16375: Guide To Inclusive Language Is A Lot Of Talk…

 

Digiday interviewed the Code and Theory Group Director of Inclusive Design and Marketing Strategy—which feels like a wordy replacement title for Human Heat Shield—who presented performative PR including the latest update to Words Up: A Guide to Inclusive Language at Code and Theory.

 

For starters, the guide is now called Beyond Words, probably to broaden the subject matter beyond addressing Black clichés and stereotypes. The revised edition added addiction to the contents, perhaps foreseeing the next segment that will cry discrimination-related victimhood.

 

The guide is accompanied by a certification program—which sounds like code for diversity training—whereby staff can apparently gain cultural competence via annual educational and enlightenment coursework.

 

Not sure why Code and Theory targeted inclusive language in its guide. After all, copy rarely exists without visuals in campaigns and communication. Indeed, most of the PR disasters highlighting cultural cluelessness start with offensive images. And there’s plenty of data showing at least 80% of learning is visual. In short, the staffers participating in the certification program would benefit from receiving something besides 90+ pages of text in a PowerPoint deck.

 

Sorry, but Beyond Words is beyond insufficient for driving meaningful and measurable progress. Just saying.

 

How Code and Theory’s Kirstyn Nimmo vision for inclusion means making it a part of ‘all of our strategies’

 

By Antoinette Siu

 

Language and perception play an important role in shaping culture, diversity and inclusion.

 

Whether working with clients or developing internal changes, diversity, equity and inclusion has become a big part of agencies’ organizational culture. At Stagwell agency Code and Theory, Kirstyn Nimmo, group director of inclusive design and marketing strategy, is leading efforts with its creative director and copywriting team to expand an inclusion practice and training across the agency’s workforce and client base.

 

This month, Code and Theory launched an updated inclusion writing guide and certification program for staff called Beyond Words. Started in October 2022, the current version expands on research and best practices around topics like religion, addiction and sexuality. For example, it discusses how to avoid trivializing substance abuse disorder through words like “junkie” and “addicted,” or how to use the term LatinX in English versus in Spanish. The plan is to offer it across the Stagwell network eventually and make it accessible to the rest of the industry in the future.

 

“Working with brands and helping them to be more inclusive — and to really set a standard for what that looks like — helps us to reach so many people globally and allows all of them to see that vision, as well,” Nimmo told Digiday.

 

In this interview, Nimmo discusses the process behind developing the inclusion practice, what inclusion culture looks like and how brands need to go beyond marketing archetypes.

 

It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

 

What was the motivation to develop the inclusion practice?

 

The impetus for this project really came from two different directions. One is that Code and Theory transitioned to a completely remote organization, which changed the cultural face of the company. I think there’s 40 states that are represented [within our workforce], which I think is incredible for advertising. Having representation across the country is very important to ensure that we’re considering lots of different experiences and backgrounds and consumers that the brands that we work with will serve.

 

What is your goal for the inclusion writing guide and training program?

 

The guide includes some terms that tend to be used in common language that may have backgrounds in discrimination [that] are important for people to know about, as well as recommendations for things that have just shifted more recently and new words that have entered the lexicon … In my opinion, this is not something that just lives within HR. Inclusion should be a part of all of our strategies, all of our approaches to work. We need to build it into our timelines, into the ways that we measure things — because we measure what we care about.

 

What are the most common client questions or feedback you hear regarding diversity and inclusion topics?

 

A lot of the questions tend to be focused on how to honor particular identities, a lot of things around gender and sexuality, and some points around socio-economic status. A lot of different things come up in crafting communications for brands as they aim to reach as many consumers as possible. That’s why the guide is so important because there’s such opportunity for brands to reach more people when they think about these different lenses of identity and don’t just try to speak to a general market archetype. … Unfortunately, many consumers from historically excluded communities are used to not seeing themselves represented visually, are used to not having brand communications resonate with them and not really feeling recognized or included by marketing communications.

 

What does the certification program entail?

 

We’ll be offering seven hours worth of education around these different lenses of identity. We’ll be bringing together members of all of our teams to discuss them one at a time, and to collaborate and share experiences around them. Then once the education portion is complete, the attendees can take quizzes to show their proficiency and what they’ve learned. We hope that people will come back every year and learn what’s new and continue to stay — keeping their fingers on the pulse of what inclusive language really looks like.

 

What is your vision for inclusion in the industry?

 

My ideal vision for inclusion is that everyone feels curated for — that everything they experience had them in mind. Also, that there are no doors closed to people due to any aspect of their identity, that all the parts of them only show up in ways that are positive and help them to thrive. I think the advertising world is a huge part of that, because the brands that we support and partner with reach so many people and really are huge cultural drivers in our society.

16374: Struggling To Make Sense Of Latest Popeyes Advertising.

Looks like Popeyes is positioning actress Tadasay Young—who actually is an authentic Louisiana resident—as the next Chicken Queen. To twist the latest tagline, Popeyes marketing executives don’t make sense—they make clichéd and contrived campaigns. And they do it with White advertising agencies too. 

 

 

16373: Walgreens—Trusted Since 1901—Returns To Exclusivity Of 1901…?

 

USA TODAY reported on the departure of Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Rosalind Brewer, which leaves the S&P 500 without a single Black woman holding a CEO title. This reflects the extraordinary underrepresentation of Black women in Adland too. Although it doesn’t prevent Walgreens from producing performative propaganda like the diversity recruitment advertisement depicted below.

 

No Black women CEOs left in S&P 500 after Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer resigns

 

By Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY

 

And then there were none.

 

Walgreens Boots Alliance said Friday that its CEO, Rosalind Brewer, had stepped down.

 

Brewer, 61, was the only Black female CEO currently running an S&P 500 company.

 

Her departure from the drugstore chain – and the absence she leaves – underscores the slow progress for diversity at the top of the nation’s largest companies.

 

Before Brewer, a former Starbucks and Sam’s Club executive, joined Walgreens, the last Black woman to command an S&P 500 company was Ursula Burns, who left Xerox in 2016.

 

“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to lead Walgreens Boots Alliance and to work alongside such talented and dedicated colleagues,” Brewer wrote in a note on LinkedIn.

 

Though corporate leadership has always been an exclusive club, it has gotten even more exclusive in the past two generations.

 

White men dominate the ranks of named executive officers, those corporate leaders who are listed on federal regulatory forms and include CEOs, chief financial officers and others who serve in a handful of top-paid roles.

 

Of the 533 named executive officers across these corporations, white men represent 7 in 10, according to a USA TODAY analysis. And of those companies, about 1 in 7 had executive teams that were made up of only white men in 2022.

 

Meanwhile, women – just 90 of them – make up 17% of named executive officers. Only 17 women of color were named executive officers in 2022, according to the analysis. Black women account for just 1% of top leaders. They are even more sparsely represented at the CEO level.

 

Brewer took the top job in March 2021 and was charged with transforming the company. Walgreens stock has lost half its value since then. The company has faced hurdles as it pivots from its pharmacy and retail business to focus on health care services.

 

Brewer will be replaced by board member Ginger Graham, who has been tapped as interim CEO.

16372: Labor Day Study Reflects Labor Woes For Blacks In Adland.

The Black Wall Street Times reported on a new Labor Day study from Pew Research Center that shows Blacks still face greater obstacles in the US labor force than other racial and ethnic groups—and absolutely waaaaay more obstacles vs Whites.

 

Pew Research Center noted key issues—which directly and indirectly mirror Adland—in the following areas:

 

• Blacks make up large shares of laborers in certain transit, health, and security jobs—which bears similarities to Adland, where Blacks have historically been designated to roles such as mailroom attendant, receptionist, security, janitorial maintenance, and Chief Diversity Officer.

 

• Blacks generally earn less than US workers overall—and given that Adland still struggles with gender pay gaps, woefully underrepresented Black women probably receive less than White women.

 

• The unemployment rate for Blacks is the highest of any racial or ethnic segment and about twice the rate for the US overall—in contrast to Adland, where Black underrepresentation is second only to Indigenous Peoples.

 

• Blacks are most likely to say they’ve experienced discrimination at work—although in Adland, White women are more likely to officially report offenses.

 

• 25% of US laborers say that being Black makes it harder to succeed at work—a percentage that is undoubtedly much higher in Adland.

 

• Majorities of Blacks see racial and ethnic bias as a major problem in hiring and performance reviews—in comparison to Adland, where even Whites admit that Blacks face increased bias in hiring and retention.

 

• Blacks especially value diversity in their workplace—which is a major reason why Blacks are less attracted to the exclusively White Adland.

 

• While the vast majority of Blacks support DE&I at work, many give employers low marks in the area—for Adland, this is underscored by the not-so-quiet quitting of Chief Diversity Officers in recent years.

 

Happy Labor Day!

 

Black workers unequal on Labor Day 60 years after I Have a Dream

 

The new study from Pew Research Center, just in time for Labor Day, shows a rising tide does not equitably lift all boats.

 

By Deon Osborne

 

The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was supposed to end employee discrimination in the economy, but a new Labor Day study from Pew Research Center shows the issues that burdened Black workers in 1963 continue to hinder their economic mobility today.

 

Over 260 years after the end of slavery, the new poll from Pew Research Center shows a majority of the 21 million Black American workers still feel the chains of Jim Crow throughout the entire economy system.

 

Black Americans remain more likely to work in lower-paying jobs that require more physical labor, earn less than their white coworkers, face an unemployment rate that is double the national average, and experience discrimination in hiring, retention and promotion.

 

Notably, no other group holds more support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the workplace than Black Americans.

 

Yet “when it comes to their own employer’s DEI efforts, 28% of Black workers say their company or organization pays too little attention to increasing DEI – the largest share of any racial or ethnic group,” the study found.

 

President Biden has celebrated the lowest Black unemployment rate in modern history as the economy recovers from record-high inflation. Yet the new Pew Research study, just in time for Labor Day, shows a rising tide does not equitably lift all boats.

 

A relic of Jim Crow: Black workers in a segregated economy

 

For instance, Black Americans are more likely to work in certain industries and specific roles. Despite making up roughly 13% of the workforce, Black employees are heavily concentrated in physically demanding or in-person jobs as opposed to an office or remote position, the study found.

 

They make up larger shares of postal service clerks (40.4%), transit and intercity bus drivers (36.6%), nursing assistants (36%), security guards and gambling surveillance officers (34.5%) and home health aides (32.5%).

 

Meanwhile, Black workers are underrepresented in higher paying industries such as engineering and some science occupations.

 

“One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of a crowd over 250,000 people during the 1963 March on Washington.

 

A systemic gap in the economy

 

A century after Americans fought to end slavery, including 179,000 Black soldiers, Jim Crow laws and customs kept Black Americans in a second-class status. On this Labor Day, the study from Pew Research Center reminds us of the barriers that remain.

 

Even though U.S. Supreme Court cases had begun to strike down racist segregation laws around the nation, the rulings hardly changed hearts and minds. From employers to even unions, Black workers faced rampant discrimination in both the South and the North.

 

Black migrants who traveled North to find better opportunities were placed in the least favorable conditions. Some were even attacked by Northern whites who were against competing with Blacks for jobs or being drafted in the Civil War.

 

“…because blacks were subject to discriminatory practices. Blacks often occupied the most unskilled and menial jobs in the shipbuilding industry. Many blacks performed the most arduous tasks, such as cleaning the yards and other outdoor work, which required hard physical labor,” Cuahutémoc Arroyo wrote for the Jim Crow Museum.

 

Like in the 1960s, Black employees see racial discrimination and a lack of educational training resources as the primary barriers preventing transitions to more lucrative work, according to the Pew Research study.

 

Black workers face barriers on Labor Day

 

In addition, Black workers continue to earn less. Specifically, they earn $878 compared with $1,059 for all U.S. workers in the same age group, Pew Research found. In total, the U.S. unemployment rate for August 2023 stood at 3.8%, a measurement that only counts those actively looking for work.

 

Meanwhile, the Black unemployment rate for the same month was nearly twice as high at 5.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

In fact, U.S. leaders would claim the economy is in a recession if the national unemployment rate was as high as the Black unemployment rate.

 

The Economic Policy Institute took an average of unemployment rates between 1963 and 2012. It found that on average, the white unemployment rate was 5.1% compared to 11.6% for Black workers.

