New York's Bravest - A Whole New Marketing Strategy

The 'Be a Hero' approach, from last year's campaign to recruit more FDNY ems workers.
"MILLIONS DEPEND ON ME"
"MY OFFICE IS THE STREET"
"MY WORK IS YOU"

In 2006, after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations of discrimination in its hiring practices (the FDNY is 91% white), the FDNY made some changes, including decreasing the college credit requirement and increasing the training period. According to The Chief, Mayor Bloomberg claimed:

The changes in the hiring criteria were made after the Department of Citywide Administrative Services hired an "outside expert" to advise it on ways to better reach minority candidates.

But he was quick to add that the FDNY was not "dumbing down" its force in the name of diversity.

"I am adamantly opposed to programs that reduce hiring standards. This enhances our standards, because it will get more people to take the test, and the more that take the test, the better applicant pool the city has to draw from," Mayor Bloomberg stated. "At no time are we going to reduce the level of protection afforded to the city."

DCAS spokesman Mark Daly said the decision to change the hiring criteria was not made lightly. "The requirements for Firefighter Exam 6019 were based on an appropriate job analysis conducted by specialists at DCAS. The job analysis included interviews and surveys of hundreds of firefighters, their supervisors and trainers, and consultation with experts in testing methodology," he explained.

Could the "outside expert" have been students from Columbia? According to Columbia News, after studies made by 2nd year MPA students, the FDNY decided to launch a new ad campaign in the summer of 2006, "emphasizing the flexibility and benefits of the firefighter's lifestyle.":

Commenting on the SIPA students' findings, Eimicke said that their most startling discovery had been the level of confusion that exists in the general public about firefighting as a profession. "Part of the reason for minorities not applying is that they feel unwanted -- it's a white male club. But in our focus groups and surveys, when we asked questions leading to that conclusion, the vast majority of respondents thought the force was diverse."

Eimicke said the studies recommended emphasizing the salary and benefits in the ad campaign and, more importantly, finding ways to "put the risks in perspective." Students developed survey tools and conducted interviews and focus groups, he explained.

The New York Times expanded on 2006's ad campaign:

Gone are the images from the last recruiting campaign, in 2002, which portrayed firefighters as noble and heroic. In their place are kinder, gentler images aimed at promoting the benefits and flexibility of a firefighter's lifestyle — a firefighter in civilian dress spending time with her daughter in a park, lieutenants at a backyard barbecue and firefighters playing basketball in a gym.

"The point is that life in the Fire Department is not just fighting fires," said Peter Arnell of the Arnell Group, the SoHo agency that has donated its services for fire-safety and minority-recruiting campaigns. "It's a great career with incredible opportunities for advancement." Fire Department officials discussed the advertising campaign yesterday during a City Council hearing on the persistent lack of diversity among the ranks of firefighters, who are overwhelmingly white men. The department is far less integrated that the city's other uniformed services.

However this ad campaign must not have been as successful as they'd hoped since last year the DOJ investigation of the FDNY turned into a lawsuit:

On May 21, 2007, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the City of New York, charging it with discriminatory hiring practices against black and Latino potential firefighters. The lawsuit is in response to the Center for Constitutional Rights’ two Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges of discrimination, one filed on behalf of the Vulcan Society in 2002, and the other filed in 2004 on behalf of a number of individual black and Latino candidates.

The case can be summed up in one statistic: when the first charge was filed in 2002, New York City's fire department was 2.9 percent black. The numbers have not improved at all since then, despite the fact that the City has had five years to try to remedy the problem. As of March 2007, the FDNY included 335 black firefighters out of a total of approximately 11,500 firefighters, still barely more than 2.9 percent. New York City as a whole, by comparison, is 27 percent black.

The Department of Justice filed the lawsuit this morning after four years of investigation by both the EEOC and the DOJ confirmed the validity of CCR's complaints, which centered on the written examination used to rank candidates. The central issue in the case is whether the skills measured by the FDNY's written exam have any relationship to skills necessary to be a good firefighter-the EEOC and DOJ have concluded that they do not. CCR contends that there is no reason the City should be using this test to hire firefighters and that continuing to use it is against the law.

In a press conference in December 2007 the FDNY claims they're now "more diverse" after the percentage of minority top scoring FDNY test takers more than doubled, as reported in Black Star News:

But despite what this year’s FDNY exam results indicate, some minority firefighters are not yet convinced that the FDNY is making significant progress in diversifying New York City’s Fire Department.

John Coombs, president of the Vulcan Society, the fraternal organization of Black firefighters of the FDNY, says progress has to be judged based on the number of minorities assigned to firehouses as firefighters, not those who pass the exam.
“Don’t jump for joy just because a lot of people pass an exam,” Coombs says in a phone interview with The Black Star. “The real true test is how many of them (minorities) actually get to the academy. That’s the test.”

Bloomberg, however, still attributes the rise in minority test takers to 2006's new ad campaign:

“The Fire Department’s unprecedented investment in recruiting has paid big dividends, which will now allow us to take a major step toward making sure our uniformed workforce reflects the people they serve each and every day,” Bloomberg said.

But that's old news. Let's talk about 2008, starting with an image from the FDNY's popular calendar:

Mr. December - Prentis Jackson, the token black man from the 2008 FDNY calendar.

Let's face it sex sells. An idea the FDNY must have taken to heart because just check out this exciting marketing strategy which we glimpsed today while walking around Bed-Stuy:

Their new ad reminds me of another group of diverse men in uniform:

Who were the FDNY's 'outside consultants' for their ad campaign this time? MTV interns?