Following a recent study that exposed widespread racial discrimination in America’s advertising industry, the NAACP sent a letter last week to Procter & Gamble Co. Chairman A.G. Lafley, urging the giant advertiser to incorporate more diversity in its executive ranks.

The NAACP also asked Procter and Gamble to meet with NAACP leaders as soon as possible to discuss racial bias.

"African-Americans have worked in advertising since the modern American advertising industry emerged more than 100 years ago," the NAACP letter said. "Yet, as employment discrimination has sharply diminished across the American labor market over recent decades, systemic barriers to equal opportunity in this $31 billion a year industry have remained largely intact."

"Racial discrimination is 38 percent worse in the advertising industry than in the overall U.S. labor market, and that ‘discrimination divide’ between advertising and other U.S. industries is more than twice as large today as it was 30 years ago," the letter said.

The NAACP’s letter comes after the Madison Avenue Project study, "Research Perspectives on Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry," which found "dramatic levels of racial discrimination throughout the industry against African-American professionals within pay, hiring, promotions, assignments and other areas."

The study was commissioned by a coalition of legal, civil rights and industry leaders who created the Madison Avenue Project. Civil rights attorney Cyrus Mehri, the project leader, called its findings "absolutely astonishing in this day and age." 

Darlene Taylor, a public relations strategist who has worked with the NAACP on several initiatives, told BlackAmericaWeb.com that the nation’s large companies must work harder to promote diversity.

"The number of minorities in top management and executive positions in the corporate world, in general, are a small percentage," Taylor said.

She said many companies have already targeted diversity initiatives in their recruiting efforts and often includes increasing their support to minority students in colleges and on black college campuses.

"Additionally, they partner with organizations that work to encourage greater minority participation in the workforce," Taylor added. "Stronger recruiting partnerships, scholarships to minority students, internships and practical study experience that lead to jobs - real, meaningful, career-aspiration fulfilling jobs – would help."

The NAACP said that in addition to Procter & Gamble, which spent $5.2 billion on advertising in 2007, the nation’s oldest civil rights group also issued letters to AT&T, Verizon Communications, General Motors Corp., Time Warner, Ford Motor Company, GlaxoSmith Kline, Johnson & Johnson, Walt Disney Co., Unilever, Sprint Nextel Corp., General Electric Co., Toyota Motor Corp., Chrysler, Sony Corp., L’Oreal, Sears Holding Company, Kraft Foods, Bank of America, Nissan Motor Co., Macy’s, Anheuser Busch InBev, Honda Motor Co., Viacom and Berkshire, the 25 highest budget advertisers in 2007. Together, these 25 firms spent $52.6 billion on advertising in 2007.

"The initial emphasis in the Madison Avenue Project is the Big Four holding companies that dominate the industry - Omnicon, WPP, Interpublic and Publicis … [We] seek your support as the NAACP works to fight discrimination in the advertising industry," the NAACP letter stated.

The letter further cites specific findings including:

· Black college graduates working in advertising earn $.80 for every dollar earned by their equally qualified White counterparts; based on national demographic data, 9.6 percent of advertising managers and professionals would be expected to be African-Americans. The actual percentage in 2008 was 5.3 percent, representing a difference of 7,200 executive-level jobs.

· About 16 percent of large advertising firms employ no black managers or professionals.

· Black managers and professionals in the industry are only one-tenth as likely as their White counterparts to earn $100,000 a year.

· Blacks are only 62 percent as likely as their White counterparts to work in the powerful "creative" and "client contact" functions .....

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