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a brand is really a meaning system it really is a way to communicate to a group of people or Marketplace these are
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my values and this is what I stand for this is my mission and so branding has a much deeper kind of impact and hopefully
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the smart organization services companies Etc understand that distinction and they're working very
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hard to make sure that what they believe they stand for is what the marketplace actually perceives
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welcome to a special edition of the ripple effect I'm Dan Loney in honor of Juneteenth this month senior advisor to
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the dean for the Coalition of equity and opportunity Kenneth Shropshire will be your special guestos in each episode
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this month can and Wharton faculty are focusing on the critical themes of diversity equity and inclusion we'll be
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covering a diverse range of topics bringing you the latest insights and knowledge that you could apply to your
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life and work so get ready to dive into this special edition of the ripple effect with guest host Ken Shropshire
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so the topic we're talking about today with America's kind of links this back
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in to what companies are doing around diversity Equity inclusion you're seeing
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a little bit firsthand as well give us your thoughts on how companies are reacting to this issue
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well you know part of what we're looking at is is how they reacted initially post
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George Floyd kind of that moment compared to where we are now and I think that's where we all need to step back
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and think about our companies still doing what they need to do or what they said they were going to do and evaluate
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the circumstances as they stand well I will let you two get at it a pleasure to have on the show America's
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read marketing Professor here at the Wharton School Of America it's always great to talk to you my friend
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great to see you as well Dan appreciate the opportunity thank you gentlemen enjoy your time
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thanks Dan Americas I'm happy to be doing this one of my longtime friends at
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uh at Wharton thanks for being here I appreciate you yeah thanks a lot Ken uh you know as one of my key mentors always
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a pleasure to sit down and have a conversation with you because I walk away a little bit smarter so I'm excited
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to have that experience as well today that's a marketing thing you know how to
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go I don't leave it in a private conversation but America's you know you and I talk
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about these issues and two of the senior African-American leaders uh in the school and and on
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campus as well and you know one of the things that that I want to highlight to folks is that you
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are a branding expert and and you are you are not a race branding expert and so this is a conversation that talks
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about what you what you know best branding and as applied to the to this topic what's what's
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it what's the importance of branding for a company overall just before we get
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into this well I love that question thanks for that uh Ken I think it's important
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because if you step back you think about what is what is branding and how does it
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fit into the overall context of the organization it's huge because in some senses you know we think about branding
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and we're sometimes fooled because we think it's well it's a picture it's a
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tagline it's a logo and certainly brands have external markers that communicate
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to the world this is where we are and how how you can find us right uh but if you step back and you think about it a
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little bit more generally uh Ken a brand is really a meaning system it really is
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a way to communicate to a group of people a Marketplace these are my values and this is what I stand for this is my
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mission and so branding has a much deeper kind of impact and hopefully the smart organization services companies
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Etc understand that distinction and they're working very hard to make sure that what they believe they stand for is
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what the marketplace actually perceives right so so that gets us into this context into the the race of the
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workplace context that that we're talking about in this series and you know at post George Floyd just a new
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study for McKenzie that says the companies have committed to now it's up to 340 billion dollars which is an
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unbelievable number to these issues related to equity and opportunity broadly and 141 billion of that has been
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committed just in in the past year so you know that there there's apparently still a lot of work to be
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done but how are companies in terms of branding how are they utilizing this this moment and the
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announcement of these funds what what needs to go hand in hand with that yeah it's a great question Ken I think
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what's really really important and is an aspect that is sometimes missed is the
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idea that as we try to communicate a connection to a Marketplace and an understanding of how internally we are
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as an organization changing to become better or to be better citizens um what what needs to be done and I
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think the money piece is super important to your point uh but what's equally
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important is the understanding of once we create diversity once we create inclusion once we create a kind of
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composition within the organization that we're actively trying to manage that in
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a way that allows that inclusion that change in the organization to actually be successful so it's it's a really
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serious mistake if you just create diversity and you try to walk away and think it's going to happen uh and
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facilitate if all the efficiencies all of the positive things on its own because you know the organization that
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end of visuals in the in the employees the people they have to understand how to reconnect and reintegrate with New
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Perspectives and sometimes that requires difficult conversations it requires uncomfortable situations because you
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have a new context that people are expected to thrive as an employee in and you just can't pretend that that's going
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to happen all on its own there also has to be some oversight and some purposeful
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consideration with respect to how to manage that that diversity as well so I think companies are awake to that now
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and that they understand that it's it's not just only being self-aware but it's
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also understanding that we have to work very hard to manage this this new world that we want to try to see in the vision
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of our future so externally you can get a a branding bump I guess you'll call it
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by announcing the money by announcing programs but but you're saying there's
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there's much to be impactful to truly make this work the work continues once you make that
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announcement in a way that maybe some companies haven't haven't contemplate
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yeah I think that's correct I think I think that the understanding that the work is just starting it's a great point
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you just make once you once you start making those important initial efforts to create now we have to also understand
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that's the easy part right the hard part is how do we now manage this appropriately how do we make this part
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of the DNA how do we bring people together in this new world that they haven't been in perhaps before and how
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do we make them Thrive and be successful in that new setting right so I guess the
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question then how do you I mean any examples you can give or or maybe it is just
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top-down thinking how do you sustain this so once you announce the money you announce the program
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how do you make that a I guess it's you know it's certainly certainly from your
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kind of baileywick as we would say how do you sustain that brand how do you what do you need to do to make it last
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longer than that moment and this is this is some of your language too and be genuine and authentic at the same time
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yeah that's that's the that's the huge part that's the the difficult part and I
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think a couple things have to happen Ken uh first you have to you've already
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alluded to this you have to have kind of top-down full-on full committed support
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to this this in other words this ethos has to live and breathe and be incredibly robust in the c-suite and
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then once that that ethos is is there there has to be the work that's being done to permeate it through the entire
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uh various levels and layers of the organization so it's kind of like it's
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two parts is one part is the authenticity piece comes from those individuals in the c-suite making sure
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that this is a living breathing thing that happens and is reinforced every single day in every aspect of the daily
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tasks that have to occur in terms of the organization running efficiently and a second part of that is everyone within
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the organization uh being aware of what they need to now do to make that that Vision that ethos real and so part of it
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is to make sure that it's it's kind of flowing through the organizations from
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the top down but also the bottom up and that there's a clear shared Collective
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understanding that this this approach is something that we all believe in and that we're going to work every day to
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becoming a successful you know Inc aspect that we want to build as part of our brand if we want to reach that level
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of authenticity that you were describing earlier so if I'm hearing you correctly
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as I'm sitting in my marketing marketing classroom today the external part is is one thing but
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there's really a lot going on internally that makes this important that makes
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makes The Branding impactful you're you're saying that a lot of the conversation that needs to be
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contemplated is not the press release that you send out to the public it's it's what you do inside
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the company that's 100 correct if you think about it and I've seen this happen in many different situations can
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uh where companies will show up and say Here's the new brand and then and then they kind of walk away
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and they say okay we expect everyone to now be empowered to embrace this and the
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problem with that Ken is there was no there were no degrees of freedom for people to own it there were there was no
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opportunity for people to say I collaborate I'm part of this and so in those situations where it just shows up
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it tends to fall flat because there was no Groundswell where people felt like they were actually a part of this this
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this movement towards this this this change that we're trying to see happen and so the Smart Companies understand
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before they even do this the press release they're working in the background to make sure that everyone in
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the organization is understanding that we're going to be a co-collaborative effort here and we're going to do this
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to together and they're going to be moments of pivoting moments of changing moments of modification mistakes
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missteps you know that we we understand that this is an evolution it's a process
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but we want to make sure that we bring the company and all of its constituent Parts all of its employees we want to
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bring them along with us so that they feel they're a part of this and that they have some psychological ownership
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in it so we're talking about this companies that that got on board I think in some
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way post George Floyd what about companies that missed missed the moment I guess that
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that are looking around and realizing we didn't do this we need to get on board is it is it too
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late what missteps could be made if you do try to jump in and do some work in this in the Dei space or in the wealth
