A former Wieden+Kennedy employee says the advertising titan’s bold statement following a week of violence risks concealing deeper issues.
Last week, two black men were killed by police officers, five police officers were killed by a revenge-seeking vigilante, and, to much acclaim, the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy posted a statement on the matter on its home page. In publications from Advertising Week to the Washington Post, the message, which was originally delivered by a black employee to colleagues via an internal email, was applauded after the company’s management team amplified its words by featuring the statement on the company website and promoting it to the press.
