By Mark S. Robinson
252 pages, hardcover, $25.99
Published by Alliance Books
blackonmadisonave.com

The underbelly of Madison Avenue’s Mad Men era is on full display in Black on Madison Avenue, a new memoir documenting Mark S. Robinson’s 40-plus years as an advertising veteran and man of color navigating a predominantly white industry. The memoir comes at a notable time—three years into the industry’s waning commitments to diversity following the murder of George Floyd. And as the memoir suggests, diversity in the ad industry has been and continues to be a work in progress. Albeit slightly gratuitous at times with celebrity name drops and moments of heroism, Robinson’s book is still a gut punch to the industry, delivering a gritty glimpse into its innerworkings and continual efforts to keep marginalized communities marginalized. As Robinson puts it, advertising has long been labeled as “one of the whitest white-collar professions in America.” Black on Madison Avenue points out that perhaps that’s a feature and not a bug for the industry, with anecdotes of job opportunity snubs, lagging support for multicultural marketing agencies, slashed budgets, lawsuits and microaggressions under advertising’s glass ceiling. That’s not to say the book is 252 pages of finger wagging: throughout it, the author calls attention to the 4A’s Multicultural Advertising Intern Program and the resilience of legacies of influential Black advertisers, including Tom Burrell, Carol H Williams and, of course, Robinson himself. And if any reader thinks of a rebuttal, Robinson’s afterword squashes any excuses the industry makes for itself. Black on Madison Avenue isn’t just a memoir: it’s a calling out and calling in for the ad industry at large. —Kimeko McCoy