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Gap space or should you just continue to lay low or what what what what advice do you
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give companies that are are saying okay that maybe just use the language maybe they just woke up
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what should they do yeah yeah it's a great question uh it's a hard question to answer Ken because you
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know one can make a philosophical argument that getting on the ship late uh is better than not getting on at all
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one could make that argument for sure but I think the marketplace there there is a kind of settling point where the
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marketplace will if you wait too long or if you're perceived as kind of going
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along because of social pressures or of a herd mentality or whatever that obviously is going to decrease your
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ability to to do it in a in a way that's authentically perceived as something
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genuine and so on and so forth so I think but even those companies just have a decision to make because even if
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you're going to jump in late you gotta here's my rule that I always tell
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companies you can't half do this this is not something where you can sort of say
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well you know we think it's important but we we don't want to offend some
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people so we're going to try to thread this needle and we're going to try to
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use kind of really safe ambiguous language so everyone's happy and like this this group's over here no one gets
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offended you can't do it that way you have to literally say this is something
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that the c-suite the company the ethos the brand what we stand for we believe in this and we are going to move forward
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with this and create this and we're going to stand behind those core values and I think this idea of committing
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fully and living with the consequences of whatever that might mean because there may be groups of consumers there
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may be Target markets that feel that they no longer can connect with you because of this type of stance that
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you're taking but that's the whole point of purpose marketing that's the whole
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point of creating a strong stance on an issue whether it be social justice wealth gaps other kinds of things that
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you were mentioning to explicitly step out there and say this is what we stand for this is something you have to do
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explicitly directly clearly and articulately so so when we think broadly about this
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The Branding issue related to Dei issues in the workplace and you know one of the things that I
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always come back especially being involved in sports so much is is the idea of what to do when something goes
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wrong and not we'll call it external not like the George Floyd kind of moment but with
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your company for example the the senior executive uh says the inward or there's
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a sexual harassment uh case that's brought against uh a high-profile individual in your organization
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these are one-off moments where these companies may have something like the post-george Floyd activities going
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on what is it the company should do when these these moments and I know each one
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is different I mean and I know we have to individualize what happens but in in sports the tradition has been you say
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the n-word you're gonna be fired the next day and I'm and there's a variety of
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follow-up kinds of things have happened what what's your kind of thinking about
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this when you see these these crisis moments happen in this in the space where we're concerned about Dei and race
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in the workplace and companies that want to have the right brand after something occurs
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what kinds of steps do you contemplate in terms of of regrouping when those things occur
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yeah I think it's a great question Ken I think that there's a couple of things
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that I I believe are really important and I think the research on this is quite clear and that's the idea that you
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know first of all it's interesting because of crises around Dei situations of race situations where we're trying to
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create more diverse uh components within our organizations they're going to happen so the idea is how do we respond
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to those crises and I think that's implicit in your point uh as you ask that question Ken and I think there's a
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couple of things that are really important the first thing is that you always have to jump out there in these
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situations and be quick to validate the concerns of those who are offended right
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so language that has to do with well I'm sorry I offended you things like that
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that's the wrong language the language is to just come out own it and say hey
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I made a mistake around this particular issue uh you know there may be some racial tension going on with respect to
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how my company fits into a context or leaders in my company or engaging around issues around Dei but you got to come
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out and own it quickly and validate those concerns of individuals who who may be in other constituents who might
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be offended by that that's Point number one point number two is to say listen I
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gotta show you an action plan so I think that's the the second step of basically saying here's what we're going
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to do in this context of what happened in this particular crisis we have this four-point plan and here it is okay and
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then lastly can you you think about steps one and two that I just mentioned and being very proactive about
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controlling that narrative and getting out there and talking to people so that they understand your position and your
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plan moving forward uh about that particular Dei or race related crisis that might happen in your organization
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so if you follow those three steps you can mitigate uh the negative potential reaction that could happen uh the worst
