This is my life y'all. I'm just a small town black girl trying to make it in the advertising industry in a position where there are few people of color presiding. Is it all about color? Yes and no. I guess it depends on who you ask, but as a double/triple outlier my otherness is made that much more obvious when I take a class, or participate in an internship, or try to join some kind of young professionals organization. I say I am a double/triple outlier because not only am I Black, I am a Woman, I come from a inner city neighborhood, did I mention I'm a Momma? Thats double/triple/quadruple! =/ Anyway, the invisibleness is not just made evident by a lack of other women of color in these instances, it is evident by the quality and diverseness of images I see in the media.
I distinctly remember watching ads as a young girl, and realizing that African Americans are usually seen shucking and jiving to some Hiphop music (as if that is the only way we are going to buy a product or service). Or wondering why I never see a commercial with predominantly black girls, instead of the one token black girl. Of course, these kinds of issue dig deeper than who is sitting in the agency offices, but that is one major part. Advertisement images lack diversity because advertising agencies lack diversity. In my quest to find someone like myself, I stumbled upon this article by Shanteka Sigers, a black female creative director who lives in Austin and is a lecturer at UT. I thought her article was worthy of a repost.
I really appreciated this article by Ms. Sigers. As I said earlier, I often feel the weight of the advertising agencies' exclusivity but I bear it with pride and sadness. Why am I the only Unicorn? Surely there are others just as interested in ads, creative and talented as I am? Why am I the exception and not the rule? Is this even for me? Knowing that there are other unicorns gives me that extra boost of courage to pursue my dreams and continue to blaze the path for other Unicorns.
Black + Female + Creative Director = Unicorn
Advertising creative department leadership is somewhere around 2% black. Only three percent of advertising creative directors are female. And dammit, I’m a copywriter not a mathematician, but here goes:
Black + Female + Creative Director = Unicorn
Most people don’t think I exist.
I like to play a game when I’m in Los Angeles shooting. I guess how many people in the hotel lobby are creatives. I’m goooood, y’all. I can usually even pick out the account guy. How do I know?
Because eavesdropping comes easy for people that others overlook.
Unicorns are invisible.
Number of people who would pick the table of black girls as an ECD, having dinner with a GCD, a producer and an editor? Zero.
But I’m here in my enchanted forest, prancing in the peonies and drinking champagne.
I’m not lonely. I was raised in Multicultural agencies. Multicultural agencies don’t have a shortage of female Creative Directors. I was hired by a female ECD, who was the successor of another female ECD. I can pop off names of at least 10 female CDs from that same source.
Which explains a lot about how multicultural creative is seen by the industry at large, but that is a whole ‘nother unicorn chat.
Overall, my forest ain’t bad. There’s a lot of Fortune 500 brands in here. There’s an outpost of the Viceroy here. I’m doing the unicorn job that I love. Life is pretty good.
But sometimes I wonder if I’m confined.
I’ll admit that the thought of poking my horn out into the industry can be a little daunting.
What if people come after me with the venom of a billion Agency Spy commenters? What if I piss somebody off? What if people think I’m bitter? Or just not good enough?
Maybe I should announce myself sometime in the future? Not today when I am just me and my statistics are good but not unassailable.
And then I went to a Unicorn Convention. The 3% Conference.
Make no mistake, it was an ad thing. We were talking shop. I came home full of non-gender related good advice for building a better department.
But the conference also covered the challenges of being a unicorn, directly and indirectly.
I saw pregnant creative directors and realized that I wasn’t the only one happily leading conference calls the day I gave birth. Unless I am the only one who did that, in which case I will say that my son was two weeks late and I was bored.
During a break I used my phone to hire a nanny and a cleaning service. It’s stupid to feel guilty about it when it frees me to really listen to my son without my eyes drifting to that streak on the wall that I can only hope is chocolate pudding.
I learned that this is how CD moms can make this life work.
And possibly the best thing I learned?
Feeling horrible that nobody will let me crack the dick joke that would make me the toast of Cannes only keeps me from reaching Cannes.
It felt amazing to be completely surrounded by people that understand where I’m coming from.
That’s why creative departments remain the way they do.
You want creatives to have things in common. You want them to laugh at each other’s jokes. You want them to want to go out for a beer with one another. You are pretty sure that you don’t want to deviate too far from what is considered to be a winning formula. Despite the uncertainty and insecurity and competition, you want people to feel like they are part of a clan.
No pun intended.
There is no vast conspiracy to keep girls and black folks out of creative departments. It’s just a bunch of dudes being comfortable with the familiar.
My favorite quote in the world is this: “Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” I love it because it is always true.
So here I am, venturing out of my unicorn forest.
Mostly because somewhere, there’s a little black girl reading everything advertising that she can put her browser on.
As I learned at the 3% conference, she can’t be what she can’t see.
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