STEPPING UP

You’ve just seen some of our favorite advertising from Tide, P&G’s most iconic brand. Looking at it through a multicultural lens, what can we learn from it?

It promotes diversity and inclusion with positive portrayals of multiple genders and races. It reflects insights from people in different life stages, from millennials to growing families. And it celebrates unique aspects of American culture like music and sports.

Tide is one of our best examples of inclusive and multicultural brand building. The advertising paints a diverse mosaic on a broad creative canvas, reflecting people from different walks of life, yet with a consistent expression of the brand’s core idea “if it’s gotta be clean, it’s gotta be Tide.” Every ad looks and feels like Tide with iconic assets such as the Tide bullseye, while expressing unique points of view across the rich tapestry of American culture. Tide is a brand of the people, built by a diverse team who serve people of all ages, genders and races, while staying true to its core benefits, character, beliefs and values.

The outcome of this work is a 70-year old brand that is as culturally relevant today as ever, and is consistently the U.S. laundry market leader. It’s #1 with a 43% market share, having grown two points during the past year alone.

It’s also the most popular among every individual multicultural group. Tide is #1 among Blacks, #1 among Latinos, #1 among growing families and #1 among boomers.

And contrary to the sensational headlines predicting the demise of big brands, and the fake news that big brands don’t understand consumers, Tide is #1 among millennials—the most multicultural group in the country’s history. In fact, the reason why Tide, and any other big brand for that matter, can be #1 among all cultural groups is precisely because they understand consumers from all walks of life, and they translate those insights into relevant ideas that win the hearts and minds of a variety of people—growing the brand, the market, and the bottom line.

At P&G, our ambition is to be the very best at inclusive and multicultural brand building. Along with Tide, 18 of our top 22 brands hold either the #1 or #2 market share position among Blacks and Latinos as well as millennials and boomers too. This progress has been hard-earned. It has required major interventions to raise the bar on inclusive brand building, including a soul-searching admission of our own biases to dispel some long-running multicultural marketing myths.

Myth #1: Multicultural marketing is the job of a separate, specialized group or person. How often have we heard “let’s assign a separate, special group to fix our market share gaps among ethnic consumers.” We’ve tried it ourselves such as the Ethnic Center of Excellence or Multicultural Business Development Organization. Or, how often have we seen the work assigned to the sole African American or Hispanic American on a brand? This annex approach doesn’t work; at least not in our Company. It lets the brand team off the hook, and it’s almost always the first budget to get cut. So we’ve taken a simple action. We declared winning with Blacks and Latinos a priority, integrated multicultural marketing into every brand’s plans, and we’re holding brand leaders accountable for results among all groups.

Myth #2: Our brand’s general advertising campaign is broadly appealing to every ethnic group. How often have we heard “we’re color-blind, so we don’t see differences.” This is a generally well-meaning statement, but it’s flawed. Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Native Americans, and Caucasians are different and they want to be recognized and celebrated for their uniqueness. They’re proud of their culture and heritage, and it’s not only okay to recognize differences, it’s preferred if you want to truly engage their hearts and minds. So, we’ve doubled down on gaining deeper insights into the lives of multicultural consumers to understand their unique needs, wants, tensions, and problems that our brands can solve. We’ve found that when we get it right with these distinct groups, the executions are actually more appealing to everyone.

Myth #3: We’ll reach them anyway with our general market media buy. A broad media buy may mean people see the ads, but it doesn’t guarantee effectiveness. When a brand cares enough to show up in a program made uniquely for African Americans or Latinos, it demonstrates recognition and respect, which makes it more engaging. So we’ve changed our media mix to specifically reach unique consumer groups, doubling investment in Black-owned and Spanish-language media programming like BET, TVONE and Univision. This is yielding better results because the programs are simply more relevant.

Myth #4: Our agencies know how to market to multicultural consumers. Look around the room at your next copy meeting and see how many people look like the consumers you’re serving. For too long, we’ve been giving a pass to our agencies on getting diverse teams—self included. We’ve not been as forceful in making this a priority, and that ends today. We’re insisting on diverse teams working on our brands. Our agencies have done a great job on gender diversity, and now it’s time to make it happen on racial diversity. We’re also rolling out implicit bias training for all agency partners, which has been mind-opening. And we’re hiring more multicultural agencies because they have a deeper understanding of the hearts and minds of people from different cultures.

Busting these myths is making a difference, but we must stay diligent, because it’s really easy to slip. These fundamental steps are a good starting point, but there’s so much more possible. We also see a lot more upside, because our shares are underdeveloped versus the national average. We estimate the potential to add nearly $1 billion in sales by rising to the same level of share development.

To achieve this growth upside, we’ve decided to step up, and take inclusive and multicultural brand building to an even higher level, elevating our commitment and transforming how we build brands.

We have a unique moment in time right now, because we are at a cultural crossroads here in the United States. On the one hand, Blacks and Latinos and Asians, along with people of two or more races, are the fastest growing segments of the population, and will soon become the majority. They’re growing in economic and political power, with ever-expanding purchasing power. On the other hand, the forces of prejudice and bigotry are openly coming to the surface again, creating divisiveness and conflict, and threatening progress that has been made for decades. Brands and companies have an important opportunity and a responsibility to make a difference. Doing so can be good for society, and good for business.

So at P&G, we’ve made a choice to step up and use our voice in advertising as a force for good and a force for growth by taking a stand on racial equality. The time is right, because people expect to know more about what brands believe in, the people and companies behind them, and their values and actions on diversity. We recognize that P&G and our leadership brands can make a meaningful impact with our wide reach. So we’re using our voice to promote racial equality, by addressing racial bias.

Why racial equality?

It’s just common sense that there should be equality among all people—with equal opportunity, equal representation, equal voices, equal pay, and equal respect.

But the reality is, it isn’t equal.

Numerous studies point to the chronic racial gaps in health, education and economic participation in the U.S., and the persistent underrepresentation in high paying jobs and positions. In fact, a recent Washington Post study cited that the average annual income in the United States is 38% lower for Blacks, 43% lower for Latinos, and 19% lower for Asian-Americans versus Whites. That’s unfair. So imagine the possibilities of an equal world. The same study estimated that the economic impact of achieving racial equality in the U.S. is worth $2.1 trillion in wages and additional purchasing power. In other words, equality is not only a force for good, it’s a force for growth.

So, it makes sense that a company like P&G would choose to address important matters such as racial equality. Equality is limited by bias, including conscious bias which is obvious, and unconscious bias which is more subtle. The images and portrayals of people in advertising affect perceptions because they embed memories that in turn, form biases. The U.S. advertising industry spends more than $200 billion dollars a year, so it not only sells products, it affects attitudes. As the largest advertise the reach of P&G’s advertising can be used to promote conversations, influence attitudes, and change behavior.

We’re taking three key actions, shared freely for any one of you to reapply to your brands and companies because this is something we can all do to create a movement that matters.

Action #1: we’re dramatically increasing the racial diversity in our everyday advertising. People prefer what’s familiar, so deliberately including people of various races in advertising creates greater familiarity. Over time, it makes images of diversity the norm, not the exception. For example, here are some ads that positively portray Black fathers:

(VIDEO EXAMPLES: Swiffer Frog, Dawn Breakfast in Bed,Luvs Bath).

These ads are particularly appealing among Black families because Black fathers are often unfairly stereotyped as being absent or inattentive. Portraying dads like this embeds positive images into people’s memory banks. Over time, these images are seen as the norm, which helps mitigate inaccurate stereotypes. These ads are not only appealing among Black families; they score better and drive more growth among all consumer groups. With that knowledge, we view getting our advertising right with Black families as the highest bar to clear.

