Marketing industry launches first-ever global diversity and inclusion census

The first-ever global census of the marketing and advertising industry has now gone live, designed to assess the scale of the diversity challenge facing the profession.

Members of the industry have two weeks (until July 2) to participate and provide socio-demographic data about themselves and perceptions of their workplace. People from across the marketing industry, including brands, agencies, media, tech, consultancies and marketing services providers in 27 countries are being asked to take 15 minutes to fill in the survey which can be accessed here.

The survey will assess where the global advertising and marketing industry is in relation to diversity, equity and inclusion by investigating workforce composition across the industry as well as people’s perception of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, including uniquely their sense of belonging and their perception of progress.

The findings will be presented at leading global industry events in October this year and put into the public domain so that global groups, such as the WFA’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, regional groups such as the one led by EACA in Europe and, critically, local coalitions can ensure their DEI efforts are as focused as possible on perceived shortcomings. A follow up survey will be completed in 18 months’ time to measure progress.

The census is supported by WFA, Campaign, Kantar, GWI, Cannes Lions, Advertising Week, The Effies, the European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA) and the new global agencies association VoxComm, as well as national advertiser associations and their agency counterparts. Other global and European advertising associations supportive of the initiative include the association of European television and radio sales houses (egta), the European Publishers Council (EPC), the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), IAB Europe and the International Council for Advertising Self-Regulation (ICAS). The goal is to generate the largest and most representative sample possible.

“This is an unprecedented act of unity by the global marketing industry,” said Stephan Loerke, WFA CEO. “We are humbled and delighted by the support from our global and regional partners and, critically, from the national advertiser and agency associations – and their partner organisations – who are helping to drive the local samples.”

The initiative builds on work already carried out in the UK as part of the highly acclaimed All In Census with the aim of establishing a tangible baseline for the global industry, which will help inform an action plan for improvement.

National advertiser associations and their agency association counterparts have confirmed participation in the census across a wide variety of countries and territories. The participating markets in this census are Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Greece, the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), Hong Kong SAR, China, India, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and USA.

While national associations and their agency counterparts will be driving the samples at local level with the support of Haymarket’s Campaign magazine in relevant markets, corporate members of WFA and agencies involved in the WFA Diversity and Inclusion Task Force will be driving the initiative top-down via their own employees, clients, partners and marketing supply chains. Supporting organisations include Beiersdorf, BP, Diageo, DDB, Grupo Bimbo, GSK, Havas, Just Eat, m/SIX, Omnicom Media Group, Reckitt, Singapore Tourism Board, TBWA and WPP.