Minnesota college graduates looking to make ad ndustry more diverse

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. — Whether it's TV, print or the plan of your hand, ads are everywhere.

A vibrant yet not-so-diverse behind-the-scenes industry, the ad agency, Folklore, is working to buck the trend.

"It's important for us that the work we do is representative of not just one group of people but a lot of different communities," said Lorenz Esguerra.

Esguerra, whose family is from the Philippines, is the CEO of Minnesota-based Folklore.

"I was basically a child of immigrants, and at the end of the day, didn't really have an idea of what marketing and advertising work was all about," Esguerra said.

He's marketing the industry to young people like Jen Nguyen and Ummulkheyr Muhumed who are part of Folklore and Brand Labs' summer interns.

"Through this internship, we have more and more people who bring to the work of marketing and advertising the backgrounds, the lived experiences, that allow them to say, 'Here's the types of people we should bring to this or hire for these commercials.'" Esguerra said.

The interns have been working hard on campaigns like one for Mall of America, where more people from more backgrounds are included.

"It's important to be able to relate to something before you really connect with it, especially when it comes to products," Muhumed said.

So the recent U of M grad is working with another U of M grad to represent inside the industry, and in the work they output.

"Just more representation so people see that this is important. We need to have more diversity," Nguyen said. "My dream is to have my own agency, to inspire other people that look like me and continue this movement of diversity and change and changing the voice and face of this industry."

So now these motivated students are teaching the industry.

"I think at the end of the day it allowed us to open our hearts and minds to experiences that we personally didn't have before and we're able to incorporate their thoughts and POVs in how we do our work, which has been phenomenal in terms of the work that we were able to do," Esguerra said.