Diversity isn't just good for the industry but leads to better outcomes for agencies and clients says Whybin/TBWA creative director Tara Ford, ahead of a new Communications Council event designed to tackle the lack of diversity in the industry.
The Design The Future competition, launched earlier this month by the industry body, aims to address diversity issues in the advertising space, by getting young creatives to work on a brief that tackles a diversity issue
Ford's agency, Whybin/TBWA and client ANZ are both taking part, setting a brief on “creating a more equal financial future” for International Women's Day.
Other agencies and brands involved include Saatchi & Saatchi and its client Toyota, and BMF and its client Meat and Livestock Australia.
“From an agency point of view diversity is so important,” Ford says.
“If you even just look at creative department, it is crucial that we have people with different points of view, different experiences, different ways of seeing things and thinking. The more diverse we are as a business, the better our output is going to be.”
The competition closes tomorrow evening (19 May), with 15 finalists participating in a one-day intensive workshop event, complete with a live brief. Out of the group, three winners will win a scholarship to Award School next year.
It aims to push diversity as a grassroots effort by encouraging a more diverse demographic to take part in advertising and look at it as a potential career.
Whybin/TBWA regional group head for ANZ, Ricci Meldrum, says by having such a strong calibre of brands and agencies involved in the competition, it makes a statement about diversity to the industry as well.
“You couldn't think of more diverse brands than the ones we have participating,” Meldrum says.
“By having three very high profile clients and high profile agencies talking about it as an issue and making a public conversation and discussion , it makes a statement to the industry as to just how important this is.”
Taking part of the competition will be ANZ group general manager of marketing Louise Eyres, who says the seamlessness between what the competition stands for, and much of the work ANZ has been doing of late, including its Equal Futures and GayTM work, is what made the brand want to be involved.
“Diversity leads to better outcomes because we have different types of conversations and different perspective the outcomes are stronger but also it opens up the talent pool of our employees to be as representative of our customers as we can,” Eyres says.
“The perspective of the participants are absolutely the perspective of our customers so we need to listen, learn and hear what they have to say through their creative work.”
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