For new accounts, the agency was probably hired because of the insights they developed during the pitch. The agency’s fresh thinking is what won the business in the first place. Hiring for a specific background is anathema. For established accounts, agencies should crave new thinking. Undoubtedly there will be people both above and below the new employee who will know the business; why duplicate what is already there?

However, it’s not the agency’s fault. I strongly believe this situation has been caused by the advertisers themselves. The fee system leaves little room for agencies to learn the nuances of their clients’ business. Rather, they are paid only to create ads and get the work out quickly. There is little time to learn the business, and fees have been cut to the point where there is no incentive or ability for agencies to spend the time learning their clients’ business. Understandably, they compensate by hiring people with a presumed shorter learning curve on the business.

While hiring someone with specific product experience is understandable and often necessary at senior levels, it should never preclude hiring the best person to do the job, regardless of background. If the job is specified correctly, category experience may be relatively unimportant and could be a short-term solution to a long-term problem. The best person for the job may not necessarily have brand or category experience, but may have other skills which are far more important to the successful running of the business.

With so many good people on the street it is time for agencies and their clients to work together to reconsider who they hire—and start opening their minds as to the best candidates to hire for the long term, regardless of background.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul S. Gumbinner is president of the Gumbinner Co., New York. Before starting his executive-search firm in 1985, he spent 20 years in advertising, as an account person in categories including package goods, cosmetics, broadcasting, financial services, publishing, retail and fast food.

7198: Censored By Ad Age…?

2009-10-26T11:26:00.002-05:00

For some odd reason, Advertising Age opted to delete a comment we posted at their site in response to the editorial below. Don’t recall the exact verbiage, but in reaction to the publication’s declaration for a different kind of online advertising creativity, our comment essentially read: It would be interesting to learn the results of the digital ads that appear at AdAge.com, as the overwhelming majority of them are completely devoid of creativity.

Online Advertising Needs a Different Kind of Creativity
An Ad Age Editorial

It’s become clear that those creating online ads need to step up the creative game. But before marketers and agencies rush to hire Cannes winners to lovingly craft a new crop of banner ads, they should perhaps redefine the word “creative.”

Last week, Dynamic Logic released a study indicating that it’s bad creative that makes online advertising ineffective. The study determined that creative factors such as persistent branding, strong calls to action and even human faces—and not super-targeted or high-profile ad placements—make for better ad recall, brand awareness and purchase intent.

But we’re not so sure branding, human faces and logos—the most traditional aspects of traditional advertising—are the sort of creativity needed in online advertising. That seems an extension of too much current online advertising, which is either bad direct marketing in ad form, or TV-ad thinking in a box online.

Creativity, in this case, should revolve around interactivity and utility. To get a consumer to engage with an online ad—an ad that will take her away from the content she is reading—marketers will have to find a creative solution to give the consumer something she needs. Give her tips, invite her to contribute her own thoughts. Offer her other online resources dealing with your brand.

Better yet, couple the creativity with courage—the courage to link comments or tweets about your brand (or the subject) at hand. Yes, even the bad ones. If a company so believes in its product or service, then why not also include links to product reviews at independent sites or objective professional reviews (which is not the same as cherrypicking quotes out of reviews). Perhaps a smart marketer could persuade Consumer Reports itself to let advertisers link to ConsumerReports.org reviews.

On the web, a marketer isn’t trying to entertain a passive couch-surfer. It’s interrupting an active user, ferreting around for information or entertainment. It may be harder to capture that user’s attention, but if you can hook into that consumer’s interest and passion, she may prove more valuable to your brand.

In short, when advertising online, there has to be a way to make your message less like advertising and more like content. And that’s the creative yardstick by which marketers should measure their efforts.

7197: Changing The Game.

2009-10-26T07:59:00.003-05:00

From The New York Times…

Southern White Teams Just Didn’t Play Black Ones, but One Game Ended All That

By Samuel G. Freedman

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On a Saturday night 40 football seasons ago, just before kickoff of the penultimate game in his career, Coach Jake Gaither of Florida A&M strode toward midfield of Tampa Stadium. There he extended his hand to the opposing coach, Fran Curci of the University of Tampa, and they strained to speak above the din of a capacity crowd.

“Jake, this is bigger than I thought it would be,” Coach Curci recently recalled saying.

“Not me,” Coach Gaither responded.

Both men were trying to fathom the event they had set into motion, the first interracial football game in the South, a landmark in sports and civil rights that has gone relatively uncelebrated. It pit the Florida A&M Rattlers, long one of the dominant teams among black colleges, against the Tampa Spartans, a rising power that was overwhelmingly white.

What was at stake that night was twofold. The match-up would prove whether a black team with a black coach from a black school really could compete with a white one. And, in a city that suffered a race riot two years earlier, the stadium was divided racially into its Tampa and A&M rooting sections, and the spectators had to demonstrate that they could peaceably coexist.

Forty years later, the veterans of that game reunited here over the weekend as part of Florida A&M’s homecoming gala, during which the 2009 version of the Rattlers beat Norfolk State, 34-20, with the satisfaction of having succeeded on both counts.

Florida A&M won that 1969 game, 34-28, and despite the intensity on the field, with more than a thousand yards of total offense and the result in doubt until the last 30 seconds, harmony reigned in the stands.

Speaking to about 725 people gathered for the homecoming gala, Mr. Curci repeated the generous words he had spoken to reporters back on Nov. 29, 1969: his team had been outplayed and he had been outcoached. Jake Gaither was not there to hear them on Friday, having died in 1994 at age 90, but a number of his players were. The surviving member of his 1969 coaching staff, Bobby Lang, was M.C. for the evening.

