Inclusion and Marketing

Representation matters. We know this. Most people get it.  And thankfully, more and more brands are doing a better job of being representative in their marketing. But while representation matters, not all representation is created equal. This is especially important, because representation is often the on-ramp for most brands who are getting started with inclusive marketing. So back in 2021, I did the inaugural Representation in Marketing study – where 1000 consumers told me how they felt about it. A lot has changed since 2021, so I thought I’d do an update to that study, to see where consumers heads are at. To field this research (same as last time), I used Suzy’s consumer insights platform, to get insights from 1000 participants age 16 - 70. In this episode, I'm walking you through this important consumer data. Get the Inclusion & Marketing podcast What consumers want you to know about representation in marketing [Research]

It is helpful to have the theory and principles behind inclusive marketing to give you a strong foundation for growth. I’m a big believer in learning from real-world situations and issues and hearing the voices of real people.  I often feel that these stories from real people will not only help you connect the dots and bring the theory to life for you in a more vivid way, but it also makes it easier for you to be in the lookout for areas to give special attention to when you put what you’ve learned about inclusive marketing into practice. In today’s episode, you’re going to hear my chat with Danielle Monae Truitt, who plays who plays Sergeant Ayanna Bell on Peacock’s upcoming fifth season of the iconic series starring Christopher Meloni, Law & Order: Organized Crime.  Of course we talked a little bit about some interesting things related to the show – but I found so much of what Danielle had to say extremely relevant to you and your efforts on making your marketing more inclusive. We touched on authenticity, production – specifically as it relates to Black women’s hair. We covered representation – and what good representation looks like (because lets face it, a lot of representation falls short). Many of the themes Danielle mentioned as it relates to Black women’s hair, and what good representation looks like, were things consumers specifically spoke about as part of the representation in marketing research study I conducted. If you haven’t had a look at that, no worries, I’ll link it up for you in the show notes, as well as another article that covers how to do representation in marketing the right way. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Law & Order Organized Crime Season 5 trailer Representation in Marketing Study (2021) How to do representation in marketing the right way

One thing I’ve learned that is often helpful, especially during the early stages of getting started on a new journey – like inclusive marketing, is to hear how others who are in your shoes or similar approach it. Learning about how others think about a problem, the challenges they’ve experienced, and how they’ve gone about achieving success — can do wonders to move you forward and much closer to your goals. So to help facilitate that type of learning from you, one of my goals for the show is to bring you more conversations with marketing leaders at various brands to uncover their approach to inclusive marketing. In this episode, you'll hear my super fun conversation with Taylor Corrado, Senior Director of Brand Marketing at Wistia — a video marketing platform for businesses. And as a fun aside – because of Taylor’s work, she’s obviously really well-versed in video marketing. So, as part of our chat, you’ll also hear Taylor’s thoughts on how to make your video marketing more inclusive. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Wistia Wistia State of Video Report Wild Terrains - Women Only Tours

There's a lot of talk about economic boycotts these days as consumers are protesting in response to brands rolling back their policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion. While various organizers are calling for boycotts on brands like Amazon, Target, Nestle, and Tesla, there are some important considerations around boycotts that not enough people are talking about. I cover those considerations in this episode, along with recent happenings relevant to inclusive marketing from Spotify and the movie Emilia Perez. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter

Inclusive marketing is only growing in popularity. And with that, comes a whole new slew of trends to be aware of when it comes to being successful with your inclusive marketing efforts. In today's episode, I walk you through 5 inclusive marketing trends for 2025, backed by new data from HubSpot. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter

Email marketing still remains a highly profitable component of the marketing mix for many brands. Data shows that even after many years of people declaring email marketing is dead, it still returns on average $36 for every $1 invested. Because email marketing is so effective, I thought it would be great to walk you through how five brands have made it work even harder for them as they work to engage and convert even more customers. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Episode 152: Build a large and diverse audience with an email newsletter, with Maria Gharib Episode 112: How to make your email marketing inclusive with Samar Owais Visuals of examples mentioned in episode

In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Camila Victoriano, Chief Content Officer and co-founder of Sonoro, a fast-growing media company that is the 4th largest podcasting publishing company in the world. She and I covered A LOT of ground, including Sonoro's partnership with Toyota to reach Latino consumers, what she’s hearing from brands about their response to the social and political environment surrounding inclusion and inclusive marketing, authentically engaging multicultural consumers, and so much more. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Sonoro Chasing Suenos - Toyota Corolla's video podcast Camila Victoriano on LinkedIn

There are many ways to include more people with your marketing. Of course, there are best practices associated with inclusive marketing that enable brands to be even more effective with their efforts. In this episode, I walk you through seven different ways brands tackled inclusive marketing, that enabled them to make a big impact with the people they wanted to serve. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter UNO Color Blind Accessible video Episode 63: How Google makes its brand accessible Proctor & Gamble: 'Widen the Screen' Amazon Alexa Ad

Email newsletters are all the rage these days, with some popular publications having hundreds of thousands of engaged subscribers. I’ve been learning a lot more about newsletters lately, and was especially curious about how successful newsletters think about and go about attracting and retaining a diverse audience. So in this episode, I sat down with Maria Gharib, one of the primary writers of the Mindstream AI newsletter, which is fast, fast, fast growing, and already has an impressive subscriber base. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Mindstream AI Newsletter Maria Gharib on LinkedIn Huda Beauty

