Hasta La Creative!

Grey New York has been going full-force in its diversity efforts. Earlier this week at the 4A’s Transformation Conference in Miami, it said it will devote 75 percent of its spending on talent and resources toward creative departments. Late last month, it partnered with the 3% Movement to try to ensure that all work the agency produces reflects diversity. Now Grey is debuting an initiative that aims to tackle both objectives: free ad school.

Last week, 20 creatives recruited from outside the industry began classes at the Famous Academy for Modern Effectiveness, an eight-week, tuition-free portfolio school co-founded by Grey and FindSpark, an inclusion-focused networking site for young professionals. Its goal is to train talented people who might otherwise have been overlooked, or who would have eschewed advertising due to cost or lack of opportunity.

“If we’re honest about one of the barriers to diversity in creative departments, it’s socioeconomic,” says John Patroulis, worldwide chief creative officer at Grey. “College is expensive. Portfolio school is expensive. And then you get your first job, and it’s not high-paying.” Patroulis didn’t go to ad school himself, but the industry is harder to break into now than it was when he began, he says.

Continue reading at AdAge.com