 

“Thus, over the last 50 years, the black unemployment rate has been at a level typical for a recession or higher,” EPI stated in the 2013 study.

 

Cashing the check of justice on Labor Day

 

As Americans celebrate Labor Day a decade later, Black workers say racial discrimination presents a high barrier to cross. About four in 10 (41%) Black employees say they’ve experienced discrimination in hiring, pay or promotions because of their race or ethnicity.

 

It’s a higher share than any other ethnic group. Only 25% of Asian American workers, 20% of Hispanic American workers and eight percent of white American workers say the same, Pew Research found.

 

Only one percent of Black employees say increasing DEI in the workplace is a bad thing. Nearly 80 percent say it’s a good thing. Yet for most of them, they say their own employers don’t share the same enthusiasm.

 

As far-right state and national figures build up fear and hate against racial justice, time will tell if the nation’s bank of justice is bankrupt. In response to racial uprisings in the 60s, the drafters of the 1968 Kerner Commission Report sought to find systemic solutions.

 

Its three recommendations included: creating programs on the scale of the problem, aiming the programs for high impact in the immediate future to close racial gaps, and undertaking new experiments to change the system.

 

It remains to be seen whether the nation’s leaders will take action on the decades-old report. Yet some still have hope.

 

“We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation,” Dr. King said over 60 years ago. “And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

16371: The Best Or Nothing New.

Mercedes-Benz in Germany celebrates 50 years of Hip Hop—with a video that looks decades old.

16370: What Can Brown Do—And Pay—For You?

UPS says drivers can earn $42 per hour after four years of service. The Teamsters union will probably push for even more in the years ahead.

16369: BRIDGE Over Troubled Waters In Adland.

 

Advertising Age published performative PR from BRIDGE, an enterprise that the trade publication labeled as follows: “an independent trade organization pushing for diversity, equity, and inclusion in marketing.”

 

Not sure why BRIDGE would be deemed independent, given its “Leaders” include a Board of Directors defined as “the governing body of BRIDGE, composed of a combination of DE&I leaders, business leaders, and other C-suite leaders in organizations who are driving the change agenda internally.” That is, the board features up to 30 individuals whose professional roles cover Chief Marketing Officers, CEOs, and Human Heat Shields from White advertising agencies. Conspicuously absent are any legitimate ad agency leaders—to twist a phrase, “Where are all the White people?”

 

How can one assume independence in relationships firmly rooted in codependence? Hell, it’s almost laughable that these folks—while likely well-intentioned and respectable corporate citizens—cannot offer evidence to prove they’re driving the change agenda internally, externally, or in any dimension. This especially applies to the White advertising agencies, where annual confessions confirm firmly established and perpetuated systemic racism.

 

All of which makes BRIDGE sorta offensive. If the representatives from brands like Campbell’s, Colgate-Palmolive, H&R Block, and Unilever were honestly dedicated to change, they would burn their bridges with Adland representatives such as Publicis Groupe and WPP. After all, the co-conspiratorial unions symbolize hypocrisy of the highest order.

 

BRIDGE is part of a thoroughly damaged infrastructure.

 

Brands Pilot DE&I Program To Foster Companywide Inclusion

 

After finding many brands’ social posts were 23 years behind on representation, DE&I trade org BRIDGE created a program that is being piloted by Campbell Soup Co., Condé Nast and Sephora

 

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

 

The majority of the top 50 brands that post content to social media are 23 years behind in terms of reflecting the actual racial makeup of America, based on U.S. Census data, according to a recent analysis by BRIDGE, an independent trade organization for progressing diversity, equity and inclusion in marketing.

 

That analysis was used as the jumping-off point for BRIDGE’s new Inclusion Maturity Assessment and Capability Building Program (dubbed IMAX for short), which it is launching to help brands implement inclusion as a business practice across their entire organizations, internally and externally, to drive growth.

 

“Our whole mission is to move the narrative of DE&I away from philosophy to operationalizing inclusion as a business practice because we fundamentally believe that it's the next opportunity for business growth,” said Sheryl Daija, the founder and CEO of BRIDGE, which is an acronym for the gaps within belonging, representation, inclusion, diversity and equity. “Unfortunately, we have seen the attacks that can happen when you’re talking about philosophy, opinions and beliefs, versus when you have something that is steeped with the same rigor that other business practices have.”

 

Marketers including Campbell Soup Co., Condé Nast and Sephora are piloting the program, which involves evaluating the equities and inequities that exist for underrepresented communities across companies’ product availability, pricing structures and services. The program starts with understanding where companies are in terms of their inclusion efforts both internally and externally—rating them on a maturity scale across 72 business practices and five dimensions of the workplace and marketplace. Then, a team of experts works on how to tackle the gaps they identify and implement change for the companies.

 

“We were excited about BRIDGE’s IMAX program as it extends beyond the scope of existing DE&I assessments that are primarily focused on culture and the workplace to include marketplace actions,” said Abigail Jacobs, senior VP of brand and integrated marketing, Sephora. “As a retailer with extensive programs around building equity across our business, and especially our stores, we’re always working to ensure that our practices drive positive impact and change.”

 

The IMAX social media analysis revealed most brands are 23 years behind in properly reflecting the racial makeup of the U.S. in social content.

 

IMAX is led by BRIDGE’s board of directors and steering committee, as well as an academic team that included Omar Rodríguez-Vilá, professor of marketing and director of education at the Business & Society Institute at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School; Sundar Bharadwaj, professor of marketing at University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business; and Dionne Nickerson, assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University.

 

The program evaluates DE&I across various areas of a company including within the organization, their marketing management processes, commercial practices, communications and advocacy programs.

 

“The biggest gap we see is in commercial practices, in products that are designed specifically to address the needs of underrepresented communities,” Rodríguez-Vilá said.

 

Most companies do not properly measure the market, Rodríguez-Vilá said. Currently, they measure the market based on “‘Where is my current revenue coming from?’ and ‘Who are my biggest customers? If 80% of my customer base comes from this group, then I go after that group.’

 

"You’re not looking at the potential growth that could be embedded in segments that are actually not consuming you, or are significantly under-consuming you, because you’re not including them in your offer,” he said.

 

Each of the 72 business practices being evaluated in the IMAX program is rated against a “maturity” scale of 70%, which represents a high level of inclusion.

 

“Following the assessment, it was awesome to see that the analysis reinforced many of our business practices were already on the right track,” Jacobs said. “We have 11 different internal workstreams focused on different parts of our DE&I journey and have been able to share these findings and act quickly on integrating them into our current work.”

 

The IMAX team used artificial intelligence to do the first part of its research, the social media analysis of the top 50 brands’ content that had people in it, Rodríguez-Vilá said. "We measured the diversity of skin tone, diversity of hair type, inclusion of people with disabilities and diversity of body types.”

 

In that analysis, Unilever’s Dove rose to the top and was one of the only brands that was not 23 years behind in terms of inclusion practices across its social media posts. Dove has done various campaigns to advocate for underrepresented groups including taking a stand against race-based hair discrimination.

 

“I receive a lot of data in my role, but I have never seen data of this nature that allows us to understand inclusion as a metric and helps us identify which practices we can share across brands to create and accelerate even further impact,” said Tish Archie-Oliver, head of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, Unilever U.S., and a BRIDGE Board member.

 

Dove declined further comment because it is not part of the IMAX pilot program.

 

Still, being inclusive across social media content is only one sliver of the pie and the IMAX program comes as companies have downsized their DE&I departments amid economic headwinds.

 

“The key is not to think of inclusion as a separate thing,” Rodríguez-Vilá said. “The first thing you need to tackle is the business case. There is also a role for a moral case and many leaders need to be able to articulate that to their employees. This is not just about selling more stuff. But you need both because, in the absence of a business case, the moral case is not going to sustain you.”

 

Rodríguez-Vilá said what also went into developing the IMAX program was having chief marketers and chief diversity officers work closer together than they’re typically used to—both parties are responsible for evaluating DE&I within the internal organization and in how the company is showing up in the marketplace. Typically, internal matters were left to chief diversity officers while marketplace matters were left to chief marketing officers.

 

“It unlocks this collaboration that didn’t exist before,” Daija said. “[Before] it was very siloed. IMAX creates a collaboration to allow all capabilities and practices to be dependent on each other, but also to leverage the power of each other.”