#DiverseVoices at Cannes Lions 2018

Diversity & Inclusion in Advertising

Meet Temi Coker and Laura Zalenga, our Creative Residents at Cannes Lion 2018

The conversation around diversity and inclusion (D&I) has reached a fever pitch, especially in advertising. We’ve seen enough campaigns from brands that have either come across tone deaf or just flat out get D&I wrong — and in a world where companies want to make great experiences to really connect with their customers, there’s no room for error. So how should brands approach this challenging topic in their advertising and marketing?

At Cannes Lions 2018, we reached out directly to the creative and advertising community to follow up on our Creativity’s Diversity Disconnect Report (November 2017), to get their thoughts not only on the importance of D&I in advertising campaigns, but also in the makeup of the teams that conceptualize and execute them.

We feel the advertising industry, as the face of brands to the public, has a duty to take the topic of D&I head on. We’ve all had these conversations with colleagues in our team meetings and board rooms, and we all have opinions on where the industry needs to lead.

We were on the ground in Cannes, France with two of our Creative Residents, Laura Zalenga and Temi Coker — who snapped and designed #DiverseVoices portraits, asking young creatives at Cannes Lions to share their take on questions, such as what perspectives are missing in the advertising industry today, and what can advertising be more inclusive of? The final portraits were shared with the people who took part, and on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook channels.

See Laura and Temi’s work in the Spark page collage

https://spark.adobe.com/page/Y1SCvIpE1pBlF/

Do you have a take on diversity in advertising? Share your thoughts with us on social using hashtag #DiverseVoices.