NEW YORK -- (SPW) --

Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) hosted the company’s 11th Inclusion Awards program today, live in New York City, with a national webcast reaching employees in offices across the United States. The event was co-sponsored by MERGE, the umbrella group for IPG’s Business Resource Groups, and will honor nine agencies and two individuals from IPG’s global network who have shown leadership in advancing the company’s goal of being one of the world’s most diverse and inclusive companies. 

“This year’s awards ceremony is taking place at an important moment in IPG’s history,” noted Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO of IPG. “We have achieved sustainable industry-leading financial performance and our agencies have established their undeniable creative excellence with record performance at Cannes. Further, we’re already realizing the benefits of our transformational acquisition of Acxiom, which stands at the forefront of ethics and capabilities in the data and analytics space. In short, IPG’s business success is evidence that it makes sense to prioritize investing in diversity and inclusion. Acknowledging that we do have a long way to go, the progress we have made over the past 15 years has impacted our cultures and improved our ability to attract top talent. It’s truly exciting to take a moment to celebrate our progress,” he continued.

The program included remarks from keynote speaker, Professor and Author Scott E. Page.  Heide Gardner, IPG’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, remarks that “Page’s  work shows the value of encouraging teams with critical masses of diversity. According to his research, developing such teams helps ensure depth in cognitive diversity as we work to solve complex problems and innovate. His robust scholarship and quantitative work includes a mathematical theorem proving a possible ‘diversity bonus’ showing that diverse teams are much more likely to find solutions that move businesses and brands forward, satisfy extant customers and also attract new buyers."

This year’s competition reflected refined judging criteria and a record number of submissions, almost double the number received last year, with a total of 132 across the various categories. The judging was done by more than 200 jury members who volunteered their time – from agencies in several countries on three continents.

“It’s great that submissions this year were at the highest level we’ve seen since the inception of the awards,” noted Philippe Krakowsky, EVP, Chief Strategy and Talent Officer of IPG and Chairman and CEO of IPG Mediabrands.“ This year’s winners show the effectiveness of taking a step back to evaluate and make informed plans for DEI activities, as well as to measure outcomes of those activities and share them transparently with employees. When people understand what their organizations are trying to accomplish and why, based on data, it’s much easier to earn credibility – and to get buy-in to aligned business outcomes. Over the years, we’ve refined the criteria we use to assess entries, so we’re seeing very exciting programs that are thoughtfully designed to achieve specific outcomes. Of course, there’s still much work to be done, so we have to be more intentional with allocating time and resources to all of our DEI efforts. This year’s awards are part of laying the groundwork for that next level action,” he continued.

In support of IPG’s work with The UN Women’s Unstereotype Alliance, IPG added a new award category this year, the Unstereotyped Creative Award. Michael Roth serves as a Vice-Chair of the Alliance, a thought and action platform that seeks to eradicate harmful gender-based stereotypes in media and advertising content. The Unstereotyped Creative Award recognizes breakthrough, intentional creative work and storytelling of all kinds that counters biased social norms and stereotypes that contribute to marginalization, limited human rights and/or equal opportunity on the basis of gender identity, race/ethnicity, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, class or caste, religion, skin tone, body type and other stigmatized aspects of identity. The first recipient of the Unstereotyped Creative Award is m:united//McCann for their Microsoft client work, “Reindeer Games.”

The full list of 2019 IPG honorees is below:

• Community Impact – Jack Morton
• Most Effective Targeted Campaign – m:united//McCann
• Unstereotyped Creative Award – m:united//McCann
• Outstanding Business Results Through Inclusion – The Martin Agency
• Best Internal Communications Program – Campbell Ewald
• Inclusive Talent Initiatives – Golin
• Inclusion Campaign of the Year – FCB New Zealand
• Inclusion Ally of the Year – Amaya Adams, Marketing Associate, Corporate Marketing, Golin
• Inclusive Leadership Award – Sabrina Prince, SVP, Client Services Directory, FCB Health Europe
• Most Inclusive Climate of the Year – Orion Worldwide
• Agency Inclusion Vanguard – MRM//McCann

About Interpublic
Interpublic is values-based, data-fueled, and creatively-driven. Major global brands include Acxiom, Craft, FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding), FutureBrand, Golin, Huge, Initiative, Jack Morton, MAGNA, McCann, Momentum, MRM//McCann, MullenLowe Group, Octagon, R/GA, UM and Weber Shandwick. Other leading brands include Avrett Free Ginsberg, Campbell Ewald, Carmichael Lynch, Deutsch, Hill Holliday, ID Media and The Martin Agency. For more information, please visit www.interpublic.com.

About MERGE
MERGE is IPG's umbrella group for its five Business Resource Groups (BRGs). The BRGs foster cultural awareness, career development, networking, mentoring and business opportunities. MERGE’s five BRGs include the Asian Heritage Group (AHG), Black Employee Network (BEN), IPGLBT, Hispanic/Latino Heritage Group (SOMOS) and Women’s Leadership Network (WLN). BRGs are inclusive groups open to all IPG and agency team members. For more information, please visit http://merge.interpublic.com.

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