On January 8, 2009, the NAACP and Mehri & Skalet launched a new project to address historic and pervasive discrimination against African Americans in the advertising industry. At a press conference in New York City – the hub of the advertising world – the two organizations released an exhaustive new study that finds dramatic levels of racial discrimination throughout the industry.
The study, authored by the leading independent research firm, Bendick and Egan Economic Consultants, found bias against African-American professionals in pay, hiring, promotions, assignments, and other areas of employment in the advertising industry. Specifically, the study reveals that:
- African-American advertising employees are underpaid in the advertising industry
Ø Black college graduates working in advertising earn $.80 for every dollar earned by their equally-qualified White counterparts
Ø Black managers and professionals are only one-tenth as likely as their White counterparts to earn $100,000 a year
- African-Americans are under-hired in the advertising industry
Ø African-Americans should be 9.6% of the managers and professionals (based on national demographic data), but in 2008, only 5.3% of managers and professionals were African-American – a difference of 7,200 African-Americans “missing” from the professional and managerial ranks at advertising agencies
Ø About 16% of large advertising firms employ no Black managers or professionals, a rate 60% higher than in the overall labor market
- African-American employees are under-utilized in the advertising industry
Ø Blacks are only 62% as likely as their White counterparts to work in the powerful “creative” and “client contact” functions in agencies
Ø African-Americans are often excluded from “general market” agencies and find work only in agencies specializing in “ethnic markets”
The full study is available
here. The NAACP and M&S commissioned the study after hearing stories of racial discrimination from industry activists and current and former employees. Since the summer of 2008, we have been receiving intake calls from employees at several advertising agencies and we are currently investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the industry.
If you are employed in the advertising industry and have experienced racial discrimination in your workplace, please contact us at (202) 822-5100.
by Drs Bendick and Egan
