One year on from the murder of George Floyd, how can the advertising industry ensure it is diverse and inclusive?
May 25, 2020 marks a deeply painful day in American history: the murder of George Floyd. It is impossible to reflect upon this day, one year later, without revisiting the trauma that the weaponization of racism caused and continues to cause Black people and people of color every day. The 4A’s chief exec Marla Kaplowitz asks: amid this reckoning that prompts feelings of anger, frustration and exhaustion, we must ask, what has changed?
In an effort to address the need for significant reform in everyday and professional life, I considered the ways this event catalyzed a social justice movement within this industry that impacted the work and teams at every level. For one, it is no longer an unspoken reality that the marketing and advertising ecosystem has a lot of work to do to increase its diversity and culture of equity and inclusion.