Ad Assoc president Bellini: ‘shortage of talent is worrying everyone’

The Advertising Association president Alessandra Bellini has announced initiatives to tackle the talent crisis and diversity issues in the industry in her introductory speech to the RENEW 2022 conference today.

She announced a Talent Taskforce that will be aligned with its diversity initiative All In  which aims to assess how it can better attract and retain talent and better represent the diversity of its audience.

Bellini told delegates: “The shortage of talent is worrying everyone in the industry. We are struggling to recruit from a truly diverse talent pool and we are also struggling to retain talent.”

The Talent Taskforce has commissioned UK advertising thinktank Credos to research how the advertising industry compares to others as a career choice.

As a nod to her role as chief customer officer at Tesco, Bellini also added “a shopping list” to make the industry more attractive to new hires.

Bellini also revealed the next three steps of All In action plan which are to improve the experience and representation of women, Asian talent and older talent.

This was coordinated with WACL, Media for All and 40 Over Forty and joins previous actions focussed on black, disabled and working class talent.

For each group, there are resources on the Advertising Association’s website such as the Flexible First checklist,  the All In Asian working group and All In’s shared experience’s policy.

Companies that can show they have completed these actions will be awarded ‘All In Champion’ status this summer and All In is running free sessions providing guidance on how to complete each action.

There will be another phase of the action plan revealed in spring to coincide with the first anniversary of the All In Census and the next set of actions will look at LGBTQ+, mental health and physical disability.