Putting the can and can't in cantankerous
Diversity in Agency Life: How to Find it, Keep it, and Not Treat it Like a Prize
Hundreds of people attended The One Club for Creativity’s “Here Are All the Black People” event during AdWeek last year, which featured professional development, recruiting, networking, and talent showcase opportunities.
The multicultural career fair is one of a growing number of popular efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in the (overwhelmingly white male) fields of advertising, design and media - from the ADCOLOR Conference to The Association of Advertising Agencies’ (4As) Multicultural Advertising Internship Program, among others.
But they are not enough. Diverse talent is pooling at the entry level, rather than being evenly distributed throughout agencies and sufficiently supported to reach senior positions.
Branding Disabilities: Going Mainstream
Disability, like multiculturalism, is finally making inroads in the advertising world as more and more national brands recognize the power (and compassion) of inclusiveness and its money-making potential. One in 5 people in the US have a disability, according to the 2010 census, while slightly more than one-quarter of today’s 20-year-olds will become disabled before they retire.
Controversial Spaces and Places: When Art, Advertising and Community Converge
Roughly eighty percent of the US population live in urban areas, but for years, the gritty edges of cities - rail yards, river fronts, and seaports - have been home to artists, next in line for gentrification, neglected by the mainstream. In the past decade that’s rapidly changed, as developers, architects, politicians, and advertisers have swept off the soot, tossed aside the rusted metalworks, and shoveled capital into the fringes of urban centers.
New York’s Hudson Yards, Chicago’s Lincoln Yards, Boston’s Seaport District, or the smaller but no less skyline altering Hudson’s Site in Detroit, offer a glimpse into the most visible, massive-in-scale, transformative urban development projects of our time.
Microhabits Lead to Big Discussions and Brand Wins at Cannes Health
The art of self-improvement: eating better, breathing your way to zen, gamifying exercise from your living room to hotel room. This was just the tip of the iceberg this year at Cannes Health, where brands and marketing leaders leaned into small but influential lifestyle changes, learning how to better make use of behavioral science to help consumers achieve their ultimate wellness goals.
Vertical Video: From Blip to Buzzword
Many of us don’t flip our phones or other digital devices sideways when we record a video or watch a movie, never mind the small picture and awkward framing. It’s a hassle, right? Now we don’t have to. Welcome to the vertical video revolution. With remarkable speed, the video technology - which has a 9:16 aspect ratio - is replacing the traditional 16:9 landscape and 1:1 square formats. It’s taller and narrower, addressing our mobile-centric entertainment habits and the fact that we hold our devices vertically 94% of the time.
