Oberland agency confronts bias with new videos; conducts wage-gap audit
In the first episode of "Mad Men," ad agency exec Roger Sterling drags David Cohen, the only Jewish person at the company, out of the mailroom to pitch to Menken's department store. He doesn't get to speak. He's just there to make the client "feel comfortable."
That kind of tokenism is less naked these days, but it's still a familiar situation for many minorities of all kinds, pulled into meetings or focus groups for the sake of optics or to meet the letter but not the spirit of diversity quotas. The scenario plays out in a new PSA from creative agency Oberland. Two self-congratulatory executives pull an Asian-American coworker into a pitch for Tokyo Steakhouse. One of the many problems with that approachshe's Chinese, not Japanese.