Closing the Gap: Professionals of Color in Advertising

1990s

“Mr. Lin explained the difficulty of entering general market advertising despite his work experience at a Taiwanese agency as well as a master’s degree from NYU, no agency would give him a job due to his student F-1 visa. He recalled, “The Asian agency said, ‘Okay, you got the job. Come to work tomorrow.'””

Shalini Shankar, Advertising Diversity: Ad Agencies and the Creation of Asian American Consumers (2015)[1]

 

Celebrating Diversity 1

An advertisement from the American Academy of Advertising and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation's 1993-94 competition for using advertising to promote diversity and multiculturalism [3]

As demographics shifted in the United States and populations of color increased, multiculturalism in advertising became a focus of the 1990s. A separate "multicultural" listing was created in Advertising Age that grouped together firms that catered to "multicultural" consumers.[2]

The emerging focus on multicultural advertising favored the linguistic and culturally relevant expertise Asian American advertising agencies were able to offer. Financial institutions, automotive clients, entertainment industries, and more reached out to these agencies the same way the telecommunications industry reached out to them a decade prior. According to Vicky Wong of Ad Asia in Adweek,

“The newer success stories are among automotive, airlines, casinos, liquor, wireless and technology. All these came in the late ‘90s driven mainly by the fact that after Asians set their roots and are financially established, they begin looking to lifestyle things.” 

Advertising executives believed that compared to African Americans and Latinos, Asian Americans had a less manageable set of ethnic and linguistic differences. Those who worked for an Asian American advertising agency were expected to have work experience and education qualifications in advertising, a fluency in Mandarin, Hindi, Korean, Tagalog, or Vietnamese, and cultural knowledge about Chinese, South Asian, Vietnamese, Filipino, or Korean people living in the United States. 

Celebrating Diversity 2

An advertisement from the American Academy of Advertising and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation's 1993-94 competition for using advertising to promote diversity and multiculturalism [3]

Asian American advertising was small compared to general advertising in the United States. There were clauses that prohibited agencies from accepting more than one client per product which helped limit hostile competition between one another. They wanted to enhance their presence and appear as a unified entity in the face of multicultural advertising. Mr. Z. Ng cofounded the Asian American Advertising Federation to maintain this image and serve as a representative for Asian American advertising agencies.[1]

By the 1990s, only one third of the advertising dollars aimed at black consumers went through black-owned agencies. On the topic, an industry insider stated:

"In a sense, the black agency has been the victim of its own success. It sold white advertisers on the potetial of the black consumer market, and now these companies are turning to their white agencies to help deliver the goods. Black agencies are fighting for the very market they helped create." 

Mainstream advertiser's interest in a multicultural market fueled their interest in aquiring black advertising agencies. Three of the largest black-owned agencies, Burrell, Uniworld, and True North Communications, formed alliances with large holding companies by the end of the 1990s. They wanted to enhance their survival and growth while maintaining management control. This paralleled mainstream conglomerates aquiring black oriented media outlets.[2]

  1. Shankar, Shalini, and publisher Duke University Press. Advertising Diversity : Ad Agencies and the Creation of Asian American Consumers. Durham ; London: Duke University Press, 2015. 58-64. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Print. 
  2. Davis, Judy Foster. Pioneering African-American Women in the Advertising Business : Biographies of Mad Black Women. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. 49-55. Print. 
  3. American Academy of Advertising and Newspaper Association of America Foundation. Celebrating Diversity : 1993-4 Student Newspaper Advertising Competition. Reston, Va.: Newspaper Association of America Foundation. 1994. John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Print. 

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