• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, May 26, 2021

A week after Byron Allen’s media company sued McDonald’s for $10 billion for alleged discriminatory ad-buying practices, the ANA has released a report indicating that 89% of marketers believe the importance of supplier diversity has increased over the past year. 

Reasons cited include the "racial events" that have played out over the past year and the realization by marketers that supplier diversity plays a role in overall DEI efforts. 

So it took more senseless murders and killings of African Americans to wake up senior marketers to realize the need for greater supplier diversity? Granted, George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a former Minneapolis cop was particularly heinous, as a nearly nine-minute video of the incident documents. 

But sadly, senseless killings of Blacks at the hands of police and others have been ongoing, pretty much forever. The lack of supplier diversity is not a new issue, just as unacceptably low minority representation in Adland is not a new issue. Advocacy groups and many minority media owners have been complaining about these issues — and rightly so — for decades. 

According to the ANA survey, marketers have a hard time finding diverse suppliers. Exactly how hard are you looking? It’s the same canard that Adland has put front and center when explaining its own lack of diversity. 

Enough excuses. Go out and find people and companies and get it done. I’m sure the industry group 600 & Rising can point you to some capable talent and probably suppliers, as well. 

And to the ANA’s credit, it has curated some minority supplier lists and related resources here. Those resources are updated regularly. 

The full ANA report can be downloaded here.