Our manifesto
The time has come for change. For too long the ad industry has been a haven for homogeneity and systematic under-representation. Both in the work and the people that make it. We intend to do everything in our power to help right these wrongs. We believe it is our duty as humans. And our responsibility as a global advertising agency to use our influence and reach to drive change in the industry and in the world. We will do everything we can to help underrepresented people into our industry. We will proactively cultivate an agency where curious, ambitious, diverse people come together to do what they love. Where all of us feel safe, valued and heard. So that we move beyond merely inclusion to a true sense of belonging. And where each of us, in turn, seeks to understand and represent others well. We fully acknowledge the purposeful approach this requires. And we pledge to hold each other to account every day in moving forward. We do all of this because we know that change is possible. And in the belief that one day people will walk into our agency and we won’t have to explain this mission. They will simply feel it.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is not an HR issue. We are all responsible. Anna Brent is our dedicated Head of DEI, but our goals are part of everyone’s workflow.
There are four areas of action:
Creating an inclusive culture
To create a working environment where everyone upholds our company values, and feels true inclusion and belonging. This includes a bi-annual ATP staff survey focusing on inclusion and psychological safety. Measuring how our employees feel is critical to our success as an agency. Direct action is taken from feedback here alongside our anonymous ‘Just Ask’ platform that welcomes questions from all employees directly to company directors. We are proud of our employee policies including those on menopause, miscarriage and an incident report system. Staff at Across the Pond have monthly ‘buddy sessions’ and a ‘culture and wellbeing day’ that is additional to annual leave. We believe in continual self-education around culture and identity, so have our own external DEI speaker series and employees have free access to books on these subjects. Julie, our CEO, has signed the Creative Equals pledge to support the AdLand commitments to anti-racism.
Representation in our work
We seek to ensure we have fair, varied and proactively diverse representation of people and communities in our work. This means considering briefs through a DEI lens from the start and throughout a project. We’ve created a ‘checkpoint’ process for our teams to regularly review if we have pursued all opportunities for better representation. We have a mandatory casting and representation policy and we review representation data and set targets. In addition, we introduced an external facility - Diversity Standards Collective - as an optional culture board.
Considering our agency make-up
To have - and retain - a diverse team, from as many walks of life as possible. Achieved through mandatory hiring policies, pipeline commitments, review of all job postings (posted to diverse networks), checking DEI policies of recruiters, continued support of Creative Mentor Network and Outvertising, cross panel hiring practice, qualitative demographic surveys and reviewing pay gaps. We have also launched our ‘Foot in the Door’ internship program aimed specifically at people from underrepresented backgrounds.
Understanding the DEI principles of our suppliers
To ensure that people we work with, and get services from, understand the value of DEI as much as we do, we engage with our suppliers to understand their DEI policies and ownership status. We have ever evolving proactive efforts to increase the diversity of our freelance talent/ suppliers - ensuring our teams use existing and bespoke directories that focus on people from underrepresented backgrounds. As part of this focus, we signed the Free the Work pledge to ensure that at least one female director is included in any choice of three directors for a project.