Giuseppe Caltabiano
Aug 17, 22 | 5 min read
brand purpose diversity
Reading time: 4 minutes
A beginning is not a beginning until it costs you something.
-William Bernbach
March 2017.
On the eve of International Women's Day, State Street Global Advisors, which manages some $2.5 trillion in assets, showed its solidarity with the day's protesters. The company installed a bronze statue of a defiant girl in front of Wall Street's iconic bull statue.
The reaction to the new statue, designed by artist Kristen Visbal, was immediate and powerful. The installation was part of a much broader campaign.
"Fearless Girl," as the statue was dubbed, was part of State Street's campaign to call on companies to take steps to increase gender diversity in their leadership roles.
In an interview with The Atlantic magazine a few weeks after the installation, Ron O'Hanley, the CEO of State Street Global Advisors, said:
“ Knowing the benefits of diversity, we felt we needed to be more categorical about it with companies. We don’t like checklists, but rather broad principles .”
When the permit for the statue to be installed expired, the artist argued that her sculpture was about much more than the company's corporate ambitions.
She spoke about the importance of equal pay, discussed the fight for women's rights in developing countries such as Afghanistan and India and said the statue was a symbol of the global women's movement.
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But look at the irony behind this.
In September 2017, just months into the list of switzerland consumer email campaign, State Street agreed to pay $5 million to settle U.S. Department of Labor claims of systematic pay discrimination against female, primarily African-American, employees.
The headline on CNN read: “Uncomfortable! Same company behind 'Fearless Girl' in the middle of gender pay dispute . ”
Add to this State Street's own record on gender diversity: its top executives are 82% men...
Frankly, this contradiction is not a surprise.
The story of State Street and Fearless Girl speaks to the recent rush by brands to embrace purpose and the real gap between what they say and how they act.
She also talks about how brands view their DE&I policy as a marketing and PR tool, rather than a sign of social justice and equality.
“Companies must become the change they tweet about.”
Even more dangerous, as teacher Mark Ritson put it in his column for Marketing Week , “Marketers live in the bubble of the brand we create. We believe that brands matter. That our brand and advertising matter. We believe that other people care.”
We now know that this is not really the case and that this “brand bubble” has grown to the point where it influences the behavior of the entire company.
Companies have been trying hard to take a position and do all those PR activities that make them feel good about themselves, without making a real difference to anyone in the real world.
And we know why: the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is stronger than ever .
According to a McKinsey study , companies that have cultural and ethnic minorities on their teams are 36% more likely to be profitable. And another McKinsey survey shows that more than 80% of African-American respondents were willing to switch brands if another represented them better.
Furthermore, the report found that the greater the representation, the greater the likelihood of increased performance. Companies with more than 30% female executives were more likely to outperform companies where this percentage ranged from 10 to 30, and in turn, these companies were more likely to outperform those with fewer or no female executives.
In May, the United States was torn apart by another mass shooting, a horrific racist murder , in Buffalo. History, unfortunately, repeats itself. So do brand reactions. When George Floyd was killed in 2020, many brands spoke out. Two of the biggest brands on the planet, Nike and Adidas, began a Twitter race that ended with empty statements.
While it is notable that two global brands are choosing to take a stand and make statements about the racism and lack of representation facing the African American community, it should also be apparent that they are not part of the change they are trying to promote.
A quick glance will show the true face of such brands: women and minorities are underrepresented. Adidas, for example, was criticized for having only 8% African-American vice presidents (compared to 13.6% of the population).
We're the first to say that correlation doesn't equal causation: a lack of representation doesn't prove these companies are racist. But the numbers show they're not trying hard enough .
They have a long way to go.
Once again, Mark Ritson put it well: “ If you care about black lives, you don’t get inspired by an Instagram post. You get inspired by their faces in the boardroom during a meeting,” he wrote in his column on Marketing Week’s website.
Words matter, but actions bring about change. Companies must become the change they tweet about.
