Shining A Spotlight On The AAPI Dream
It’s the first AAPI Heritage Month that One East, Martin’s new AAPI Employee Resource Group, is celebrating. So as a group, we decided to kick this month off by peeling back the layers surrounding our roles as AAPI community members in advertising. We’re living what we like to call the AAPI Dream. It’s a distinction from the traditional American Dream, which brought many AAPI immigrants from our parents’ generation to the U.S. as they pursued better economic opportunities. Because of this, many AAPI elders pushed their kids to pursue more surefire careers like medicine and engineering (a trend which has also fed several misinformed stereotypes). However, the AAPI Dream is the byproduct of the vastly different circumstances today’s younger AAPI generations face. We now know it’s possible to have a creative career and be successful.
The problem with that? It can be tough to follow a dream when you don’t see very many people that look like you living it.
AAPI representation in the media is dismal, to say the least — only 3% of us feel represented in ads. That makes sense, as we also have the lowest level of representation within the advertising industry: Only 6% of advertisers identify as AAPI. Combine these stats, and you’ve got the worst data point of all: 42% of people polled in the U.S. can't name a single prominent Asian-American. In ALL of culture. To expand that number out for perspective, that’s like saying roughly 140 million Americans can't even name Jackie Chan (who was the second place response at 11%). In light of the unprecedented volume of hate crimes and violence against the AAPI community right now, it’s clear that our community is in need of visibility now more than ever.
One East’s response? The AAPI Dreamlight. Using Martin’s Visibility Brief as a blueprint, we created a guide spotlighting the most exciting AAPI names in culture. The best part? The guide’s curated lists of prominent AAPI names in fields like music, film, sports and fashion is meant to be shared throughout the industry to boost overall representation.
At Martin, our mission is to fight invisibility. This comprehensive, first-of-its-kind resource brings us one step closer to accomplishing that. We want this list to serve as a reminder to our fellow community members that the AAPI Dream is attainable — keep chasing. And we want this list to not only raise awareness about AAPI talent within other communities, but to also create real change via increased AAPI representation in ads, partnerships and collaborations. This guide stems from the belief and confidence that we can do better as an industry, together.
We’ve witnessed the benefits of prioritizing community visibility here at Martin. Sure, it’s brought us awards and business growth, but even more importantly, it’s resulted in moments where often marginalized communities finally feel seen. For OREO’s 110th birthday celebration, we captured the sweet spirit of a Filipina woman that embodies the love of grandmothers everywhere. And to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with UPS, we partnered with artist Mojo Wang to create limited-edition UPS boxes and launched a matching AR experience on Instagram with creator Matthew Chen.
We know we can still do more. We all can. That’s our hope for The AAPI Dreamlight — to spark the momentum that will drive our industry toward a more representative, diverse and equitable future. So we’ll leave you with one last question:
How will you support the AAPI Dream this month and after?
