• by Joe Mandese , Yesterday

There was an elephant-in-the-room moment for me during last week’s World Ethics Day in New York City. It happened at the end of a fireside chat when a member of the audience posed a question about the potential impact of big brands reversing course on social advocacy branding, especially on issues like DEI and pride.

“Until the beginning of this year brands [were] being very loud and proud around social issues. What impact long-term, and short-term, do you feel that the increase in silence on issues -- and/or the expunging of language that was previously there -- is going to have on those brands in the long term?” Rachel Howald, founder of the Invisible Man agency asked, adding: “That covers everything from expunging DEI language to withdrawing funding for pride sponsorships.

“All of those things that previously brands said -- ‘This is who we are. This is what we believe,’ to ‘mmm, do we?’ How is that going to impact us?”

It was a striking moment in a day that focused largely on the IAE’s ground-up approach to educating and certifying ethical professional standards, as well as industry-at-large best practices for instilling trust and mitigating risks associated with less-than-ethical advertising practices.

Not surprisingly, a dominant focus was on the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) in all things advertising and media, and the potential implications for industry ethics, brand reputations and consumer trust.

While Dark DEI was not explicitly on the summit agenda, the audience member’s question did spark a strong response from a “Fireside Chat” speaker.

“People can see the dissonance,” LinkedIn B2B Institute Director and Co-Founder Ty Heath said, repeating: “People can see and feel the dissonance. And that is a trust-eroding decision that is being made. In some sense, you can say, it’s like a breach of contract.”

“It’s something I think all brands are wrestling with these days, to be truthful,” added Association of National Advertisers Senior Vice President Senny Boone, noting: “And just not do anything, but actually be truthful.”

The carefully worded way the panelists addressed the question was telling for me, because their panel was titled “Trust, Performance and Ethics in Action.”

Personally, I would have made Dark DEI discussion its own part of the day’s agenda, but I understand why the hosts -- the Institute for Advertising Ethics and law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz -- might not have wanted to do that in such a politically charged moment. But the fact that it wasn’t part of the agenda indicates just how dark the conversation has grown.

MediaPost has been on top of this since the politicization of brand social cause initiatives began. My colleague Sarah Mahoney published an important “Quiet DEI” column back in March, and this morning she published a piece on the “risks of going dark.”

I understand why the ad ethics day summit didn’t include this as an explicit part of the agenda, but in the wake of political and legal pressure to shut down industry initiatives supporting social causes and responsible media, I hope no one minds if I shed some light on it here.

For what it’s worth, I think the IAE has done an incredible job building a program, curriculum and certification program addressing important ethics issues for individual industry pros, but in the wake of the loss of leadership from other organizations, alliances, consortiums and otherwise, I think it’s a sad state if we're one of the few voices trying to keep the light on it.

The IAE has a great program addressing certification for ethical ad practices overall, and carbon greenwashing and AI utilization specifically, but someone needs to be more of a top-down voice in the wake of other major trade associations going quiet on politically charged branding initiatives addressing DEI, the environment, and the toxicity of much of the media supply chain.

Sure, AI is important, and potentially even more disruptive than anything we've experienced to date -- but now is the time for brands to take more and not less of a stand, because if for no better reason, history will be the judge. And consumers, or their AIs, will remember.

And I agreed with LinkedIn B2B Institute’s Heath when she concluded, saying: “I still believe that communities have expectations of leaders and brands to make the communities in which they operate better places and to be responsible stewards of that.”