Boston University Diversity and Inclusion in Advertising Comparative Analysis

Over the Spring and Summer months in 2020, many brands – in the US and around the world – have rushed to align themselves with and make public statements about diversity and racial justice. This assignment requires you to do a comparative analysis of advertising agencies and corporations and determine whether they are offering empty platitudes or meaningful actions.

• Investigate the websites of 2 advertising agencies (WPP vs ???) and 2 corporate brands (Supreme vs Amazon) for their mission and/or vision statements. Are they publicly available? Do they address diversity and inclusion? You may need to seek out the sites of their parent companies or agency holding companies.
• Have these agencies and corporate brands made public statements (perhaps on their social media properties or in paid advertisements) regarding anti-racism or racial justice? What have their messages been? Have their words been met with any concrete actions? How has the public reacted to their words and/or actions?
• Which agencies and brands are doing a better job and which are not? Explain your conclusion.
• Carefully paraphrase the words of others or use quotation marks when quoting directly.
• Be sure to provide hyperlinks or citations for all sources of information.