Consumers want to reduce their risk as much as possible when making a purchase. And that desire increases exponentially when it comes to a product that not only has a higher ticket price, but has a greater possibility of being a hassle to make things right if the product doesn’t work out the way they’d hoped. That's why case studies work so well -- they help eliminate risk in the minds of consumers. The stakes are higher for people from underrepresented and underserved communities. Data shows that for a variety of reasons, they don't achieve success at the same rates. As such, have greater assurances that the product they seek has been shown to work for "people like them," increases their likelihood of conversion. This episode walks you through how to increase the effectiveness of your case studies, by making them more inclusive. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Episode 45: Factors influencing your customers' success you should be aware of Episode 71: Rule #1 of Inclusive Marketing Bol ad L'Oreal campaign What is tokenism? Episode 81: Do this to increase customer acquisition for people from underrepresented and underserved communities HubSpot case studies Leadpages case studies Plantmade Video podcast testimonial I listened to LGBTQ+ at Alloy

The Super Bowl recently happened in the U.S., and there was a lot of chatter leading up to it, during it, and well after it on a number of fronts related to inclusion and inclusive marketing. In this episode, I cover a lot of it, including the NFL changing the phrase in the end zone, the singing of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing' during the pregame, the ads, and much more. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Roger Goodell says NFL got it wrong Ledisi sings 'Lift Every Voice and Sing' at the Super Bowl Roger Goodell reaffirms the NFL's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion ahead of Super Bowl VIX (first minute) All Ads for Super Bowl VIX Statistics on diversity in Super Bowl VIX ads Super Bowl ads focused on women's empowerment

In episode 141 of the podcast, I talked about what is important for you to have to be effective with your inclusive marketing efforts over the long-term. In that episode, I talked about 10 different elements, and in this episode, we’re going to talk more in depth about what is arguably the most important element – leadership declaration. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Episode 141: How to be more effective with inclusive marketing over the long term Episode 113: How Lysol drives brand growth with inclusive marketing with CMO Gary Osifchin

When it comes to attracting new customers – and especially customers from underrepresented and underserved communities, it is important to remember that a looming question in their mind is: “Is this product for people like me?” People like me could be anything — tall people, people who are introverts, people who speak my language, people from my socioeconomic background, people who aren’t tech savvy, people who are left-handed, people who are immigrants, people of a certain religious faith, people with a larger body size, people who are neurodivergent, people who are ex-convicts, people who are single, and the list goes on and on and on. But as a brand – if you want to convert more of these consumers, it is critical that you answer this question for the people who are considering your product as clearly and as quickly as possible. With this critical question in mind – in this episode, I’m going to walk you through 5 ways to focus on answering this question in a way that clearly and quickly communicates to the people you want to serve that they do indeed belong with you. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Tabitha Brown TTLA testimonial KitKat Iftar bar commercial Google Pixel 8 'Javier in Frame' commercial Boots controversial Christmas ad

Over the last week I've been riveted by ongoing developments in the legal feud between actress Blake Lively and actor and director Justin Baldoni, who worked together on the film It Ends With Us. There so much to unpack with the filings, however, there is one point, that is the focus on this episode, that is very relevant to you from an inclusive marketing standpoint as you work to establish it as just the way marketing is done for your brand. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Blake Lively lawsuit Justin Baldoni lawsuit Episode 117: Power dynamics in brand imagery

A core element of being effective with inclusive marketing and therefore any inclusive marketing strategy — is data. We’ve got to know not just the rates at which your customers overall achieve success, but we’ve also need to know what that data looks like by subgroup. In other words - we need to find out if everyone is achieving success at the same rates. Now I’ve noticed the as I talk to different people and marketers about this, at times the thought of capturing and analyzing data in this manner feels uncomfortable. So I thought it would be helpful to have a dialogue about this with someone who is steeped in data - particularly by subgroup all day every day. After this short break - you’ll hear my conversation with Deborah Pickett — who will be bringing her expertise with data in the education system — and we’ll apply it to what you do in marketing’s This is not Deborah’s first time on the show —- she stopped by way back in episode #19 - The Critical link between equity and customer success. It was a really great episode if I do say so myself, so if you haven’t listened, I’ll drop a link to it in the show notes so you can check it out. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Episode 19: The critical link between equity and customer success with Deborah Pickett

Agencies are an integral partner and part of the marketing process for many brands. But when it comes to incorporating inclusion into the work brands produce, if the agency isn’t an inclusive marketing or multi-cultural marketing agency, infusing inclusion isn’t something that always happens consistently. So that’s why I was excited to sit down with my guest today, Kumi Croom, Managing Director at Duncan Channon, a marketing agency, who’s done a really fantastic job of operationalizing inclusive marketing into the way her agency shows up and delivers for clients. Get the Inclusion and Marketing Newsletter Duncan Channon

In this episode, I had a conversation with Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO of Wistia, a video marketing company, on their Talking Too Loud podcast, all about inclusive marketing. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Wistia

On this episode -- I'm bringing you an interview I did with Eman Ismail, on her super cool show Mistakes That Made Me. In it, I talk about my journey to becoming an inclusive marketing strategist, and the mistakes I made as a business owner (for years) that led me to be in this position today. And of course, we get into a real good chat about inclusive marketing in practice -- which you'll find at the beginning of this episode. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter Mistakes That Made Me podcast

Representation matters. I think people know this, and get it intuitively, but for some, it can be hard to do in practice consistently. In this episode -- I'm bringing to you my chat with Jasmine Star on her podcast --- which is all about how we can do a better job of bringing representation to the forefront of our thinking, as we work to make more people feel seen, supported, and like they belong with our brand. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter

As I've worked with clients of various sizes over the years, one of the things that has become clear is that an organizational transformation is required. You can't do the same thing or slightly different things every now and then and expect to attract and retain a more diverse customer base over the long term. In this episode, I walk you through nine core components of the organizational transformation needed to enable sustained inclusive marketing success—in essence, to help you build an inclusive brand. Get the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter