Inclusive marketing is everyone's job, not just that of the "Multicultural Marketing" team.

I used to lead Multicultural Marketing in a variety of organizations. In one role, I led Youth and Mulitcultural Marketing for a large wireless carrier. Our measure of success was market share within the various groups we targeted. These roles used to be very common and were called Multicultural Marketing, Niche or Target Marketing teams. In many cases, these teams had to fight for resources and were often not involved in the mass/general market work. 

In another role, I led marketing for Essence By Mail within Hanover Direct - a large catalog company. I always loved how culturally relevant our products were. But I didn't love how ALL of the staff of color in the entire organization worked on this team.

In another role, I lead "Specialty Marketing" for a large entertainment company - focused everything but the more popular categories of music - Classical, Latin and Christian. While not multicultural - our focus was on designing solutions that were tailored to the unique needs of the audience we served. We had full access to the resources from the main team and strong executive support. This approach allowed the people with the expertise to focus on ensuring that the work was culturally relevant and appropriate - while having the support of the entire organization.

While I am a fan of having a dedicated team to focus on the unique needs of special groups of customers, I am not a fan of keeping accountability to inclusive marketing within this team. There needs to be a balance between teams that have freedom to fully represent the unique needs and preferences of multicultural groups but also knowledge and accountability should be shared across the entire organization. At the highest levels, there needs to be a commitment to inclusion across the brand. It has to be more than a means to higher sales but part of the organizations desire to be responsible and representative.

Staff of color need to be in every area of the organization, not just in the areas where the multicultural work is done. The entire organization needs to know how to develop products and relay the brand's message in a way that speaks to people from all backgrounds regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity, age, religion, ability, sexual orientation or other. This includes understanding tone, context, intentionality in language, avoiding appropriation and countering stereotypes.

Inclusive should be who you are vs Inclusion being something you do.

Consider the wild success of the Fenty makeup brand by Rihanna. The Fenty make up line was introduced to the world in September of 2017. After it was released it sparked what many have called “the Fenty effect”, where brands rushed to increase their repertoires of make up for women of color who were now able to find what they needed elsewhere. Conceptualised by Rihanna, it is the most culturally inclusive makeup line in the world with products catering to over fifty different skin tones. It is one of the world’s most successful premier beauty brands, and a flagship for cultural inclusion as a beauty industry standard.

Make up for women of color had fits and starts with varying levels of commitment by major brands. At Fenty, inclusion was the main statement, not an afterthought. Sandy Saputo former CMO, has said “Our approach to inclusion was showing, not telling. In fact, we never once used the word “inclusion” in any of our campaigns.” This brings to light the concept of creating products that are, in and of themselves, indisputably representative of your entire diverse customer base.

Here are a few ideas and questions to ask regarding being inclusive in your marketing:

1. How are you capturing data and driving insight?

How are you capturing data on your customer base? Do you know who you are serving across key demographic data? Do you understand who you are targeting? Do you understand your vendor diversity? Are your members reflective of the country's demographics? How do you know if you are creating barriers? I often say "You move what you measure" - if it is important, it should be measured. With respect to customer data, there are a few routes. The first is self reporting - by asking customers to provide demographic data via a survey or at the time of purchase. The second is appended data from one of the large data houses (Axciom, Experian, etc). The other is imputed info - if you business exists primarily on social media - you can use social media platforms to help you with imputed information based on interests and affinity. No method is exact or guarantees 100% accuracy. The key is what are you going to do with the data once you get it. What will it help you inform?

2. Examine who is in the room.

Where are your diverse staff working? Are they clustered in certain departments or in areas where their voices can't be heard? Are they in leadership with seats at the tables where key decisions are made? We can all recall cringe worthy moments in marketing where large brands released offensive and distasteful commercials or ads. If the room isn't filled with voices of diverse staff - especially those represented in the creative, you are bound to get some things wrong.

3.How are you evaluating success?

Does success equal sales and market share growth? Are you looking to represent the communities that you serve? I would encourage you to at the very least look at the communities you serve. If you have a general market product that serves US consumers - your customer base should at the very least be reflective of the share of customers in US - as per the census - as a starting point. The minimum bar of success would be to ensure that at the very least your customer base is reflective of the population you serve. Of course there are variations and product categories where this number should be higher/lower. If you are working in a general product and your customer base and employee population is less than representative, you may have work to do. Honestly ask yourself why.

3. Is the work resourced to be successful?

To make progress, you will have to intentionally invest. This will mean investing more of the "fair share" amount of resources to be successful. To make progress you will need to over invest in data, knowledge, learning and execution. This isn't the area to pinch pennies.

4. Are you educating your entire staff?

In addition to the work your organization may be doing around diversity, equity and inclusion, it is important that those reponsible for product development, marketing and communication are well versed in understanding how to be inclusive. This area is often overlooked which is why it often gets relegated to the multicultural team or the multicultural staff. Have you asked the Latina in HR to translate an ad? or asked the Black employee in finance to look at a video to make sure it is not offensive? If so you are part of the problem- see item #1. This is a huge burden to put on Black, Indigenous and People of Color . Everyone should be trained on Inclusive Marketing practices and know how to ask questions/evaluate your work. Has your team made a few gaffes? Shared something that wasn't culturally appropriate? Is everyone trained to know how to recognized appropriation? In the words of Maya Angelou - When you know better you do better. There are many great resources but I've found SalesForce's Inclusive Marketing trailhead to be excellent.

5. Are you a performative ally?

Did you just develop your inclusion strategy after the murder of George Floyd? If so - was a meaningful realization that you have work to do and you made a commitment to do the work? If so Bravo. If it was just to make sure you didn't get canceled, then stop, pause and reflect on what you need to learn. Bring together employees to help explore all of the areas where growth is needed and get started. There are many organizations and resources that can help you on your journey to become a more inclusive and Anti Racist organization. I am a fan of www.wherechangestarted.com.

In summary, I invite you to be open both in your marketing practices as well as in your organization. As a leader, make space for your team to have courageous conversations about where you have opportunities to grow in your inclusion practices. If you make the space you, appreciate vulnerability and commit to change, you will be amazed and how you can grow.