Less than 1% of people in the advertising and media industries identify themselves Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
Peter Kirk, head of creative services at Pluto Media, says brands and consultancies are paving the way when it comes to creating a more diverse workforce, while agencies continue lag behind with their “insular” way of working.
“Brands like Coles, thanks to Lisa Ronson, and the big consulting firms are actually pretty ahead of the curve,” Kirk says.
“There is a real desire from brands to want to work with agencies that have a diverse creative team in there coming up with different ideas and different perspectives.”
He believes the lack of diversity is showcased in the “stale” work being produced by the industry at the moment.
Agencies need to move beyond their own networks when hiring new talent in order to showcase a broader range of ideas and viewpoints.
To get back to creating the great work everyone wants to do, Kirk says the answer is to have greater diversity in the workplace.
“Great work starts with getting everyone of all different cultures, beliefs and strengths and weaknesses into a room and coming up and throwing around [ideas] and giving everyone a seat at the table,” he says.
“You’re going to get a different perspective of work and often that different perspective will be better.”
Less awards, more change
Kirk says if the industry put as much effort into creating scholarship programs for Indigenous people as it did for entering awards, the programs could be very successful.
“My big struggle is sitting in a room with a CEO or MD and [they] said ‘oh look, you know, budget’s tight’ and I can see that they’ve just gone to Cannes,” he says.
“It’s like well it can’t be that tight. Agency land kind of has its perspective a little bit out of whack at the moment. It somehow equates winning more awards will get more work.”
He tells a story of two Indigenous students who have recently been the first to complete AWARD school’s Indigenous scholarship program.
One of them was asked by a recruiter about how many awards they had won.
Kirk says the industry needs to stop measuring success based on awards and focus more on crafting better quality work in a more diverse workforce.
How does adland start though?
“Each agency needs to set up, in my opinion, their own Indigenous pathways and scholarship program and invest in that and go on their own journey to hire and connect with the Indigenous community,” he says.
“There are no shortage of indigenous kids that would want to work in the advertising and media industry.”
He also reminds agencies to remember that they are dealing with another culture.
“Indigenous people come from a talking culture so putting a young Indigenous person at a computer and going good luck is simply not going to work.”
Some agencies Kirk mentions agencies who are starting to have conversations and implement changes include McCann, Initiative, Enero and VMLY&R.
The next step though is to take the “dialogue to action”.
Fiona Chilcott, chief people and culture officer at Enero, says Indigenous people are often overlooked in the diversity discussion.
“Change is never easy and it won’t happen overnight but a new paradigm in diversity that includes Indigenous people is well overdue,” Chilcott says.
Enero has been working with Kirk and the Communications Council and its members to devise an industry-wide set of guidelines for agencies to develop a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).
The company also hosts a number of awareness initiatives internally to educate its staff including NAIDOC week celebrations, hosting events and panel discussions.
“We are also working with CareerTrackers – a not-for-profit – with the goal of creating pathways and support systems for Indigenous young adults to attend university and provide industry experience,” she says.
“Enero has welcomed its first of many Indigenous interns and is excited to help kick-start their careers in the marketing services industry.”
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.