'Madison Avenue Project' seeks more minorities in ad jobs

NEW YORK -- Madison Avenue, currently in the process of cutting 15% of its workforce and facing up to a 10% drop in ad spending, will be pressed for more change this year to reform minority hiring and promotions practices.

Today, the NAACP and civil rights lawyer Cyrus Mehri will introduce what they call "The Madison Avenue Project." It will be supported by findings from a survey of the $250 billion industry that employs more than 400,000. It is said to show bias in pay, hiring, promotions and assignments.

Mehri led class-action discrimination lawsuits against Texaco and Coca-Cola that resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements and included changes in their practices. He also led a high-profile gender bias lawsuit that was settled with Morgan Stanley.

With the backing of the NAACP, he is attempting to bring the issue in the advertising industry to national awareness. As part of the effort, they're expected to call on the industry's top 100 national advertisers to pressure agencies to improve their diversity record.

It's been a simmering issue in the ad industry and is expected to get heightened scrutiny as the nation swears in its first black president and is in a mood for change.

"It will garner more attention during this time of change in this country," says Tiffany Warren, vice president and director of multicultural programs at Arnold Worldwide, who on Wednesday was named chief diversity officer for advertising holding company Omnicom, starting next month. "I look forward to hearing what Mr. Mehri has to say, but the industry has worked hard to get ahead of the issue." Warren says that President-elect Barack Obama's campaign serves as a model for the industry to tackle diversity.

"The core of the success of the presidential election was collaboration and the ability to rally around one common idea," Warren says. "In our industry's case, it's diversity to reflect the consumers that we serve."

But advertising veteran and minority Carol H. Williams, who has owned her agency since 1986, worries that a black person in the White House could motivate companies to maintain status quo.