Action #2: we’re developing products and advertising to meet the unique needs of diverse consumers. For example, we were designing Pantene hair care products for one kind of hair, straight and round. African hair tends to be flat and curly, so our conditioners were deficient; doing only doing half the job. So, African-American scientists came together to develop the Pantene Gold Series which is made uniquely for the characteristics of Black hair.

We also discovered something outrageous when developing the launch advertising – “Black Hair Bias.” Google beautiful hair and here’s what you get, all White females. Google unprofessional hair, here’s what you get, nearly all Black females. So, we developed a campaign expressing Pantene’s celebration of Black women and their hair as unique, strong and beautiful:

Action #3: we’re taking head-on the unique challenge the United States must address – racial inequality driven by racial bias. Recent events have brought this issue into sharp focus, but the reality is, this is an ongoing problem. The flashpoint events that have exploded on the national scene are fueled by the pervasive effect of conscious and unconscious bias that occurs every single day.

We can bring awareness to these issues, and use that awareness to spur action to either stop or mitigate prejudiced attitudes and behavior. For example, here is an ad that Tide ran during Hispanic Heritage month two years ago, that took on one of the most insidious forms of bias, labels.

This was a powerful ad that generated significant awareness. In just one month it had 8 million views, 22 million impressions, and a 17% increase in social conversations. It also affected me personally, since I’m half-Mexican. My father was Mexican, but he was adopted by a man with an English name. Growing up, I had the ability to move between Latino and White cultures. But when entering the workforce, I suppressed my Mexican heritage, for fear of being labeled, because I had heard these denigrating terms used many times in my life. So this ad hit home and I came to grips with my own biases to change my attitudes and behavior. I recognized the privilege of being viewed as White, and decided to share my personal story and open up a dialogue within our Company. When leaders step up to talk about tough issues like bias, it gives other people permission and safety to talk, change attitudes, and address bad behavior.

And this summer, we took another bold step through our multi-brand “My Black is Beautiful” platform. We decided to shine a light on racial bias faced by African Americans. We focused on the talk that Black parents in America constantly have to prepare their children to deal with what they’ll face.

This was a powerful statement, shining the light on everyday conversations that Black families have in order to deal with everyday prejudice. But this has not been without controversy. Most responses were positive, with one group saying “that’s my life, thank you for recognizing it” and another group saying “wow, I didn’t realize that happens, let’s talk about it”. But some reactions were negative, denying that the issue exists. And a few were very negative, angrily saying “why are companies involved in social and political issues, why don’t you just stick to selling products?” We have an answer to that: If not us, then who? If not now, then when? We didn’t stop, we doubled down on both advertising spending and PR with the key message that this film has an important purpose, to promote conversations. That’s because conversations lead to understanding. Understanding leads to changing attitudes. Attitude change leads to behavior change. And behavior change leads to positive action. We were even asked to consider editing the ad to remove certain controversial parts. We refused, because that would have denied truth. Just because it’s not one person’s reality, doesn’t mean it’s not another person’s truth.

We’ve stuck with it, and will continue moving forward. We’re planning our next initiative for Black History Month in February 2018. We’re open to ideas from anywhere and anyone, so bring them on.

 And right now, we’re using our reach and voice as an Olympic sponsor to have a conversation on the world stage, by looking at bias through the eyes of mom.

In closing, I hope today’s discussion has been useful to inspire you to elevate inclusive and multicultural brand building to an entirely new level.

We can all build our brands by busting the myths and taking decisive action. But there’s so much more we can do by stepping up to use our voices in advertising to promote racial equality by addressing racial bias. Imagine the possibilities if we all step up. Bias would shift. Attitudes would change. Action would be taken. Economic equality would lift all boats and drive market growth. And our brands will appeal to all multicultural groups. So let’s come together to make a difference, and transform inclusive and multicultural brand building for growth and for good.

Thank you.