Riots Wake Up Some Ad Shops

Jean Craig may be the most powerful ad woman in Los Angeles, but when it comes to creating ads that reflect the lives of minorities, she has always felt powerless.

The Los Angeles riots underscored that impression.

So days after the riots began, Craig, who is president of the Santa Monica ad firm Kresser/Craig, batted out this memo to agency employees:

“I don’t think most of us know beans about black life in the United States, or Hispanic life,” she said. “We can’t paint a picture for people to aspire to, because we don’t know what that picture is. I think we’d do more relevant advertising, as well as advertising that can help influence for the better, if we tuned in.”

She is not letting those words ring hollow. The agency--along with a small number of local ad shops--is taking a series of concrete steps to broaden understanding of minority lifestyles. Ten Los Angeles agencies will be hiring minority interns this summer. Several agencies will open their doors to minorities for computer training sessions. And local and national agencies will take part in creating public service spots for an upcoming Rebuild L.A. campaign.

But Kresser/Craig is one of the exceptions. Nearly two months after the riots, few Los Angeles agencies have made serious moves to improve their generally poor minority hiring records. A lack of economic opportunities for minorities--in all professions--has been cited as a contributing factor in the riots.

Nationally, Los Angeles agencies have one of the poorest track records in hiring blacks, Latinos and Asians. Top executives estimate that while minorities hold fewer than 5% of the skilled jobs at agencies nationally, they hold less than 2% of those posts in Southern California. Some say most Los Angeles agencies have simply been lazy about recruiting minorities. There is little tradition here--like at several big Chicago agencies--to actively seek out minority job candidates.

“It is the advertising industry’s dirty little secret,” said J. Melvin Muse, chairman of the minority-owned agency Muse Cordero Chen. “We are way, way, way behind in our hiring of people of color.”

Most local agencies--many of which have been hit hard by the economic downturn--are not even doing the little things to assist minorities. A minority internship program developed six months before the riots--which is being 50% underwritten by Los Angeles ad man Jay Chiat--is generally getting the cold shoulder from the ad community. Only 10 agencies signed on for the summer.

“Many agencies told us they’re financially strapped and can’t afford the interns,” said Esther Ramirez, executive director of the Minority Advertising Training Program, which is being operated out of Chiat/Day/Mojo’s Venice office. But the cost to agencies is just $100 a week--for 13 weeks. (That amount--which helps pay each intern’s salary--is matched by Chiat.)

Still, some agencies are developing their own programs to introduce low-income minorities to the ad business. The Los Angeles office of Ogilvy & Mather will soon offer computer training classes at the agency to 20 minority applicants.

“They’ll get to see what an ad agency looks like and interact with people who work at an agency,” said Gerald D. McGee, managing director. “We have to let people of all cultures understand how our business works.”

In addition, Kresser/Craig is underwriting a study of middle-class life in ethnic communities that the agency hopes can help it paint a more accurate advertising picture. “Too often, the ethnic casting of ads only reflects the stereotypes of what Anglos think minorities should look like,” said Bob Kresser, chairman. In the end, he said, “everyone in the ads looks like Anglos.”

To help change that, Kresser/Craig will sponsor ethnic art and film festivals for employees. And it may invest in an inner-city business with one of its clients. The ad firm plans to take on four minority interns. But agency executives concede that they need to improve their own track record on hiring minorities--who make up about 20% of the agency’s staff.

Muse Cordero Chen plans to select 20 minorities “who have been rejected from other programs” and enroll them into workshops on ad creativity, Muse said. “I’m banking on people from this group to become some of the best creative minds in town,” he said.

Muse has also been named to oversee the creative portion of public service ads for the yet-to-be-developed Rebuild L.A. ad campaign. “Although advertising can’t solve the problems, it can create social possibilities,” Muse said.

The ads will not come just from agencies. Muse said he’s particularly interested in seeing concepts from students and street artists. “I’m encouraging work from the disenfranchised.”

Among other things, the ads will be aimed at persuading the rest of the country--and the world--that Los Angeles is healing, said Dennis Holt, president of Western International Media, who was tapped by Peter V. Ueberroth in May to chair the communications and media portion of the Rebuild L.A. effort. Holt said he hopes that some of the ads can be broadcast by midsummer.

“It’s got to be a rainbow ad coalition from inside and outside the city,” Holt said. And offers of support have already come from across the country. “You can’t compare this to anything that’s ever been done,” he said.

But some are already comparing this ad effort to the massive anti-drug campaign for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Since the anti-drug campaign began five years ago, it has received more than $1 billion in free media time.

The ad man who devised that campaign, however, is not convinced that ads have a great role to play in solving Los Angeles’ problems. “Unless the ads are designed to help in some measurable way,” said Phillip Joanou, chairman of Dailey & Associates, “we might do more by going down with brooms to clean up the mess than sitting in the safety of our offices making ads.”

Briefly

The Santa Monica agency Kresser/Craig is expected to win the $12.9-million ride-sharing ad account from the California Department of Transportation. . . . The agency Della Femina McNamee/Los Angeles has been handed the ad account for the Los Angeles investment firm Trust Co. of the West. . . . The Los Angeles office of the agency Frankfurt Gips Balkind has been handed the ad accounts for UCLA and for the music publishing company Leiber & Stoller. . . . Earvin (Magic) Johnson plays second fiddle to his son, Andre, in his national ad debut in a new TV spot for trading card maker Skybox International. . . . The San Diego agency Franklin Soorza has won the ad business for a new line of bicycle helmets made by Los Angeles-based Bell Sports Inc. . . . Video Tape Library of Los Angeles is selling the use of film of the Los Angeles riots to ad agencies and political groups for up to $75 per second. MAJOR BUSINESS FOR MINORITIES

Disney plans to award up to $450 million in construction contracts to minority firms. D2