A hall of mirrors

We work in an amazing industry. The creativity, the entrepreneurism and the culture all make advertising a unique job. But we do have a problem with recruitment. Agencies are often like a hall of mirrors, where we walk around and see reflections of ourselves.

A lot of us come from the same backgrounds, the same universities and the same art colleges. Creativity, however, isn’t about your background. It’s not about your education, or having a minimum of 1-2 years industry experience before you can even start work. It’s about your brain. It’s about how you think.

Taking responsibility

Diversity has rightfully been lifted to one of the most important issues on the industry agenda - and it’s certainly something we all need to address. This is not us pointing fingers. We know that we aren’t perfect either. Nobody is. But we are trying to change things up. After all, looking into mirrors all day isn’t going to challenge and push us, nor will it help us craft truly insightful strategies or great creative work.

And from a business perspective, diversity just makes sense. According to our friends at McKinsey, businesses with a diverse team are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry medians. Take that to your finance department!

As an independent agency, it’s easy to sit back and let the lack of diversity be a problem for the multinational network giants with large HR departments and set hiring structures. But at Forever Beta, we do not want to close our eyes to reality. We believe any agency can make a positive impact on the diversity issue - and we want to be at the forefront.

Making diversity part of our DNA

On their own initiative, a group of truly passionate members of staff has set up a dedicated task force, which will put a spotlight on diversity in our agency. Fully embracing the bottom-up approach, our management team has given the group freedom to assess our business and ways of working. The ultimate purpose is to find the truth, whether we like it or not, and come up with an actual diversity strategy, along with a plan on how to implement it.

The task force has been looking at diversity in every sense of the word. Who we look for. What we look for. But also, where we look for it.

Moving forward, cognitive diversity will be one of our main priorities. We want to make sure that our people view the world in different ways. The diverse perspectives could come from time spent in other industries - or perhaps in another country or even continent. We want contrasting personalities under one roof. We want clashes! Clashes make us grow. They make us understand. They open a door to previously unseen opportunities.

Background diversity will be another priority. We are tired of glancing into mirrors every day. We want different ethnicities. We want the young and the old - and everything in between. Whether you went to Oxbridge or the school of life, we want you! Whatever God (if any) you pray to, you are welcome here! We want Forever Beta to be a place where all walks of life come together to bring to life the best damn advertising and innovation the world has seen.

Taking the first of many steps

We want to avoid the classic trap of trying to cover every front in one go or too soon. Therefore, we are starting by taking small steps. There’s nothing wrong with small steps.

To kickstart our dedication to diversity, we took part in Advertising Unlocked, which is an annual event by the IPA that gives students a chance to see what this mysterious agency life is about, with the purpose of encouraging them to consider a career in advertising.

We opened our Shoreditch gates to 24 students from Cardinal Wiseman in Ealing. Not counting the pizza munching, they spent about 4 hours with us, learning from our teams. The students had sessions with account handlers who told them all about how to deal with client feedback. Our planners told the youngsters about strategy and showed them a few world-class campaigns. The design department filled up a room with boards, showing everything from photography to illustrations and back again to web design. Our creatives left the laptops behind and challenged the new generation of talent to draw posters for movies they made up from scratch. And lastly, we invited a few of our partners and clients to come in and tell their side of the story. All in the name of giving the students an accurate image of what advertising really is.

After sending the students on their way with a goodie bag containing everything from t-shirts to advice on how to get into the industry, we all looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Advertising will be in good hands. So many good ideas. So many bright minds. So much passion for their individual crafts.

We hope that we will get the chance to take on a few of them as placements. There’s undeniably a lot of potential in these young people - and we want to nurture it.

Looking ahead

Advertising Unlocked was just the beginning. We are not done yet. In fact, we will never be done. For us, diversity is not a PR campaign or a back-slapping exercise. No, this isn’t a news story for the industry. We are selfish - it’s for us. We need diversity!

It’s essential that we do it right. Knowing that we can’t change everything in the blink of an eye, we consider this a long-term investment for the agency. Over the next couple of years, we will be looking to explore how we can train our team in unconventional and different ways. We will not have people hiding behind theory and books. We want to go into the real world, meet real people and learn whatever may be thrown our way.

So, here’s our pledge. We will hunt for relentless improvement. We will break down the walls of our echo chambers. And most importantly, we will shatter the mirrors!

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Alan Fayolle is Group Managing Director at Forever Beta, a creative and innovation company that is driven by relentless improvement, creating an exciting and responsive environment for talent and ideas to thrive. It delivers strategic and creative solutions for the world’s most progressive brands, where the answer is rarely pre-prescribed with clients including the Co-op, Etihad, Camden Town Brewery, RAC and Google. It also invests in young start-ups and creates its own brands through Forever Beta Ventures.