BBDO NY Kicks Off Mentorship Program

BBDO NY is providing yet another opportunity for diverse talent to enter Adland with the agency’s new “Beyond Introductions” mentorship program.

The program’s first event invited rising talent from non-profit 100 Roses from Concrete’s G.R.O.W.T.H. Initiative Fellowship to participate in a virtual multi-day networking series that paired agency workers with mentees from the organization.

Some 38 G.R.O.W.T.H. Fellows received one-on-one advice and guidance from 46 BBDOers, and the response was overwhelmingly positive with 87% of participants saying they would be very likely to recommend Beyond Introductions. 

While the first program exceeded internal expectations, those involved with the pilot round reflect on a few adjustments going forward.

For one, BBDO intends to partner with as many organizations as possible to attract a truly diverse group of voices. “We plan to leverage our relationships at these organizations as well as our contacts in academia,” says Kristin Tolbert, planning director, BBDO NY. “We can partner with local institutions, particularly community colleges and CUNY schools to serve students who may not otherwise have access to industry professionals at various levels of seniority.”

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Jaime Chou, junior planner, BBDO NY adds the agency hopes to tap into groups including the AAF (American Advertising Federation) and their Most Promising Multicultural Students Program (MPMS), The 4A’s and MAIP, AdColor for future iterations.

Next time, the agency also expects to pair up mentors/mentees based on interest and skillset, and then allow them to work with each other to find a time that works for them, explains Chou. “It ended up being rather tedious to match the mentors and mentees by hand based on their provided availability during the given timeframe. This also resulted in some scheduling errors. But, once people got together, the conversations were so great that many went over the 30 minutes we had planned.”

There does seem to be the Goldilocks problem where 30 minutes is too short, yet an hour appears to be too time consuming. The solution may be to allow for participants to determine their preferred length, says Tolbert. “While, making an hour mandatory could be a barrier for people with busy schedules to participate, we should have encouraged people to try leave some extra time open on their schedules and to stay longer, if they’d liked.”

It was also “incredibly valuable” to send mentee/mentor LinkedIn profiles in advance of meetings. “Next time we might share full bios and connect participants over email beforehand, so they can get even more familiar with each other and ask more pointed questions,” says Chou.

While the participants benefited from agency insights, Tolbert admits it was “really inspiring” to see just how much our senior leadership got out of the event. “They were so excited to talk to the [participants] and reported that they got a lot out of the experience as well, more so than I anticipated.”

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