Inclusion in the age of the glass box brand

The truth is, all businesses, irrespective of their age, sector and employee make up struggle with diversity and inclusion, and need help on their journey to ensure that the behaviours, biases and cultures that result in exclusions, discriminations and ‘we think’ are eliminated.

It is easy to get exasperated by the fact that industries led by such talented, creative and vibrant individuals can leave so many employees feeling like they don’t have a place.

Yet we need to feel inspired by all of the many examples of the positive steps individuals and companies are taking in order to make a meaningful impact on shifting the inclusion dial. Just the fact that the Diversity in Marketing & Advertising Summit (DIMA) was so well attended by so many glittering marketing and advertising brands is in itself grounds for hope.

The key is action – for all of us. What is each of us doing today to include and engage the teams that we work with?

The rationale is familiar.

At DIMA, I spoke about a concept originally reported in TrendWatching of brands no longer being ‘black boxes’ carefully crafted to be neatly engaging and alluring for consumers.

Once, consumers interacted with brands only through micro-managed advertising which was purposefully selected to portray a certain image.

We no longer live in the age of the black box: the walls we built to protect our brands are now transparent, and the actions and behaviours of every individual within our organisations are under the spotlight. The experiences of a single person are enough to topple the leadership of some of the world’s largest companies, as demonstrated by Susan Fowler, the whistle-blower who exposed a deeply concerning culture and record of behaviours at the leadership levels of Uber.

Glass box brands means accountability does not rest squarely upon the shoulders of the C-Suite: everyone is a leader.

We live in a world where 70% of millennials and Gen Z are more likely to base purchasing and loyalty decisions on brands which appeal to their values, so never has it been more important to ensure that inclusion permeates our messaging and corporate culture.

When 65% of customers tell us that they would feel more favourable about a brand which reflects diversity in its advertising, we have to see this as a wake-up call.

Diverse advertising and marketing is only possible where there are diverse teams empowered to speak up and share their real experiences, where necessary, to challenge brand assumptions.

So much of advertising is based on stereotypes. Even today, The Times published an interview with Rachel Pashley, an advertising executive who has smashed the traditional definitions of female tribes used to create campaigns. It said, “In her 20-plus years working in advertising, Rachel Pashley lost count of the times clients informed her that they wanted to design a campaign for “busy working mums”. “No one ever mentioned busy working fathers,” Pashley says.”

Perhaps not surprising then that “research by Enterprise IG showed that 91 per cent of women believe that advertisers do not understand them and 58 per cent are positively annoyed at how they are targeted.”

The impetus for inclusion in advertising and marketing is not just about how agencies and marketing departments behave with their people. It’s also about the aspirational, entertaining, deliberately engrossing content that is the product of these departments.

A 2014 study found that on average, children between the ages of two and eight spend around two hours a day with screen media. Neuroscience tells us that the images that we are exposed to on a daily basis unlock neural pathways, which over time reinforce stereotypes, and that all this happens unconsciously.

Present a young woman with unrealistic advertising images of women day in, day out, and that will be her reality.  Diversity and inclusion is an enormous social responsibility.

Brands provide leadership in a society that mirrors itself on what is seen in the media. Businesses change our society by how they treat their employees. Brands change the world by how they treat their customers.

Events like DIMA are designed to help us all take action. So what should we do?

Here are my key takeaways:

Focus on a few key efforts and stop focusing on company-wide change as it may be too big. Start small, set little targets, and focus on shifting the dial an inch today, then an inch tomorrow, with one individual or one team. What gets measured gets done.

Go beyond your usual suspects and include everyone in the change process. Engaging men to champion inclusion is essential to making a difference. A study by BCG found that 96% of gender diversity initiatives report progress when men are involved in comparison to 30% which are driven by women alone. Everyone is diverse, and diversity includes everyone.

Live outside of your comfort zone. Be a disruptor, a challenger and an amplifier. Don’t go with the flow — disrupt the status quo. Being an inclusive leader is not easy: it requires courage and determination.

But when has this industry ever backed down from a challenge?

Creative and advertising businesses are turning to diversity and inclusion as the next step in their business journey.

Some companies are already planning change. At GDP, we have recently had an interest in D&I workshops and seminars from advertising, media, and publishing groups. We have also advised many leading brands on how to ensure they promote a positive message in relation to diversity and inclusion.

Given the often “anti-establishment” and free image of the creative sector – people of all appearances dressed however they wish in offices that look more like a club than a corporation – it may come as a surprise to hear that the data shows this sector is neither very diverse nor very inclusive.

To lead change, many of its senior leaders are making statements about the importance of diversity and inclusion.

A good example is a recent article in Campaign which quoted Interpublic CEO Michael Roth reflecting on diversity: “While he lauded the progress made in increasing the number of women in leadership, he said there needs to be more of an effort to improve the representation of African-American women. Just 1 per cent of female agency leaders are black women. ‘That’s insane given who the marketplace is.’”

It’s not just the agencies. Brands are also adapting and creating stories in their advertising and communications that include a wider, more diverse audience in a truly authentic way. The results have won awards and are genuinely impactful – no tokenism here.

The result is that through these stories and images, our media is now representing society more fully and this is an important next step given the role that it plays in shaping attitudes.

The potential for change is very exciting.

And of course, there is a ‘but’.

The journey a business needs to take to change its culture to become truly diverse and inclusive is tougher than either making speeches or creating ads that feature a wider spectrum of society as they truly are.

Becoming a diverse and inclusive business almost always means fundamental change. It’s not about getting a team of consultants in who create a report. It’s not about having training programmes and workshops.

The type of programmes that GDP implements are focused on helping companies to see the real barriers to diversity and inclusion in their business. Some of these are “hard” factors: systems, policies, processes, work requirements. Others are “soft” factors around behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs.

The process that is required to confront and make the commitment to change can be challenging and requires a large personal as well as corporate commitment – I describe it as a “cold shower”. It can be unpleasant, uncomfortable and painful depending on many factors including the outlook of the people involved.

Support is essential to make this process vital. Imagine the effort and commitment required to double the percentage of black agency leaders from just a meager one to two per cent. No company or sector can do this alone: help and nurture are essential to make it happen, as well as leadership.

Or as we like to call it at GDP, the comforting “warm bath” after the shock of the “cold shower”.

The “warm bath” is designed to make the process of becoming a diverse and inclusive company as easy as possible for organisations. Otherwise, there is the risk that it just won’t happen. That other priorities will take over and nothing will change, despite the speeches and the good intentions.