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thing you could do is stay silent uh and allow maybe your Rivals your your arch enemies to fill that silence so you know
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that that's something that I think about in with respect to to companies I also
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just quickly add this can if you've been doing the work this is what you said
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earlier if you've been doing the diligent purposeful work around these issues of Dei and race and your
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historical footprint is out there you have a surplus of Goodwill in the bank that you can draw upon when these crises
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happen such that when you go out there now it's not like the marketplace is looking at you like man those evil
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bastards no they're saying like you know what if I if I if I look at what they've
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done over the past they have an authentic you know uh connection with these Dei racial racial related issues
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and so therefore I'm going to take that into consideration when I evaluate their
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response to a particular crisis then there's some real genuineness too that's
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not Who We Are and again as I mentioned it's so common in sports and we have to let this person
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go because they're not part of our our ethos uh you know the the other path that that
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we're talking about the in in some of these conversations is the idea of what
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else can you do to rehab someone or to get someone in the right frame of mind and there's a lot of research now from
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some of our faculty about the idea of diversity training and that sort of thing which may have a good PR value but
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it's not necessarily as impactful in terms of having a real impact on people
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as as some have contemplated so that's great I mean I love those three steps I
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mean I I think that's that's so much more and something for companies to be
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able to contemplate in advance as you say in this in this longer kind of planning if you are really about Dei if
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you really are about uh addressing issues of race in the workplace you should have these kinds of plans in
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place and I think related to that the the other question that I wanted to ask you before we begin to close out
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is what should companies do and I hate to frame it like this but I think it it does capture the question
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when the next George Floyd moment occurs oh that's a great question Ken yeah I
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think that yeah I mean it is kind of going back again should you issue these statements again should you say we're
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going to commit this money again is that proven to be a good path I mean have some companies
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done done it right or is there some other path that you see that that they might begin to contemplate and companies
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this would cost you a lot of money in in real life for to give this advice from Americas
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no idea you you ask a a very challenging question Ken I think that you know from
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my perspective one of the things that that you had mentioned earlier that I want to unpack just a little bit is the
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context of what gets done with that money and you know a big part of the efficacy around this
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and the research Bears this out as well is the idea that you have to take these efforts and you have to create
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interventions that the company and the community uh are co-involved with so it can't just
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be let's hire the celebrity to come in and put a a beautiful you know uh glossed over you know training manual
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here's the training manual you know Starbucks let's shut down for a day and
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do a whole day of training on all the stores and we'll have common come in and
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like you know he'll be on the video and we you yeah that's great but at the end
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of the day you also need what's going on in the community like what are we doing
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to what are we doing to be a part of that conversation to be a trusted advisor in the community uh doing things
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to to help the community understand where we are with this issue and how we're helping the actual Community not
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just through them buying our stuff but authentically you know investing in these communities that would allow the
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probabilistic likelihood that maybe we can be a part of reducing these types of of incidences from happening in the
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first place so it's it's a really a full like 360 degree approach where yes we
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want to do the internal work that gets the pr bump up and gets covered in the media and gets us that earned media but
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we also want to be working very I think working very very closely with the community activists the boots on the
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ground if you will the folks that are that are fighting these issues in the absence of the light of gratitude from
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any audience and be a part of that effort and that work and putting money into those kinds of areas as well to
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against Build It Up not only from top down but also uh the employees and the layers but also the community as well so
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I think that you know you're not going to stop potentially these types of things from happening but you always
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want to be in a proactive mode of investing in the community and being being a part of that solution such that
00:22:07
these types of unfortunate uh Act of incidences don't happen in the first place I think that's the that's the best
00:22:14
that you can do and that you have to kind of do that from an authentic uh and a genuine place as you just mentioned
00:22:20
America's I love these insights the the idea of being on top of branding before the
00:22:27
trouble starts how to address issues when they do come how to be on on a high alert that any moment might be a
00:22:36
branding moment and especially insightful with me was was the idea of it's not just the external message it's
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it's what you do internally as well how is it that you get your your people on
00:22:46
board number three thank you very much thank you I really appreciate the opportunity always great to talk with
00:22:52
you Kim likewise thank you for listening to the ripple effect we hope you found this episode
00:22:57
informative and engaging don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review so that
00:23:02
we can continue to bring you the best Insight from the Wharton School