“It was a gamble, and Jake took it,” said Eddie Jackson, a longtime administrator at Florida A&M who recently wrote a history of football there, “Coaching Against the Wind.” “If he’d lost, you know what everyone was saying before — ‘Jake’s a good coach, but he’s a good black coach.’ Jake said afterward he wanted to win that game more than any game he ever played.”

Read the full story here.

7196: Truth In Advertising…?

2009-10-25T20:34:00.002-05:00

Adweek columnist Barbara Lippert wrote an odd piece on the New Yorker Festival panel titled, “Mad Men: Truth in Advertising.” To be clear, Lippert’s writing is not odd; rather, the event seemed peculiar. Moderator and New Yorker contributor Ken Auletta spoke with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, TBWA\Chiat\Day creative chief Lee Clow and Translation LLC founder and CEO Steve Stoute. Huh? What inspired someone to assemble this group? Weiner and Clow kinda make sense. But it’s unclear why Stoute would round out the trio. Lippert made zero references to him at all, except to list the dude as a participant. Another report on the event by The New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott presented a few more sentences, yet offered nothing substantial from Stoute. If someone attended the soiree, please provide details. For now, it appears to be symbolic of the AMC series. That is, the minorities are bit players uncomfortably propped in the background. Too bad Sanford Moore is likely still recuperating from an auto accident. He would have made a more relevant and lively addition.

7195: U.S. Census’ Colorful Spending Plan.

2009-10-25T18:11:00.002-05:00

From Advertising Age…

U.S. Census Allots $145 Million to Reach Out to Minorities
Government Bureau Works With Ethnic Shops to Build Trust, Allay Fears

By Laurel Wentz

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Multicultural experts expect the 2010 census to boost ad spending toward minority groups as awareness of their numbers grows—but first, they have to be accurately counted.

To overcome immigration-status fears and general mistrust of the government, the U.S. Census Bureau is allocating the majority—estimated at $145 million—of its $300 million paid-media budget to multicultural audiences. It’s working with five ethnic shops, plus general-market agency DraftFCB’s Puerto Rico office to cover its territory. Their ad efforts to reach the hardest-to-count U.S. inhabitants will kick off in January

Separately, Spanish-language broadcasters Univision Communications and Telemundo have already started aggressive public-service campaigns with the theme “Be counted” and are integrating their own messages about the value of the census for the Latino community into all their platforms. Univision is building off its previous push to mobilize Hispanics to apply for citizenship—1.4 million did—and to register to vote last year, said Cesar Conde, president of Univision Networks. “We’ve put the gang together again [for the census campaign].”

Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas, part of the earlier effort, appears in Univision’s census ads explaining, “If they don’t count us, we won’t count.”

Don Browne, president of NBC Universal-owned Telemundo Communications Group, pointed out that Nielsen will use census figures to allocate its meters, adding more Hispanics where the Latino population is growing rapidly. “If you’re in the Hispanic media business, this will dramatically affect ratings and growth in Spanish-language media,” he said.

Big shift
The census will also highlight demographic changes, such as U.S.-born Hispanics surpassing immigrants as the biggest source of Hispanic growth, and will encourage marketers to shift more dollars to target Hispanics, he said.

GlobalHue, the biggest multicultural agency, is handling census ads targeted at Hispanics and blacks. For multicultural audiences, agencies are picking from the five mind-sets identified by DraftFCB that are most relevant for their groups.

Luciana Gomez, the GlobalHue VP-group account director in charge of the Spanish-language census campaign, said Hispanics tend to fall into the “head nodders,” “insulated” and “unacquainted” categories. The last group consists mostly of recent immigrants unfamiliar with the census and suspicious of what the government will do with the information.

Ms. Gomez said copy testing indicated that a focus on children and their future, and how the census influences funding and helps their community grow would work best for all three groups. “Hispanics will go through a lot of sacrifice for their children, and we’re just asking for ten minutes of their time,” she said.

For the black community, “there’s knowledge of the census, they just haven’t seen evidence it makes a difference,” said GlobalHue VP-account director Damien Reid.

Beyond Hispanic
Another Hispanic shop, D Exposito & Partners, is responsible for local media, digital and PR for Hispanic audiences. The agency also came up with the creative concept for all audiences, including the general market, for the crucial phase when census workers go door-to-door in pursuit of non-responders who ignore the census questionnaire and follow-up mailing. That message is: “Open the doors to the census, and the census will open doors for you.”

Of the estimated $82 million destined for paid ethnic media—although those numbers could change—about $28 million would go to Hispanic media, $24.5 million to black media and $18 million to Asian-American media. Another $12 million would target other multicultural audiences, from American Indians to Arabic speakers. For the first time, the census website will be fully bilingual in English and Spanish, and will include assistance guides in 59 other languages.

Allied Media Group has a tough task in reaching speakers of Arabic, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Armenian and Farsi, many of whom fled their nations out of fear of the government, said Account Manager Paul Young.

But Asian-American agency IW Group’s job is the most complex of all the census agencies. Although Asian Americans only account for about 4% of the U.S. population, there are so many different language groups that advertisers often stretch their budgets by casting generic pan-Asian actors in ads and do voice-overs for different languages.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” said IW Account Director Charmaine David. Her agency is doing 24 TV commercials—one spot for each of the three census phases, in eight different languages, plus 36 radio spots in 12 languages and 39 print ads in 13 languages.