Having fully assimilated, the Harvard-educated ad executive eventually found that reconnecting with her “authentic self” was important in her life.  And, it has been essential in her  career, leading to her role as president of the New York office of Omnicom creative shop TBWA/Chiat/Day.

Interviewing Reyes is Rita Ferro, who credits her identity as a Latina, with her own success. Ferro is President of Disney Advertising Sales.

In this wide ranging conversation, Reyes addresses her agency’s various actions in actualizing diversity and inclusion.  But she says  it’s very much a work in progress.  Hiring diverse employees is not the challenge, it is the need for talent development and mentorship that is often missing, she says

Reyes addresses the of role of creative agencies in changing attitudes around racial bias.  While the advertising industry made important statements after the George Floyd murder, she fears that marketers will become “conversative,” pulling back on”uncomfortable” messages.

This 5-part series abut diversity and inclusion is made possible by a generous contribution to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico from Disney Advertising Sales.

Editor’s Note: Since 2017, I have been been an advocate for this group. Please find the latest video report from San Juan with the Clubs’ president Olga Ramos. You can make a tax deductible contribution right here.

Gracias Rita and Nancy.

“Demand it from your agencies, demand it from your media partners, and threaten to withhold the dollars unless they fulfill that demand, because that’s how the world works,” says the President of TBWA\Chiat\Day NY. “It’s powered entirely by money.”

One of the more widely known industry efforts for accurate portrayals of girls and women in advertising and media is the #SeeHer movement started by the Association of National Advertisers in 2016, the same year Reyes started at TBWA\Chiat\ Day NY. In this interview with Beet.TV, Reyes talks about the need for female influence in the creative process and the agency’s Circle of Women mentoring program that Reyes has spearheaded.

“In marketing, media and advertising we pride ourselves on being a microcosm of the larger world,” Reyes says. “And we can’t pride ourselves on being that microcosm if we actually don’t reflect what the real world looks like. So without that woman’s voice in the creative process or any part of the process, we’re not really being genuine to the mission we have.”

That necessitates not only mentoring younger talent at agencies but looking for different kinds of talent in places agencies have overlooked, according to Reyes, who rose from Managing Director to President of TBWA\Chiat\Day NY in July of this year.

“I don’t think that women, I don’t think women of color, I don’t think they’re all hiding in some secret place that we all haven’t found,” says Reyes. “I think they’re probably right in front of us the entire time but we have to grow them and nurture them and develop them in ways that we haven’t really been doing in the past.”

Going a step further, Reyes advocates “over-hiring” such prospects “because we have to correct the system. In over-hiring, I think if we can mentor these folks and develop them, then we will even it out in a better way.”

The agency’s Circle of Women initiative began after executives asked female employees what they needed and how they felt about being a woman in the business. “Their main feelings were around a lack of voice, a lack of presence and a lack of confidence,” Reyes says.

Circle of Women identified 17 women “on the cusp of leadership” and gave them free executive coaching. In return they were asked to mentor two to three women underneath them “so that in that way we would constantly create this everlasting pipeline of female leaders. The most important thing for me is more than half of the 17 are women of color.”

As for demanding more inclusion from companies with which agencies work, Reyes says, “we have to put our money where our mouth is on the topic.”

You are watching Gender Equality Means Business, a Beet.TV series presented by Meredith Corporation in partnership with #SeeHer. For additional videos from the series, please visit this page.

In this interview with Beet.TV contributor and Furious Corp. CEO Ashley J. Swartz during a break at the Retreat, Reyes acknowledges that there’s been “a pretty sturdy debate” over the role of data when it comes to creating advertising campaigns.

“Specifically, does data prevent creativity from happening because it’s all about measurement or it’s all about numbers? And also, does data take humanity out of the creativity, which is one of the things we always in the industry pride ourselves on,” says Reyes, who is managing director of the advertising agency.

The bottom line for Reyes—who began her career at Ogilvy & Mather and D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles—is that if data are used to inform campaigns from the start as opposed to strictly measuring campaign results, the utility of data is unquestioned.

“We really feel like there are ways for data to inspire the work to be better and to be that much more poignant,” for example “data unlocking creative that would never have been possible without that data.”

To demonstrate how data can inform campaigns, Reyes explained her agency’s work for the postal service in the Netherlands. By examining the type and volume of mail to certain residences, the agency was able to locate people who were most likely to be lonely and encourage the general public to reach out.

“And the point is that they were able to ship some letters to those lonely people to make them feel great over the holiday season,” says Reyes. “But we wouldn’t have known who those people were and really if they were truly lonely people who lived alone if it wasn’t for the fact of data helping us through that example.”

The second campaign involved data not only providing insight and inspiration but becoming the creative itself.

“That’s one of the things that we struggle with a lot in our business,” Reyes says. “An idea can be really beautiful and simple, and then lots of people jump on top of it and mess it up. But sometimes data itself is the story.”

Helsinki has the highest per capita incidence of domestic violence globally. Using 911 data, “We know exactly where those people live,” so over a 48-hour period the agency studied the concentration of calls.

“So really, all we needed to do was put posters and television ads and radio ads in those specific areas, because one of the things that we found out was that when people know other people who are going through a similar experience they are more likely to seek help,” Reyes explains.

She believes “data is at the center of everything we do from now on. But I think it’s more beneficial to think about it in the beginning of any kind of campaign or effort than it is where it’s been today, which is mainly at the end.”

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat in City & Town Hall on June 6, 2018 in New York City. The event and video series are presented by LiveRamp, TiVo, true[X] and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.