Time to Nike-ify DEI

“You can’t win, so win," is the provocation offered by Nike’s new ad. Against the rollback (sorry, “sunsetting”) of DEI goals, it feels like a bloody good option. 

Donald Trump has been in the White House for all of five minutes, but already his executive orders have the world in a tailspin. In particular “Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity”, which includes penalties for corporate DEI initiatives, has already had an impact on agencies in the US and the UK.

The body of the order doubles down on the rhetoric we have heard from the president in recent weeks about the alleged consequences of inclusive action. Leaving that aside, the meat of the motion – to prioritise merit over all else – warrants some scrutiny. 

On the surface, meritocracy is a thing we can all buy into. As the executive order pulls out, "aptitude, hard work, and determination" are what businesses need. Sign me up, those are the people I want to work with too.

But when we talk merit, in the absence of context, what we mean is visibility. 

Visible signs that the merit exists: a shelf of awards, a big reputation, a presence on a platform. Those visible signs are often there with good reason, especially when they relate to very singular talent – a gorgeous piece of design, a line, a sharp piece of thinking. But in our industry, most of what we do, we do as a team. And you get to be part of that team for lots of reasons, talent yes, but time, place, connections, friendships and luck. 

Meritocracy, as a fact and a philosophy, falls in and out of fashion. 

It was conceived as a satire on society by Michael Young in his 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. Since then, politicians, business leaders and educationalists have adopted the idea without the original irony. In his brilliant essay for Inside Story, "The fall of the meritocracy", Dean Ashenden sums up the obvious challenge with meritocracy thus: “Meritocracy’s incessant talk about equality and opportunity convinces people that if they’re having an unsatisfying life it’s their own fault; meritocracy is a powerful social legitimation device."

It creates the illusion of individual agency around success and lack of success alike. But merit can only be the stick by which we are measured if merit isn’t accrued through advantage. And it absolutely is. 

Sixty years on from President Lyndon Johnson’s now rescinded anti-discrimination order 11246, we have to believe that enough has changed for this not to be a square one moment. 

The IPA census data shows that we have made some progress: women now make up almost 40% of C-suite roles in UK agencies; around a quarter of people are from non-white backgrounds. Yes, the gender and ethnicity pay gaps are an embarrassing shit show, but we are measuring it, we know what we need to do to fix it and we have the critical mass of motivated people in places of power to fix it. 

DEI is taking a hammering – as a piece of language and as a focus. But the facts remain that our businesses do better when they are diverse, and our work lands better when it is the product of a representative populace.

And, quite the contrary to the idea that DEI has filled rolls with less capable talent, huge swathes of talent are still overlooked and unseen because the system has been built that way and dismantling it has taken longer than it should. 

But it is being dismantled. The dial is moving. Now is not the time to throw up our hands in despair, it’s time to flex our muscle. Let’s stop wrapping DEI in the language of limitations.

You can’t win, so win. 

Merit isn’t just a Trump card. Merit, like “ambition” and “bossiness”, is ripe for a reclaim. Let’s get tough on how we hire and who we platform. Let’s be immoveable on hiring “the right man for the job” before we have made sure that we 100% know we have met a range of the right people for it; let’s shine a brighter light on talent that exists away from centre stage; let’s stop and think that when we riff about brilliant people, if that riffing is one dimensional, then maybe so are we. 

Let’s actually do the stuff we write in our policies, our pledges, on our awards submissions. If we do that, things will change faster and with such volition that we can out run the regressive actions being imposed off our shores. 

We know what to do to make our businesses fit for the talent we need to compete and grow. 2025 is not the year for efforts and initiatives, it’s a time to take action.  

Jo Arden is incoming group chief strategy officer at Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO