Building Brand Gravity Podcast

00:00:00:15 - 00:00:24:03
Speaker 2
Welcome to building Brand Gravity. I'm angry, and I'm a principal and managing director here at Chinese Business Communications, and I love my two guests. I'm very psyched about them today. So first we've got Kim Sample. She's president of the PR Council, which, if you don't know, is the US Industry Association that represents more than 100. Well, more than 100 agencies of PR, integrated marketing communications.

00:00:24:05 - 00:00:46:08
Speaker 2
And, Kim, you made me laugh when I asked for your bio and you described yourself as a 100% agency animal, which I am as well. So she's worked in big firms, small firms. She built a firm from $0 to $35 million, which I am very, very impressed by. And, she's just been an incredible leader of our profession as president of the PR Council.

00:00:46:10 - 00:01:11:17
Speaker 2
And then we have Mark McLennan, who I've known, I think Mark almost 20 years now, probably. He's worked in tech and fintech comms for 20 plus years against small firms, mid-sized big holding company agencies. And he's now general manager in the Boston office of C plus C, which is a purpose, purpose driven agency. But for the conversation today, I think what's really notable is Mark's been a big voice on ethics in our industry.

00:01:11:18 - 00:01:34:13
Speaker 2
So he's hosted Ethical Voices, dot com, the podcast since 2019, 100 plus episodes. Check it out. And also, authored a book, Ethical Voices Practicing Public Relations with integrity. Which hit number one on Amazon and its categories in 2022. Good job Mark I love that. And he was 2016 National Chair of PRC. So thank you both for joining me today.

00:01:34:17 - 00:01:36:00
Speaker 3
Awesome. Great to be here.

00:01:36:05 - 00:01:37:01
Speaker 4
My pleasure.

00:01:37:03 - 00:02:02:20
Speaker 2
So we're here today to talk about what is a hot topic generative AI. I'm sure everybody is thrilled for more content on this. But frankly, we got to talk about it. And the reason that specifically we're talking today is because the PRC work together with Mark and I and a task force to create new guidelines on the ethical use of generative AI in the communications industry.

00:02:02:22 - 00:02:20:21
Speaker 2
And this is truly I mean, you both know, a hot topic everywhere, not just in the news, but every industry association meeting we go to. I know, Mark, you said you just came back from Counselors Academy for Prsa. I'm sure it was talked about there, but I guess let me just set the stage by asking him why these guidelines and why now?

00:02:20:21 - 00:02:23:02
Speaker 2
What was the genesis of this project?

00:02:23:06 - 00:02:54:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. We had made the decision. It's our 25th anniversary and we felt like an important piece of work to launch as part of the 25th anniversary was a focus on ethics and standards for our industry, because so much is evolving, our work is so fully integrated. We just wanted to put a dedicated focus on making sure that we were being as ethical as possible and really meeting the demands of a changing society.

00:02:54:21 - 00:03:21:18
Speaker 3
And it just so happened as soon as we launched that work and I was able to attract these two amazing leaders to lead that work. Generative AI became the hot topic in our agencies. Everybody was talking about it and everybody was handwringing about it, or fast forward on it, and it just felt like a huge public service.

00:03:21:20 - 00:03:50:07
Speaker 3
If we could bring together the brightest minds in public relations focused on ethics, Dei, technology, corporate reputation, all of these different areas, if we could bring everybody together and come up with guidelines, it would be a huge success, not only for our member firms, but across the industry. And we just felt like there was so much at stake for the industry in not approaching this in a really smart way.

00:03:50:09 - 00:04:01:12
Speaker 2
Marc, what was your feeling about the urgency of it or why you said yes? When Kim approached us about taking this on, what was what was your first thought about, this is the right time to try to put guidelines.

00:04:01:13 - 00:04:25:21
Speaker 4
I was so happy. I mean, this is one of the most significant issues and transformative opportunities for PR agencies. And I thought there was a lack of clear, actionable guidance. Others have looked at it. There's been some folks that have definitely given some great advice, but I thought there was a void that needed to be filled, and I was so happy to see PR Council stepping up to fill it.

00:04:25:22 - 00:04:43:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, and what's interesting about these guidelines, right. Because there's again, I mean, we all know the news cycle, right? We know how the hype cycle is something is off your radar. And then maybe you're a first mover and you start to see it cooking and then suddenly, boom, it's everywhere. And then then the the the flow changes.

00:04:43:21 - 00:05:05:05
Speaker 2
It goes up and down, right. But there's so much discussion going on. We'll get into some of the big trends as we get into this conversation. But I want to center this, the start of this conversation on the fact that these guidelines are focused around ethical use of generative AI, which is an interesting and critical to me. I agree, Mark, like right in the wheelhouse of stuff I think about.

00:05:05:05 - 00:05:26:17
Speaker 2
But let's go to you, Mark. You've been a voice, a very powerful, thoughtful and insistent voice around centering ethics in our industry for years and years since the early days when I've known you. Why talk about generative AI in that context? And why was that important? That that's how our guidelines are shaped around.

00:05:26:19 - 00:05:49:06
Speaker 4
Ethics is central to the human condition and has been the key pivot point as long as there's been humanity. Without ethical guidance. We have murder, mayhem and Machiavelli maneuvering. And I think this is a case where when people understand it, there's laws that are evolving. You know, there's going to be a lot of evolving legal issues when it comes to the use of generative AI.

00:05:49:08 - 00:06:07:04
Speaker 4
But the good part about ethics is the fundamental ethical guidelines are rules are universal and stand the test of time. So by using that to a discussion, it's a great framework to build a discussion for agencies on what you should and shouldn't do with generative AI.

00:06:07:06 - 00:06:36:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, Kim, I love that answer and I love the alliteration. Nice job there. That's I agree we would it's kind of chaos if that sense of an ethical framework ethical decision making. What is the ethical mind. How does that come into us as individuals as is into our organizations? But I'll ask you the same question, Kim. We are talking about these guidelines within the PR Council, with technologists, with the leaders in our agencies that are digitally driven with overall leadership, organizational leaders.

00:06:36:07 - 00:06:45:03
Speaker 2
Why for you, was it important or did you see the deep connection to let's look at this through the ethical lens and the PR Council code of Ethics?

00:06:45:05 - 00:07:16:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, it just made perfect sense. And I think I was spurred on by the realization that I don't think our agencies are talking enough about ethics. I think we get so busy. We're so in service of client needs and wants. But it was like an important reminder that this is central to what we do. This is the backbone, and we need to be having constant conversations.

00:07:16:05 - 00:07:27:07
Speaker 3
And I, I feel so lucky that the two of you were willing to take leadership of this effort because you so firmly believe that and model that. And, I.

00:07:27:08 - 00:07:48:22
Speaker 2
Mean, I'll build off often and riff on that. And then I have a follow up question for Mark that I know is in your wheelhouse. I do you very, very much believe that ethics is not necessarily thought of not just in our firms, but by individuals and also our society in a way that I think makes sense to how it actually operates.

00:07:48:22 - 00:08:13:04
Speaker 2
It's sort of what you said, Mark. It's a central engine, a central lens that we can deploy. And this question of I mean, you, Kim, you've heard me say this, and I think, Mark, you may have to when I do ethics training in my own firm. And I've really been very happy over the years that the PR Council has taken programs from some of the larger agencies, and white labeled them and made it available.

00:08:13:04 - 00:08:35:23
Speaker 2
And I would very I was a big consumer of those take it. I'm a very big proponent of in person or small group training, role playing, etc., because what I often say is that ethics is not, the villain with the, you know, with the black hat standing in the corner, twirling his mustache, saying, haha, I'm going to do evil now what it often is.

00:08:35:23 - 00:08:58:16
Speaker 2
And it's actually really tragic to see it. It's death by a thousand papercuts. It's a lot of small bad decisions and often huge, failure in leadership. We've seen a lot of examples out there, of where there was pressure from the top of an organization and the pressure wasn't saying, I want you to break the rules or I want you to act unethically.

00:08:58:18 - 00:09:20:17
Speaker 2
But the message was basically results at any cost. And therefore it drove a culture of permissiveness and and blind eye turning to this. So I think that for me, I agree, I was really excited about this because it was a chance to again recenter ethics in the fact that it's woven into everything. I mean, Mark, tell me you and I talked about this.

00:09:20:21 - 00:09:31:04
Speaker 2
For a lot of organizations, ethics can be kind of like a once there, check the box. What what is the challenge with that for you and what what would you rather see in organizations today?

00:09:31:05 - 00:09:54:01
Speaker 4
Well, to my mind, ethics at once your training this is effective. You go to going to the gym once a year or taking your vitamins once a year. It is not going to make you fit and healthy people do it. They check it and they go back. And it shows, frankly, that you're looking at ethics as a check the box comply initiative, and you're telling your folks that you don't have significant weight on it.

00:09:54:03 - 00:10:19:06
Speaker 4
And my dream when it comes to ethical training and I talk about this a lot, is people need to train their ethical minds because there's studies that show biologically, our initial instinct is to be selfish. And it's only when we give a deliberative thought that we tend to elevate. And I don't know about you, but there's fewer things that are less controlled chaos than a PR person's day.

00:10:19:08 - 00:10:37:22
Speaker 4
And so by having these discussions, it's like a golfer hones their swing, a batter hones their swing, you get ready to make these decisions. And what I love to have people do is both talk about it. I've senior management bring it up and make it a part of your regular meetings at least twice a month. Share relevant ethical issues.

00:10:38:00 - 00:11:01:16
Speaker 4
Did you see this? Have other staff bring in ethical issues? Discuss it. Debate the pros and cons. Look at applied scenarios that you may be dealing with. And really, that gets your entire staff to understand that you're putting ethics first. I'd say it shouldn't just be with your staff. You should share it with your clients because frankly, one of your clients know the importance you put on ethics and also what may alert your client issues.

00:11:01:16 - 00:11:20:02
Speaker 4
They may have. Because if your client has ethical failings that may come and blowback on you as well. And so you really just want to have this discussion. And the final point I'll say about that is, as a senior leader, you shouldn't be the one giving your opinion. First, you need to wait. Otherwise you're going to stand for the bait.

00:11:20:04 - 00:11:35:11
Speaker 4
And don't ever worry about running out of topics. I teach PR Ethics at Boston University, and the first half an hour of every class is what were the PR ethics issues this week? And I have never had a lack of anybody having an issue to bring up.

00:11:35:13 - 00:11:58:23
Speaker 2
Somehow that does not surprise me and our society today, but to to pick on something you said it's that training your mind and it's very important, I think, for people to understand that that moment of intentional thought, whether it's looking at through an ethical framework, it can also be trying to interrupt your own bias, which is something we talk about a lot with T, E and I.

00:11:59:01 - 00:12:23:18
Speaker 2
It can be stopping and asking yourself, what is the implications of the decision I'm making? Is there someone else I should bring into this? And this does bring us back to generative AI, because there is so much power being unfurled, and it is so transformative. And it's it's kind of, you know, the first time you encounter these large language models, especially with the release of, the various platforms of ChatGPT over the past few months, it feels like a magic trick.

00:12:23:18 - 00:12:45:00
Speaker 2
It feels amazing. It's sort of blows you away, but you start to unpeel what are the implications of this? What is the positive power, the negative power? And one thing I'd love you guys to reflect on, because it's really a personal thing as well as a business question. We're hearing now a lot of discussions. Either this is amazing.

00:12:45:00 - 00:13:06:16
Speaker 2
It's going to be totally amazing. The utopian kind of view, which always comes with tech, which is, I think, a very important energy. But there's also the destroyer narrative, which is, are we about to be in the matrix? Right. And it's interesting to see people like Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of AI, just left Google so that he can be a very open voice of, hey, this is moving faster than we realize.

00:13:06:16 - 00:13:24:22
Speaker 2
And there may be bad implications here as we get caught up as leaders and as people in this hyper zone where it's like Utopia destroyer, Utopia, destroyer. How are each of you modulating that as especially in our field? I mean, Kim, how are you weighing these two poles of discussion?

00:13:25:00 - 00:13:54:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very interesting. And I would say that the extremes are moderating a little bit. And I feel that people in our industry are getting a bit more in the middle. And I use this evidence. We had a digital community meeting yesterday, and we were all talking about how we're using generative AI in our agencies and to a person, you know, they are not using it for client work.

00:13:54:23 - 00:14:21:10
Speaker 3
They are encouraging experimentation and they're encouraging, its use, you know, if there's a roadblock, you know, you could use generative AI, play around with it, see if it helps you open up your roadblocks. So I think we're getting to a good place, which we can take credit, you know, for really, pushing people to have these ethical conversations.

00:14:21:12 - 00:14:56:08
Speaker 3
But I think it's so important for our industry. Like that doom and gloom message was so strong for a while that our industry is going to be most affected. And I don't see that. And I think it's important for people to understand like, this is this is an opportunity. You know, you have a responsibility as a communications professional to learn, maybe to safely experiment, but to understand that really the value that we're offering to clients is still there.

00:14:56:08 - 00:15:15:02
Speaker 3
It's going to be even more so. There. But maybe there's a way that I can be used to eliminate some of the more, you know, rote aspects of our job that, frankly, nobody enjoy. So if there's an opportunity to create more exciting jobs, we're all in, right?

00:15:15:04 - 00:15:27:14
Speaker 2
Shout out to all the people of a certain age who used to cut clips out of newspapers and measure them to see what the advertising equivalency would be, and if if you didn't understand any of those words, then you're younger.

00:15:27:14 - 00:15:33:18
Speaker 4
And back then the debate was, do you tape the clips or do you paste the clips and you had people on either side?

00:15:33:20 - 00:15:35:08
Speaker 2
I really enjoyed a glue stick, man.

00:15:35:08 - 00:15:54:04
Speaker 4
That was a tape guy. But the one point I want to build on Kim. So and this is it's an interesting concern I have. I think we're talking a lot about agency and agency operations, and I go back and forth. I am more utopian of what I'm seeing, some of the technology going, but I am also, in some very specific cases, being extremely dystopian.

00:15:54:06 - 00:16:18:19
Speaker 4
Deepfakes scare the heck out of me, and the technology is getting better. And the more I learn about that, the more concerned I am. And I was. I was talking to a number of colleagues recently. If you do not have deepfakes as part of your crisis plan and you're not working and thinking about how to respond to them, you were not doing your clients a good service and you need to learn how to do it, how you can count on them and really, really how you can incorporate that.

00:16:18:19 - 00:16:25:15
Speaker 4
So in some cases, the dystopian I think is still on the rise, and I think it's going to rise for quite a while.

00:16:25:17 - 00:16:49:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that's really fair. I was going to ask you guys where the things that give you the most pause. I do think that, you know, I remember and I've talked to both of you about this back when social media really first came to the fore, and I'm really thinking about blogging. We forget how revolutionary Typepad and WordPress were when you could suddenly write to the web without any coding experience whatsoever.

00:16:49:18 - 00:17:18:04
Speaker 2
And that was amazing. And in those early days of social media, kind of talking to clients about it, talking to colleagues about it, you know, we've been on this journey about what are the net positives, what are the net negatives? And I think that for me, you know, we're living in a world where we've really had to reflect very long and hard about the impact on individuals and society of algorithmic manipulation and none of us are innocent from this.

00:17:18:06 - 00:17:35:19
Speaker 2
You know, we're we are in the business of shaping perception, and so we're always under suspicion from the outside. I would allege, though, and I would say, and I feel very strongly about this, that to Mark's earlier point, our industry actually thinks more about ethics and more about what are the implications of what we're communicating because we represent others.

00:17:35:21 - 00:18:05:13
Speaker 2
We have contracts, obligations, etc.. But I it does give me a great pause. We've seen now the level of manipulation of the human brain, the behaviors that can come of it, radicalization, you know, polarization. And then when you get down to the pure deepfakes, it's it's scary. And I think you're right, Kim. I think one of the pieces I've been reflecting on is how this opens up more and more space for what we do best, which is to be counselors.

00:18:05:15 - 00:18:25:12
Speaker 2
What is the nature of how the media landscape is changing? How do you deal with things where there's no perfect or right answer? What do you you know, what is that mix of art and science in a crisis that helps you understand how to deal with this? But I think you're right, Mark. If companies aren't thinking about the implications here, it's it's pretty heavy for sure.

00:18:25:14 - 00:18:56:19
Speaker 3
There is an interesting thing you just brought to mind for me that I've been sort of pondering is, how will we train counselors when AI is doing a lot of the rote work? So, for example, when we stood at the copy machine and taped or pasted, we've read those clips. It was our job to read every one of those clips and new ideas came from that.

00:18:56:19 - 00:19:19:12
Speaker 3
So a machine can do that to some degree, I don't know. It's like if we're eliminating some of those rote tasks that train your brain and let you search for patterns, how will we develop up those analytical and counseling abilities in our young talent? I think that's a big TBD.

00:19:19:14 - 00:19:48:09
Speaker 2
It's a really good question. I mean, it makes me wonder, you know, sometimes I've been the kind of person who says very literary focus growing up of like, oh, we're not reading in this way anymore. We're not writing anymore in this way or etc. and just new technology and how it changes the brain and how you communicate. And there's a school of thought that, you know, folks adapt and they bring it in and they find new ways of expressing that, like our folks today are pulling articles, they're using already tools, but they're still ingesting it.

00:19:48:09 - 00:19:55:03
Speaker 2
Maybe the AI helps them do an analysis if they find that to be accurate. But yeah, I don't know. Mark, do you have any thoughts?

00:19:55:03 - 00:20:17:19
Speaker 4
I think it comes down, frankly, to individual agencies making their own discussion. And the specific point I want to highlight, because we had a very robust debate at CPAC over this, is on meeting notes and action items that, you know, there are tools out there right now that can absolutely do meeting notes and action items, automate the process and turn them off very quickly.

00:20:17:22 - 00:20:35:18
Speaker 4
And so the time is one. Does that let you save some billable hours and not bring a junior person to the meeting? But people be more present in the meeting. But the corollary to that is, you know, if they're if you don't have somebody, the way you learn how to pick up these key ideas and do the actual finances by doing the meeting notes.

00:20:35:20 - 00:20:55:15
Speaker 4
And so we need to decide, do you want to use AI to save time, or do you want to make sure you still have somebody there and give them that training opportunity? And I think you can make the argument either way. And that's why it's up to the agency decide what to do in our case, we've decided we want to make sure we have somebody because we want to train their critical thinking and train their ability to find those key messages, as Kim talked about.

00:20:55:20 - 00:20:59:07
Speaker 4
So we're not using it right now for that purpose.

00:20:59:09 - 00:21:30:06
Speaker 2
I think it might be also a magnificent way to to engage all generations within an organizational environment to say, hey, what is a value to you? There's obviously the judgment we can bring as more senior leaders, because we have seen professional development and sort of see the nuances of how that might shift from person to person learning style, but also to ask younger people, what are the places where you feel you really need to be at the table, and how does this bring the value for you, etc., etc.?

00:21:30:06 - 00:21:49:01
Speaker 2
I mean, there's there's so much great stuff here. I think about this very much as an organizational leader, even thinking beyond the agency context, but also as a practitioner and as a person. I mean, I think we on this kind of issue, I think we have to be considering and reflecting on this on multiple levels at all times because of the 360 nature.

00:21:49:03 - 00:22:09:01
Speaker 2
So let's talk about the guidelines for a bit. And I've got them up here on my other screen. There's a lot of great things in here in terms of we it's it's and it's aligned. And Mark you really were a proponent of this aligning the view of generative AI and the use of it in an ethical context with the PR Council's Code of Ethics that is signed by all agencies.

00:22:09:03 - 00:22:32:14
Speaker 2
These guidelines are not mandatory, but the code of ethics is. So there's a lot of good stuff in here protecting the integrity of client information, our role in society, accuracy, transparency. But for each of you, I don't know. I'll start with you, Kim. What are some of the key themes or areas of focus or topic in there? Or maybe one of the guidelines that most resonates with you, or that you would love to highlight?

00:22:32:16 - 00:23:05:23
Speaker 3
First, I just have to praise Mark for the brilliance and, you know, just using the code of ethics as the format and just work so beautifully. I think, one of the sections that I really valued, and I also enjoyed the discussion on an input from a number of people, was the, preventing bias, particularly around diversity? I thought we were able to do a really good job of creating questions for folks to ask.

00:23:06:07 - 00:23:34:07
Speaker 3
And for me, it was so important because our industry lacks diversity. So we have to, you know, overcompensate for the fact that we don't have diverse teams typically. And really all sort of teach ourselves to watch for that bias. And I think we did a good pass at that.

00:23:34:09 - 00:24:03:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. And shout out to, the individuals and the diversity, community, the CDOs, the chief diversity officers who, corresponded with who came and took a look at that because they added a lot to it. And for those who haven't looked at the guidelines yet, not only are there the guidelines themselves, but relative to that issue, there's a whole series of questions that are part of this document that one can ask to interrupt bias or recognize bias in the process of engaging with generative AI.

00:24:04:01 - 00:24:20:13
Speaker 2
And I would argue that the questions are just good in general for, putting yourself on the spot, stepping back from your normal mode and saying what is actually happening here. But Mark, the question goes to you, what was a theme or a piece of the guidelines that really resonated to you.

00:24:20:15 - 00:24:46:19
Speaker 4
For a lot of them. But I mean, we'll talk about training. I think I mentioned already, so I want to highlight something else that I think is important. That was something I hadn't quite realized the full implications of was dealing with protecting the integrity of client information and really looking at all the different ways we could potentially be compromising, ethically and legally, our responsibilities when it comes to what we may use generative AI to enhance.

00:24:47:04 - 00:25:05:09
Speaker 4
And it's really important to understand the difference between closed and open generative AI, which is something. And frankly, we were laughing. We were always where we were developing these guidelines, where they become outdated, how quickly and the good news about tying it to ethics, it doesn't really get outdated. And you may need to be mortified and updated, but the core principles stay the same.

00:25:05:10 - 00:25:27:03
Speaker 4
But the day of the webinar, we had announcing that there were some new developments when it came to closed AI. And so that's why people need to constantly learn as well. But it's understanding that in any open AI system, any information you put in there can eventually be incorporated into a large language model. And so it's things like are you then liable or are you then putting your client's data at risk?

00:25:27:03 - 00:25:37:18
Speaker 4
There's a whole bunch of elements. And I think that's something where you got to really look at what can and what should you not put into generative AI platforms.

00:25:37:20 - 00:25:57:15
Speaker 2
I think that's such a great one. And that and that's one where it was really interesting, some of the discussions we had around it, because the space is so fast moving. And I think there's also maybe a sense and no one said this explicitly, like in our task force or in some of the reactions that we got from industry and conversations I've had.

00:25:57:15 - 00:26:18:01
Speaker 2
But I do wonder too, with the large public models like ChatGPT, like the public version, if they're if people don't have an assumption, sort of like the school of fish theory. Oh, there's so many fish. Like I'm just like, it'll never pop up. Like there's just so much stuff in there. But, I think it's really important to be rigorous about that and say, you don't know that it won't.

00:26:18:01 - 00:26:43:02
Speaker 2
You don't know that it won't. It's that's the power of these models. My my favorite part. I mean, I really loved every part of this conversation because the frustrated academic in me really enjoys this kind of thing, like very deeply and profoundly. But the thing I enjoyed a lot was having a chance to reflect as a group with different points of view on what does transparency and disclosure mean in this context.

00:26:43:04 - 00:27:18:14
Speaker 2
So there were a lot of different threads of that conversation. One was, and I have great respect for the folks that brought this up, and I understand the context of why, although I will dispute it right now, you know, the sense of disclosure. Well, hey, we're already using Grammarly. I'm already using this AI is embedded like all through wherever my phone is, all through that I feel that is a little bit, I think I think it's a misguided conflation of what is sort of the evolution of not even AI tools as they exist today, and what is coming.

00:27:18:16 - 00:27:38:05
Speaker 2
So this question of disclosure, I don't feel that that can be used as an excuse. And I and again, I don't think people are proffering it as an excuse, but it's more like but this. So I think that was one big thing I had to really reflect on. And then this question of transparency, it's like if it walks and quacks like a duck, is it a duck?

00:27:38:05 - 00:27:58:23
Speaker 2
So if if we created something and X percentage of it was contributed to by generated generative AI, where is the authorship? Does it have to be 51%. Was the human? Does it have to be 60%? 70%? There's a there's a thought leader in this space and I can't remember his name right now. We can put it in the in the show notes.

00:27:59:01 - 00:28:20:04
Speaker 2
Who? One of my colleagues, Kyle Turner, in our titular group who's amazing, shared with me. And this guy was talking about the release of fix, Facebook's Lama, which is open source, a whole nother level of this thing. He calls it the next pebble in the avalanche. And he, at the beginning of his video said this. Here's my disclosure.

00:28:20:04 - 00:28:53:04
Speaker 2
This was 95% human driven. There's 5% where generative AI has created images for me. And I thought that was really, really interesting. My, my colleague Steve Halsey, who some of you know, said to me he was having a discussion at page about what if you had a generative AI spokesperson that was generated video and they if there was a crisis with a company, they that that program could be set to communicate in, you know, 50, 60, 70 languages simultaneously around the world.

00:28:53:06 - 00:29:01:01
Speaker 2
How would we feel about that? So what do you guys think about that, that use case that is really interesting to me.

00:29:01:03 - 00:29:04:10
Speaker 3
It's frightening to me.

00:29:04:12 - 00:29:21:13
Speaker 2
I mean, let's, let's, let's imagine in this thought experiment that it is the company doing it. And, and they want to be able to communicate quickly and they are using AI and it's an avatar and they're saying it's the but it still feels weird if it does it. It took him.

00:29:21:15 - 00:29:51:06
Speaker 3
At it just feels like such a thin line between good and evil on that use case, right? Like, I don't know, it's so super scary. And then if the information is wrong or dangerous or illegal, then is it the company? You know, I don't know. It just feels fraught with peril.

00:29:51:08 - 00:29:55:05
Speaker 2
What's your take on that, Mark? This one really? I was like, wow, that's so it's interesting.

00:29:55:05 - 00:30:13:17
Speaker 4
I mean, I think in the end people would be more reassured right now, at least today, hearing from a live person and making the statements in a real human, because they want to hear from the CEO or the VP of marketing, I almost bifurcated in two ways. It's one around the image and the text. And or are we creating this, the AI, creating it?

00:30:13:19 - 00:30:38:00
Speaker 4
And then to, as you said, 50 or 70 different languages. And yes, it's kind of really interesting to use with the translation automatic because there's tools that do that. But one of the things we understand is translation is in transcription. And no matter how good the translation tools are right now, they do not get the cultural nuances, which is why I tend to involve, you know, human people from the cultures that can understand and use the right terminology.

00:30:38:00 - 00:30:53:13
Speaker 4
Otherwise you're going to have something which some people assume means one thing, and everybody's talking about pop and, you know, like that's your father, while other people think it's a soda. And, you know, it's a it's another thing that you got to make sure you deal with those cultural nuances appropriately.

00:30:53:15 - 00:30:55:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm originally from Ohio, so I was.

00:30:55:17 - 00:31:00:10
Speaker 4
In the past. That's sort of our bubble, if you want. Right. I mean, hey, to the water fountain. Yeah.

00:31:00:10 - 00:31:27:11
Speaker 2
No, I think I wanted to hit you guys with this sort of without warning with this use case, because it just came to me. Steve came into my office yesterday and said, listen to this. And I said, what an interesting thought experiment, because it does trigger so many questions that I think are the right questions. Again, going back to that ethical minds, the ethical decision making framework of what does it mean to have a non-person, an avatar saying this versus how will it be received?

00:31:27:11 - 00:31:55:02
Speaker 2
And for different cultures, different societies at different times, and sort of what you're implying in your answer, Marcus, right now, for many cultures and societies, probably a real person would be the more relevant thing. Will we adapt later on to where that will feel differently? And then the question of is that translation good enough? You know, it's amazing to have live time translation tools, but where does that become a net negative if we don't really understand that?

00:31:55:04 - 00:32:17:07
Speaker 2
There's just I think it's going to be very cool. And we talked about this, Kim, to sort of create a repository of use cases or interesting questions or, hey, this is what's emerging. So as an industry we can start to look at, okay, here's some obvious uses already, but here's some ones that we maybe haven't thought about yet and that that's something I want to keep on my radar.

00:32:17:07 - 00:32:24:18
Speaker 2
It's hard to do that at scale, but maybe that's as as this project, the guidelines of all of that could be something we look at.

00:32:24:21 - 00:32:49:14
Speaker 3
I agree, I think that's the power of having this task force. You know, you couldn't do this within your own firm. Most firms don't have the kind of expertise we will able to bring. You know, just even the person power to to get this work done. The one thing I wanted to mention on that use cases, how long will it be before we can't tell avatar or human?

00:32:49:14 - 00:32:52:00
Speaker 3
I mean, I don't think that's that far off.

00:32:52:02 - 00:33:22:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that that gets back to the deepfake question and and another piece that interested me, which is sort of the strands disclosure, transparency, authenticity. You know, there's been folks in our society that have been yearning for this singularity for decades, which is for whatever one judges to be the merger of man and machine, you know, and and that's a very kind of visionary tech utopian to me that feels dystopic.

00:33:22:11 - 00:33:43:16
Speaker 2
I just read just a lot of dystopic fiction growing up. So I'm like, oh. But, the idea of what is an authentic human expression, this is going to really challenge that, especially when it's taught to talk like us. You know, it comes out in a way that sounds human. I find it it's going to cause a lot of emotions, which it already is, clearly.

00:33:43:16 - 00:33:44:00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:33:44:04 - 00:34:17:06
Speaker 3
I think another interesting conversation that I've been having is AI and Art. Yeah. And I have felt worried for artists, musicians, visual artists, writers. But you know in speaking with some friends they're pointing out that, you know, technologies have been playing a role in the creation of art for so long. And artists are adaptable. So maybe it isn't a threat.

00:34:17:06 - 00:34:22:14
Speaker 3
It's a, you know, eight to creating art. I don't know, Mark.

00:34:22:14 - 00:34:28:03
Speaker 2
I think I'd love to hear your point, because I think this goes back to questions, too, about being really intentional about ownership and copyright.

00:34:28:05 - 00:35:00:03
Speaker 4
No, I think so. And I think the one point I want to really emphasize, and then something we had discussed earlier, is you need to make sure you get multiple opinions, because otherwise you're going to have your bias. And I'll tell you right now, I've been a PR guy and a digital PR guy for 25 years. That's where I think, at C plus C, when we formed our AI task force, we made sure we had somebody from research, somebody from Creative, digital, multicultural, and the folks from creative that were doing all the artwork and all the other issues were bringing up ideas that I never would have considered.

00:35:00:05 - 00:35:15:05
Speaker 4
I mean, and so I think we evolved some of our guidelines to deal with a lot of that creative area, which is not something we've necessarily talked about specifically on these, because that's a point there is you need to look at as you're doing business in multiple areas. What are some of the guidelines you're going to have?

00:35:15:05 - 00:35:18:14
Speaker 4
It may be different, and you need to keep that in mind.

00:35:18:16 - 00:35:40:20
Speaker 2
I love the idea of bringing multiple points of view and perspectives to the table. And that kind of gets to the earlier thing we talked about is sort of wrestling with the dynamic tension of everything humans create can be amazing or a garbage fire like we have demonstrated ability to have both at once with everything that we create and some things are more potentially destructive than others.

00:35:40:20 - 00:36:01:21
Speaker 2
But I love the idea that because, you know, Mark, and tying back to something you said, that's the complete parallel with the question of ethics, which is more voices are better. If you have a feeling something's wrong, get to others, talk about it, get perspectives. Same thing with bias. If you feel like am I gaslighting this person? Am I?

00:36:01:23 - 00:36:20:17
Speaker 2
Am I seeing this in a way that am I? Isn't this performance evaluation of doing as someone warped because of the systems of race that surround me in the society? Like what is happening here and getting out of your hole and talking to multiple people. I love that advice, Mark. I think it's so important. So guys, what comes next in this process?

00:36:20:17 - 00:36:40:04
Speaker 2
We have this guidelines. There are going to be a living document. You know, what do you think will be the journey for this kind of project. And what are you watching most closely. I mean obviously we're not going to be updating them every week. We might look quarterly and say what's happened, but you know, Kim, what what's on your mind about where does this go from here?

00:36:40:22 - 00:37:06:22
Speaker 3
I love the idea of regularly convening. And, you know, now I'm obsessing about we need creatives. We need to get creatives pulled together and have this conversation. But I think the more time we can make to talk about this, even if we're not issuing changes to our guidelines, but quarterly, just having these conversations, I think is going to sharpen our thinking.

00:37:06:22 - 00:37:26:20
Speaker 3
And it says a lot about the thoughtfulness of our industry. One thing I wanted to share, which is just the tiniest bit of a tangent, but we did a bunch of research on early career professionals in other industries. But, you know, with the idea of how do we attract people with really valuable skills into our agency? So lore.

00:37:26:20 - 00:37:51:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yes. Advertising educators, we do so much education. We need educators. So we went through all of these different professions and we asked them, do they think public relations is ethical? And I'll be honest, I thought that there was not going to be a really positive response to that just because of the impact of pop culture, you know, because of the way our industry is portrayed.

00:37:51:06 - 00:38:29:00
Speaker 3
And it was amazing, like almost to a person like, well, they have to be, don't they? I mean, how can you be a public relations professional and not be focused on ethics? Well, we know you can, but I thought that that was really terrific to hear from young potential talent, and it made me want to do an even better job and have these conversations and get them out into the public a bit more, so people know we are doing this work very thoughtfully.

00:38:29:02 - 00:38:35:16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Mark, what are you think? What are you looking at as next steps or things that you're keeping your eye on as we go forward in this? Well, I.

00:38:35:16 - 00:38:49:09
Speaker 4
Think two things that I want to circle back to one thing, Kim, just talked about, about how PR is ethical. And I mean, I think one of the things that really harkens me, if you haven't looked at the other sphere studies, you know, when people are talking about it, we say being ethical is good for business. There is an ethics premium.

00:38:49:09 - 00:39:10:08
Speaker 4
I have found usually 10 to 13% are higher performance by ethical companies, by the world's most ethical company. So, you know, paying attention to these things is not just morally the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do when it comes to business as well. But in terms of what I am looking at, and I've kind of gone down another rabbit hole right now, but I think it's absolutely fascinating.

00:39:10:13 - 00:39:35:04
Speaker 4
And we're focusing on generative AI. But when you look at what autonomous agents are going to be able to do in the coming years, that is something that is it changes it even more. We got to see how effective it's going to be. But I think over time, the looking at the ethics of autonomous agents and what we're going to allow to do, which is kind of taking generative AI to the next level, is going to be a bigger deal.

00:39:35:05 - 00:39:55:05
Speaker 2
That's a really great point. There's a lot of and I think we've been around long enough to see these convergence of technology. I remember working in tech and including wireless and health care and financial services, and watching them all converge. Mark, you and I both did that in the industry is and I think we're going to see a lot of convergence of these things.

00:39:55:07 - 00:40:18:03
Speaker 2
I think for me, I am really interested in how and I think Facebook did it to kind of catch up with the others. But the release of an open source and it's not a full interface, it's not a fully paid platform. It's really noncommercial, open source software that gives other people the keys to a full, you know, a large language model that they can then fine tune for their own uses.

00:40:18:05 - 00:40:39:17
Speaker 2
And as I've dug into this more in technologists listening to this would be like, no duh. But there's just, huge amounts of smaller platforms now cascading off of that release. And how is it then our clients start to use AI internally in private models. So it's kind of like the private public cloud. There's a hybrid cloud strategy, hybrid AI strategies.

00:40:39:17 - 00:41:01:00
Speaker 2
I mean, I really feel like I want to keep digging into the tech side of it, but that's only because I always feel I was choke that as someone who's not a technologist first and foremost, I the technology train continues barreling down the track. I need to stay on at least the last car. I'd like to be farther up on the train if I can't, but I have to at least hold on to the back of it.

00:41:01:01 - 00:41:26:14
Speaker 2
So I do feel like a real responsibility to try to read as much as I can and stay updated on how these technologies are morphing and evolving in real time. So the open source thing to me is really interesting. And and it may be something that, you know, eventually some of these things sell together. And later in the year we bring the task force back together and shout out to all the agency leaders on our ethics task force.

00:41:26:16 - 00:41:46:18
Speaker 2
And we we talk about what everyone's seeing. And I love Kim by the by the way, the idea of maybe the PR Council convening specialized roundtables. Let's have another one with technologists. Let's have another one with people who identify as creatives. You know, there might be another one with the paid media professionals in our agencies, the DNI, professionals in our agencies.

00:41:46:18 - 00:41:50:19
Speaker 2
And that way, we can keep all those voices going.

00:41:50:21 - 00:42:20:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think that's a great path forward. You know, I just want to put a sharp point on what both of you have just said, and that is the need for public relations professionals to constantly be educating themselves in this area, particularly in the area of technology. I really think it's a mistake if people at all levels are not seeing themselves as students.

00:42:20:19 - 00:42:26:03
Speaker 3
And, it's going to be a big mess for your career if you don't.

00:42:26:05 - 00:42:35:05
Speaker 2
And isn't that the fun of being in this industry? Yeah. Constant learning. It literally is. The number one thing about especially being in the agency side. So Mark, any final thoughts for me?

00:42:35:05 - 00:42:52:06
Speaker 4
You know, I think just on Kim's point, it's a phrase I've heard used a lot. I'm going to change it a little bit. AI is not going to cost PR professionals their jobs, but PR people that know how to operationalize AI, they're the ones going to cost you your jobs or cost your agency, your clients.

00:42:52:08 - 00:43:08:02
Speaker 2
Well said. With that, I think that's the end. But, Kim sample, Mark McKinnon, always a pleasure. It's been such a pleasure to do this work together. And we're going to continue. And thank you for being on building grand brand gravity, and I'll talk to you all soon.

00:43:08:02 - 00:43:08:12
Speaker 3
Thank you.

00:43:08:12 - 00:43:11:00
Speaker 4
And thank you.

00:43:12:18 - 00:43:41:21
Speaker 1
You are listening to Building Brand Gravity Attracting People into Your Orbit, a business communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

00:00:00:10 - 00:00:28:21
Speaker 3
Hello, I'm Anne Green and welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm a principal here at Chinese Business Communications, and I'm so pleased to welcome my guests today to the podcast, Doctor Asay Appiah, who is a professor of communication at the Ohio State University. You are a renowned communication and race scholar, who's written and lectured on the impact of strategic communication messages and media on ethnic minorities and the role that stereotypes play on intergroup interaction.

00:00:28:21 - 00:01:00:18
Speaker 3
And boy, that's so timely in our culture today. I think so much so. And you co-edited the book Advertising and Persuasion in a Diverse World and published in tons of academic journals, Journal of Communication, Human Communications Research, many more. And what was really interesting to me about your bio and maybe you can comment on this, is, it talks about helping to demonstrate to mainstream journal editors and reviewers and readers about the importance of race and why race matters in the field of communication.

00:01:00:20 - 00:01:11:12
Speaker 3
And I'm not sure if you just want to comment on that briefly, because I do think that for fronting, that question is so important, especially in the field, that we are both in, in our own ways.

00:01:11:14 - 00:01:43:09
Speaker 1
That's a great question. Thanks for the introduction. And I also want to thank you for having the opportunity to have a conversation with you today on this podcast. It's an honor to be here, and I'm extremely sighted and happy when we when I look at my research, my research centers on interracial interaction, identity, stereotype, and the effects of strategic communication messages on ethnic minorities and, ethnic majorities in my field.

00:01:43:13 - 00:02:24:04
Speaker 1
There have been times where I felt as though race didn't always matter. I would submit research papers to journals and editors or reviewers. For example, I would when I submitted research papers to journals. Oftentimes, the population that I talked about in those research papers were specific to blacks and which I thought is particularly important, but I would oftentimes get reviewers who would comment and say, hey, your research is interesting, but can you provide a comparison group?

00:02:24:06 - 00:03:00:16
Speaker 1
Can you include white populations in your research? Because audiences, are particularly would be particularly interested to know how whites compare with blacks. And to me, it somewhat, dilutes the importance of looking specifically at the black community. In order to publish my research, I was often asked if I felt like I had to incorporate whites into that research in order for it to be seen as significant and important.

00:03:00:18 - 00:03:30:00
Speaker 1
Today, for example, we're talking primarily about, kind of the impact, the empowering thing and cultivating, black talent. And it's not necessarily that we have in this conversation. We have to talk about white talent alongside of black talent. But I feel in my research, in order for me to demonstrate, the importance in my work ahead of the times, using the white comparison group.

00:03:30:04 - 00:04:00:17
Speaker 1
So that makes it particularly challenging to publish in mainstream journals where you have, readers who are overwhelmingly white. So how do you make race important, interesting to audiences who are primarily part of a racial outgroup, which are white? So how do I make talking about blacks important to white mainstream audiences? So that was the challenge.

00:04:00:19 - 00:04:25:13
Speaker 3
That's really helpful. And it had such good context from the very beginning of this conversation about these moments of centering whiteness that are not even, on the radar of many people. You know, that we talk about dominant identities, marginalized identities, and a lot of times those are acting in ways that are subconscious for folks. I think. And what you're saying is really like, well, we have to center whiteness in this, otherwise how will it be relevant?

00:04:25:13 - 00:04:53:11
Speaker 3
So I agree, let's recenter this conversation on black professionals in this industry. And let's let's be really intentional about that. And one of the things we're going to talk about today, and I'll get to in a minute, I have a I have another lead in because there's, there's some stats I want to share with you that aren't going to be very familiar to you, and I'd love to get your take on them to set the stage, but we are going to be talking about a group that you also formed at the Ohio State University called basket of the Black Advertising and Strategic Communications Association.

00:04:53:11 - 00:05:11:16
Speaker 3
And I'm so excited because in a follow up teaser to this podcast, I'm going to get to talk to the basket, some of the basket students. But to back up a little bit, you wrote a paper in 2016 that was published in the Journal of Advertising Education, and the title is fun. Some may recognize the reference here.

00:05:11:16 - 00:05:38:01
Speaker 3
Advertising Industry Diversity. We've kind of come a long way, baby, but larger pipeline and more intentional action from industry and educators needed. And in that, in the very beginning you quoted from the Madison Avenue Project some stats. This is from 2011 that at that time, black individuals represented 13% of the US population, but made up only 5% of the advertising profession.

00:05:38:03 - 00:06:06:06
Speaker 3
So our amazing digital team here at CNS helped me out and did some research and found, the Association of National Advertisers shout out to my former client and the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing just published a study last November and their stats were that black individuals make up 12.1% of the US population. So versus 13, but now are 7.2% of job roles in advertising.

00:06:06:08 - 00:06:30:21
Speaker 3
So, a couple things. We've gone from 5% to 7.2% between 2011 and 2022. Progress but small. And the other thing I would like to say is I recognize that's looking primarily at advertising. My field is a little bit broader lens of marketing communications, but I feel it's very, very comparable. I would feel the numbers are quite we've been a member of the PR Council and I think that would be very similar.

00:06:30:21 - 00:06:46:08
Speaker 3
But what's just to start off, I assume these numbers are not surprising to you. I mean, what is your take on this progress? Evolution? Slow, fast. I mean what what's your reaction to hearing those two bookended together?

00:06:46:10 - 00:07:25:02
Speaker 1
Well, a number of things come to mind. First, there's a, a pressing need. Part of the reason that we're here, you and I are speaking, is that there's a pressing need for companies in partnership with academic institutions to rectify the underrepresentation of blacks in marketing communication firms. And although society has become increasingly more ethnically diverse, the marketing communication industry, in my opinion, has woefully trailed behind in their efforts to diversify the workplace.

00:07:25:04 - 00:07:59:03
Speaker 1
Advertising agencies and other marketing communication firms have, in my opinion, had made little progress in hiring blacks. This is particularly troubling to me, given that, as I kind of alluded to in some of that research from my 2016 paper, that, this problem was really identified, you know, about 40 years ago by the New York, Human Rights Commission, who actually threatened to force executives of a leading ad agency to testify about their dismal record of hiring ethnic minorities.

00:07:59:03 - 00:08:38:08
Speaker 1
Really come up in and explain, hey, why is this the case? What's the problem? How has this how has this occurred? So, given a historical and current dearth of blacks in marketing communication agencies, there was a dire need to create a program that could help to address this problem. Maybe shifted a little bit, in terms of kind of why I started the black advertising as a teacher communication association because of this long history of underrepresentation of blacks in marketing communication.

00:08:38:10 - 00:09:05:08
Speaker 1
Field, if you will. So I know that agencies seek talent with strong educational backgrounds. They want young people to have relevant professional experience and a broad understanding of the industry. And in many ways, that's what we're trying to do with Bask. I created the black advertise, the Strategic Communication Association. About. Well, it wasn't about it was ten years ago.

00:09:05:08 - 00:09:07:18
Speaker 1
In fact, we just recently celebrated our 10th year.

00:09:07:21 - 00:09:11:01
Speaker 3
Happy anniversary. That's amazing. It's a big milestone.

00:09:11:03 - 00:09:48:19
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And but basket aims to do is to lead more black students to aspire to and attain, careers in advertising, PR, marketing and other strategic communication related occupations. Bhaskar also provide students with access to professional mentors. Create create opportunities for students to gain professional experience through internships. Despite our limited funding, we've been able to over the last ten years.

00:09:48:21 - 00:10:39:04
Speaker 1
Take Bhaskar, take our basket members. Roughly over 100 of them, for an annual professional development and career networking trips to major cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, DC to meet industry professionals and at these organizations. And we've gone not only to, all the cities we visited, a number of companies such as, on our on the Way, Coca-Cola, the NFL, CNN, Headline News, Ketchum, Edelman, BBDO, Ogilvy and may there, Chicago Tribune, Leo Burnett for rail communications and places like Spotify, Showtime.

00:10:39:04 - 00:11:10:22
Speaker 1
And of course, one of our favorite places was, Genius Communications. So while we were in New York, we were at the, Good Fortune to come to your company and visit. We had a, remarkable time. I should also mention, if I may, that we've also made an imprint here. Locally, busk has been able to build relationships with industry leaders here in the greater Columbus area.

00:11:10:23 - 00:11:59:09
Speaker 1
And many of the industry leaders at companies in the greater Columbus area has helped busker to engage and, engage our members in internship opportunities, resume workshops, life skills. And in addition to that, we have, meetings every, twice a month. And we bring in executives from all over the area here. Bask, in my opinion, has helped black students acquire knowledge, necessary skills and experience, thereby generating a pool of top graduates from which local and national agencies, can choose.

00:11:59:11 - 00:12:26:23
Speaker 1
And in that paper, the 2016 paper, I discuss some of the, for lack of a better word excuse, is that companies have used to explained underrepresentation of ethnic minorities, in particular blacks at the company, at these companies. And what we hear is that all the agencies expressed that they want to hire more ethnic minorities. Many claim they cannot find diverse can.

00:12:26:23 - 00:12:31:01
Speaker 3
Oh, yes. That's been a long time trope that I've heard over the years.

00:12:31:01 - 00:12:37:06
Speaker 1
And my argument is, well, now they can get back is helping to add to that pipeline.

00:12:37:06 - 00:12:56:17
Speaker 3
So, you know, the pipeline piece. And I want to talk about the pipeline because you've helped me deepen my thoughts about it. In reading your work and talking with you, because it's something I've reflected on for a very long time. You know, my background as an undergrad, as a liberal arts person. So I didn't come out of a communications background.

00:12:56:17 - 00:13:37:19
Speaker 3
So I'm sort of an accidental business person, accidental communications executive. But I did encounter in the late 80s, early 90s when I was an English major and a women's studies minor. And I think I mentioned to this to you when we spoke that that was the first time that I realized, as a women's studies, person who really was committed to the concept of feminism, I really ran right up against an immediate and necessary and just life changing critique by authors like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, who made it very clear to me that feminism centered on whiteness could be a social justice movement that was also oppressive and, replicating racism and systemic oppression.

00:13:37:21 - 00:13:56:03
Speaker 3
To get back to the pipeline, you know, I've, I've had a lot of angst as an executive in this field, and I should about this this whole claim of we can't find the talent, where's the talent? And that sort of sense of throwing your hands up in helplessness. And I think I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

00:13:56:03 - 00:14:12:16
Speaker 3
And obviously Basque is one answer, but the other side of it that you brought up to me in your paper is the Academy and the education side, and what it is educational institutions need to do. Do you want to talk about either of those two mentioned, those two sides of the coin?

00:14:12:18 - 00:14:51:22
Speaker 1
I think it's a partnership. And what I mean by partnership, I think it's a partnership between academic institutions and industry that we need to work together to develop and nurture, as you mentioned, cultivate and empower the black talent. The Academy has a responsibility on their side, to increase the interest in the number of majors and strategic communication, related areas.

00:14:52:00 - 00:15:34:17
Speaker 1
What that means is active recruiting and retaining students in those strategic communication related majors. It also means providing a atmosphere and environment that is conducive for those students to succeed, to have a sense of belonging. And certainly specific things that we can do is you there should be student organizations within, the academy, let's say a school of communication should have student organizations that are geared towards ethnic minorities and other community groups, if you will.

00:15:34:17 - 00:16:30:07
Speaker 1
But in this case, we're talking specifically about, blacks who have a black student organization that deals primarily with issues related to the industry, or I should say that is focused on, professional development, like basket. Other things that can be done is having a diversity or Dei committee within the School of Communication, because a Dei committee or some kind of, chief diversity officer within the school, within the department, who can have as their job to embrace diversity, to focus on issues of retention, recruitment and, and also whose responsibility it is to, engage in, connecting with, with students.

00:16:30:09 - 00:17:01:09
Speaker 1
So student organizations, dei committee. It is also important for heavily for academic institutions to reach out to high schools. And a lot of students. When I was growing up, I didn't know anything about advertising, and I didn't know anything about public relations as a kid growing up in Long Beach, California, in a very, you know, indigent, poverty stricken, gang infested environment.

00:17:01:11 - 00:17:30:16
Speaker 1
My what I focused on primarily was, sports in, in playing basketball, academics was very important in my household. My mom and dad valued, academics. But because we had no money, the way in which I felt I needed to get out of that environment and go to college was through sports. So I played basketball, got a scholarship to play basketball at Santa Clara University.

00:17:30:18 - 00:18:02:15
Speaker 1
I apologize, I didn't really go over my my educational background, but it wasn't until I got to college, in effect, to graduate school when I was working on my PhD, that I really learned anything about advertising. And I was, getting my PhD at Stanford University. And I saw that there were some fliers across campus that talked about, a chairman and CEO from an advertising agency was coming to speak at Stanford.

00:18:02:17 - 00:18:32:20
Speaker 1
In fact, he his name is Joe Mewes. He was the chairman and CEO of muse at the time. Was music Darrell and Jen that ultimately turned into music communications. And again, I'm a PC student. I'm probably, I don't know, 25, 26 years old. And I went to go watch him. I went to go listen to his, presentation and he talked about his business.

00:18:32:20 - 00:19:09:00
Speaker 1
He talked about why he started, music direction or Miss Communications, which was a, racially which was a multicultural advertising agency. And there weren't a whole lot of them. We, we had real communications, which has, been the standard historically, but there weren't many of those. And as I listened to him in Hersham talk about how much joy, how much passion he had for advertising in the industry, and as he talked about what advertising was and what it did, it fascinated me.

00:19:09:02 - 00:19:32:03
Speaker 1
So this was really the first time I was able to hear about advertising. And this was coming from a black man, chairman, CEO of an ad agency, and he was black. So at 25, this is kind of my first introduction to advertising outside of watching television. I'm looking at a guy who worked in the industry. I immediately said, you know what?

00:19:32:05 - 00:20:12:15
Speaker 1
This is an area that is open, available and accessible to me because I see someone who looks like me, who's doing it. So I say that in the context of, when you go to high schools, the academy or industry professionals, and you talk to kids about what you do, it informs them not only about the industry, but they not only do they get to know about it, they can start aspiring to careers or occupations that or, that they hear about that they see people who look like them.

00:20:12:16 - 00:20:49:04
Speaker 1
So I think it's important for industry professionals and the academy to go into high schools and talk about advertising, to get young people informed about it and to start aspiring to those careers, I think is particularly important to have, scholarships, within these schools that are specific to, diverse groups and not only specific to diverse groups rewarding in acknowledging ethnic minorities, in particular blacks who are excelling academically in those areas.

00:20:49:06 - 00:21:47:00
Speaker 1
And that's particularly important to acknowledge and to provide, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of reward for those students who are doing well because it lets them know that they can continue on in that field, and it's a rewarding one. So, and the last thing, and I'm sorry to be so long winded, it's important to provide mentors, for young people, to work with academic institutions, as industry professionals, to work with young people who are aspiring to get into com areas and mentor them, help to advise them on the right path, the right journey, let them know what pitfalls they may face in various challenges, but also help them understand

00:21:47:01 - 00:21:55:15
Speaker 1
the benefits of getting into those fields and that, the field is welcoming. It embraces diversity.

00:21:55:17 - 00:22:12:12
Speaker 3
I mean, I would say people talk about a journey, and I think it'll be a big theme of mine. And other leadership this year is trying to kind of erase zero sum thinking. And what I mean by that is that multiple things can be true at one time. We can, as she us be making and have made real progress.

00:22:12:14 - 00:22:37:08
Speaker 3
And we can also be not there yet and also not be great in other areas. You know, there can still be microaggressions or cultural issues or things that we need to work out together. So I really believe that. And one of the areas and I want to talk about this question of representation. You know, one of the things that we know we need to work on over time is representation at the highest levels of our agency, the owner group, the senior leadership.

00:22:37:08 - 00:22:57:16
Speaker 3
And we're really trying to take steps to do that. But there's always that phrase representation matters. And I think in the dialog out in the world today, there's other counterpoints to that or they're not even counterpoints, but there are other threads like diversity isn't enough. We need to get to equity. We need to get to belonging. We need to get to a real sense of inclusion.

00:22:57:17 - 00:23:16:05
Speaker 3
We need to get to justice. Or, you know, we don't want to be in the early days. And this is where all of these debates around affirmative action come in, which get very ugly and are very timely right now. But, you know, what is it about numbers? But what you're saying, and I'd love you to reflect on it more, is that I do feel representation does matter.

00:23:16:05 - 00:23:33:18
Speaker 3
To see yourself in leadership, to see that it's possible, you know, when you talk to your students, how do you think they reflect on seeing pathways through other human beings that share their experience or look like them, or part of a shared identity? How does that affect them, do you think?

00:23:33:20 - 00:24:01:12
Speaker 1
Let me elaborate on some things that companies can do. When we think about kind of representation, how do we get representation? First and foremost, we or industries, partners need to hire more people of color, in particular blacks. That starts off first and foremost with, hiring folks who have experience. Oftentimes, no one's going to get it get hired unless they have some experience.

00:24:01:12 - 00:24:47:02
Speaker 1
How do you get experience? You can't get experience unless you get hired. That happens with, internships. And I know that, internships for students are particularly valuable so that they can gain that experience and hopefully gain, the job within, a company. But so let's think about some things in terms of what companies can do when they can offer mentorship programs, which is something that I talked about before, because mentorship and guidance can help students, go down the right path and, develop experience knowledge that particularly important to be marketable.

00:24:47:02 - 00:25:39:14
Speaker 1
These two companies can advocate for diverse candidates. And I think you and I have had conversations before such that if there are people of color who work at the company, especially blacks, it's important to not only have mentorship, but to have folks in the company who advocate for, folks of color. Oftentimes, I think. This is unfortunate, but in many cases, it's important to have as a black person to have allies who don't look like you, who can advocate for you because in many cases, their comments, their, advocacy in many ways matters more.

00:25:39:14 - 00:26:07:10
Speaker 1
It holds more credibility among white mainstream employees and managers. And so that that's very important tip advocates, who look like you and who don't look like you. Also, it's important to create a workplace that embraces diversity. I mentioned some of the things that, G and S is doing in terms of things like having affinity groups.

00:26:07:12 - 00:26:44:13
Speaker 1
Having a, Dei committee. And I think you have, Janus has, both of those, this is an important one and maybe somewhat controversial in some circles, but promotions should impart be tied to the development of diverse talent we speak a lot about. Okay. Oh, we have a committee that's doing this, or we had a workshop on this or we've we've spoken to our, black professionals in our company.

00:26:44:14 - 00:27:09:01
Speaker 1
But how are we holding each other accountable if we really embrace diversity, if it's really important, then maybe part of our is as managers, as supervisors, maybe part of our promotions or our raises should be tied again in part to how we're developing talent. How are we leading? So I think that's particularly important.

00:27:09:07 - 00:27:26:06
Speaker 3
I love just to jump on that really quickly, not to take you off track, but I think it's so important because it is that question of accountability. And that's what's been missing. Now, again, the New York City Human Rights Commission tried to create some years ago, but this question of how do you embed it in your values? But then how do you make that real?

00:27:26:06 - 00:27:44:16
Speaker 3
And what are the KPIs or the key performance indicators for each person as they go? And we do have our task force and we're actually even examining like, should we still call it a task force? Is it how do we look at an ongoing body? We we haven't formed formal affinity groups yet, but many other methods of conversation.

00:27:44:16 - 00:28:04:16
Speaker 3
But I think that question of how do we and we're in our performance review cycle right now, as I talked to you today, it's like, how do we lean into helping managers at all levels understand what it actually means to incorporate the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion as a champion, as advocate, because one of the observations that I have.

00:28:04:16 - 00:28:36:06
Speaker 3
But it's like not surprising. I mean, it's something we've talked about is that bringing talented individuals in from marginalized communities, especially from the black community, because of the unique history of the United States and the unique challenges that we face in this area. To say the least, so deep in the DNA of this country, it's one thing to bring folks in, but it's another to help them feel that they want to stay, you know, and that's that's to me, even I can't you know what?

00:28:36:06 - 00:29:05:03
Speaker 3
I can't prioritize one over the other. They're both so important because we haven't we're making progress in recruiting. I'm just talking about us as the example. I know the best that I want to speak for others, but I certainly know a lot about what's going on other companies. But how how my colleagues who are here, who identify as black in America today, whether they, you know, African American, come, you know, from that history or Caribbean or Africa, you know, wherever blackness is centered in their lives, like how do they feel good about being here?

00:29:05:05 - 00:29:23:11
Speaker 3
That, that that I think is something that I didn't know if we would get to this level of conversation in the corporate world, to tell you the truth, 30 years ago. But I feel like we're starting to have it now. I mean, are you seeing that more too, in terms of retention? And, it may not be the thing that you're engaged in all the time.

00:29:23:11 - 00:29:25:02
Speaker 3
I'm just curious of your thoughts.

00:29:25:04 - 00:30:00:00
Speaker 1
You know, in society in general. And I'll probably talk a little bit about my research, what we're seeing in society, whether you're watching the news, especially when we look at the news media, much of the popular press and even some academic literature point to a bleak picture for the future of race relations. We see so much divisiveness, out in the world, at least that's communicated to us through media.

00:30:00:02 - 00:30:42:00
Speaker 1
But in my opinion, I think the negativity, the divisiveness, the racial tension that we hear is in many ways overstate. It the reason I say it's overstated. We have a tendency to focus on negativity, at least from a media standpoint. I, encourage because I see young people who have inter racial friendships. I see, middle school kids in high school kids who are interacting with other diverse groups on a regular basis.

00:30:42:02 - 00:31:17:06
Speaker 1
When I walk across campus, I see black students and white students sitting down having lunch together, talking about, exams and homework. I see much more inter racial interaction. And I, although we it's the, Bhaskar is the black advertiser strategic communication association. There are number of, diverse students who are part of my organization, whether they're black, white, Hispanic.

00:31:17:12 - 00:31:56:12
Speaker 1
So I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm encouraged because there's a lot more focus, one from academics in many industry folks and being intentional about creating environments that are conducive for, people of color to succeed in. I'm encouraged because young people are much more progressive in their thinking, and it's much more commonplace for them to interact with one another.

00:31:56:14 - 00:32:25:01
Speaker 1
And they're much more open minded, in less close minded. They don't see in many cases. And my research kind of points to this. They know a white person doesn't necessarily among young people don't necessarily see blacks as outgroups. They often see blacks as in-group members because we we look at race and we want to see that, oh, because someone is white and someone's black, they're outgroups.

00:32:25:03 - 00:32:57:23
Speaker 1
But whites, for example, don't always use race as a way of determining similarity or commonality. They oftentimes use things like social class, cuz or occupational cues to determine if one is similar to another. So the reason that outgroup and in-group aspects are important because when you start looking at someone as being different to someone who is being who is an outgroup, you engage in biases.

00:32:58:01 - 00:33:34:18
Speaker 1
It prejudices. So there's something that I call the the ABCs of, understanding key communication processes. And this is particularly important, I think, for corporate America, the ABCs are there needs to be awareness. And what I mean by awareness is be aware of the psychological mechanisms that impact our thoughts about interactions with one another. What that means is when we come across someone, we tend to immediately make similarity judgments.

00:33:34:20 - 00:34:06:00
Speaker 1
We make similarity judgments based on how people look. You know, they're superficial. But if I'm a white person, I see another white person. That person is similar to me. I begin to think that that person is part of my in-group. When I, see someone who doesn't look like me, I kind of see them as an outgroup. And that can be manifested in biases, even though it may not be, it even though may be implicit, there can be biases that causes you to not interact with someone who is different.

00:34:06:01 - 00:34:36:12
Speaker 1
So we need to be intentional about looking and interacting, having conversations with people who look different from us outside of our first impressions, of making these kind of surface and long lasting, impressions, they're often times based on superficiality. Be so there's a awareness. There's be we need to banish bias. And what I mean by that is minimize or banish cross group bias.

00:34:36:12 - 00:35:08:13
Speaker 1
That means how do we do that? We engage in perspective, taking up someone who is different from us. We engage in intergroup contact. That means literally going in, as I said before, having communication, having conversations with someone who is different. You know, what's interesting is people generally overestimate the existence of differences between their own group and those of other groups, even rival groups.

00:35:08:16 - 00:35:35:18
Speaker 1
So we tend to overestimate, you know, differences, for example, that blacks have it whites or whites have with blacks. So we have to be intentional about banishing bias, be aware of our implicit biases, and try our hardest to, be aware of that and to respond to it in the last thing, which is, see, create connections, recognize the power to make positive and meaningful connections between groups.

00:35:35:20 - 00:35:54:02
Speaker 1
Take more time to make meaningful, connections. We need more intentional look beyond, as I kind of alluded to before, look beyond the surface characteristics of others. So a awareness be banish the bias and three create connections.

00:35:54:04 - 00:36:18:05
Speaker 3
This is an amazing way. I mean, first of all, I am so heartened by your very research and data based view of as well as qualitative are being encouraged because I do feel that way as well. And I and I think my big message for everyone is that embrace, you know, and really with an open heart, the fact that you can be making progress and also not be there yet.

00:36:18:05 - 00:36:40:11
Speaker 3
And that's okay. And that's really our industry has been as a whole, very defensive. And sometimes I hear this thing of a wall or doing everything we can. It's like, no, let's just let's hold it more loosely and let's be open hearted about we're making progress. Look at it. But it's not good enough yet. Okay, great. But I love ending with the ABCs.

00:36:40:13 - 00:36:54:01
Speaker 3
And just before we sign off today and thank you for all your time. I mean, I just I love every time we talk, but is there any particular book or reference or website that you might want our listeners to check out, just that you think would be helpful to them?

00:36:54:03 - 00:36:58:14
Speaker 1
Oh man.

00:36:58:16 - 00:37:10:13
Speaker 3
I mean, some of them I know that we've read as a group is for some of us, which was really helpful to understand, sort of the underlying currents of American society. Also. Bias by Jennifer Eberhardt I know that was.

00:37:10:13 - 00:37:36:18
Speaker 1
One you know, a thing to me. I was thinking of that same book that the first one that comes to mind, because I think we need to be aware of the implicit biases that we have and how that can manifest itself in our attitudes and behaviors. So that actually was going to be the book I, would recommend, both because it gives us real understanding of those implicit biases.

00:37:36:20 - 00:37:57:02
Speaker 1
It gives us real research, provides research evidence of how these things really happen. There it isn't just, you know, in the imagination that people have bias. He definitely has them. I have them, you have them. But it's important to be aware of those. So that would be a book. That would be the book that comes to mind.

00:37:57:04 - 00:38:15:07
Speaker 3
Yeah. So that's biased. Everybody can Google it. But doctor essay up here, Ohio State University, The Ohio State University, thank you again so much for being with us today. And, everyone can look for the follow up episode where I get to talk to three of the students from the executive board of Bhaskar. Thank you so much.

00:38:15:07 - 00:38:19:16
Speaker 3
Have a great day.

00:38:19:17 - 00:38:48:16
Speaker 2
We are gas business communications. We are a team of media strategists, storytellers and engagement experts who meet you at the intersection of business and communications. To learn more, visit Gas communications.com. You're listening to Building Brand Gravity, attracting people into your orbit. A business communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player.

00:38:48:21 - 00:39:00:12
Speaker 2
If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

00:00:00:10 - 00:00:28:21
Speaker 3
Hello, I'm Anne Green and welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm a principal here at Chinese Business Communications, and I'm so pleased to welcome my guests today to the podcast, Doctor Asay Appiah, who is a professor of communication at the Ohio State University. You are a renowned communication and race scholar, who's written and lectured on the impact of strategic communication messages and media on ethnic minorities and the role that stereotypes play on intergroup interaction.

00:00:28:21 - 00:01:00:18
Speaker 3
And boy, that's so timely in our culture today. I think so much so. And you co-edited the book Advertising and Persuasion in a Diverse World and published in tons of academic journals, Journal of Communication, Human Communications Research, many more. And what was really interesting to me about your bio and maybe you can comment on this, is, it talks about helping to demonstrate to mainstream journal editors and reviewers and readers about the importance of race and why race matters in the field of communication.

00:01:00:20 - 00:01:11:12
Speaker 3
And I'm not sure if you just want to comment on that briefly, because I do think that for fronting, that question is so important, especially in the field, that we are both in, in our own ways.

00:01:11:14 - 00:01:43:09
Speaker 1
That's a great question. Thanks for the introduction. And I also want to thank you for having the opportunity to have a conversation with you today on this podcast. It's an honor to be here, and I'm extremely sighted and happy when we when I look at my research, my research centers on interracial interaction, identity, stereotype, and the effects of strategic communication messages on ethnic minorities and, ethnic majorities in my field.

00:01:43:13 - 00:02:24:04
Speaker 1
There have been times where I felt as though race didn't always matter. I would submit research papers to journals and editors or reviewers. For example, I would when I submitted research papers to journals. Oftentimes, the population that I talked about in those research papers were specific to blacks and which I thought is particularly important, but I would oftentimes get reviewers who would comment and say, hey, your research is interesting, but can you provide a comparison group?

00:02:24:06 - 00:03:00:16
Speaker 1
Can you include white populations in your research? Because audiences, are particularly would be particularly interested to know how whites compare with blacks. And to me, it somewhat, dilutes the importance of looking specifically at the black community. In order to publish my research, I was often asked if I felt like I had to incorporate whites into that research in order for it to be seen as significant and important.

00:03:00:18 - 00:03:30:00
Speaker 1
Today, for example, we're talking primarily about, kind of the impact, the empowering thing and cultivating, black talent. And it's not necessarily that we have in this conversation. We have to talk about white talent alongside of black talent. But I feel in my research, in order for me to demonstrate, the importance in my work ahead of the times, using the white comparison group.

00:03:30:04 - 00:04:00:17
Speaker 1
So that makes it particularly challenging to publish in mainstream journals where you have, readers who are overwhelmingly white. So how do you make race important, interesting to audiences who are primarily part of a racial outgroup, which are white? So how do I make talking about blacks important to white mainstream audiences? So that was the challenge.

00:04:00:19 - 00:04:25:13
Speaker 3
That's really helpful. And it had such good context from the very beginning of this conversation about these moments of centering whiteness that are not even, on the radar of many people. You know, that we talk about dominant identities, marginalized identities, and a lot of times those are acting in ways that are subconscious for folks. I think. And what you're saying is really like, well, we have to center whiteness in this, otherwise how will it be relevant?

00:04:25:13 - 00:04:53:11
Speaker 3
So I agree, let's recenter this conversation on black professionals in this industry. And let's let's be really intentional about that. And one of the things we're going to talk about today, and I'll get to in a minute, I have a I have another lead in because there's, there's some stats I want to share with you that aren't going to be very familiar to you, and I'd love to get your take on them to set the stage, but we are going to be talking about a group that you also formed at the Ohio State University called basket of the Black Advertising and Strategic Communications Association.

00:04:53:11 - 00:05:11:16
Speaker 3
And I'm so excited because in a follow up teaser to this podcast, I'm going to get to talk to the basket, some of the basket students. But to back up a little bit, you wrote a paper in 2016 that was published in the Journal of Advertising Education, and the title is fun. Some may recognize the reference here.

00:05:11:16 - 00:05:38:01
Speaker 3
Advertising Industry Diversity. We've kind of come a long way, baby, but larger pipeline and more intentional action from industry and educators needed. And in that, in the very beginning you quoted from the Madison Avenue Project some stats. This is from 2011 that at that time, black individuals represented 13% of the US population, but made up only 5% of the advertising profession.

00:05:38:03 - 00:06:06:06
Speaker 3
So our amazing digital team here at CNS helped me out and did some research and found, the Association of National Advertisers shout out to my former client and the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing just published a study last November and their stats were that black individuals make up 12.1% of the US population. So versus 13, but now are 7.2% of job roles in advertising.

00:06:06:08 - 00:06:30:21
Speaker 3
So, a couple things. We've gone from 5% to 7.2% between 2011 and 2022. Progress but small. And the other thing I would like to say is I recognize that's looking primarily at advertising. My field is a little bit broader lens of marketing communications, but I feel it's very, very comparable. I would feel the numbers are quite we've been a member of the PR Council and I think that would be very similar.

00:06:30:21 - 00:06:46:08
Speaker 3
But what's just to start off, I assume these numbers are not surprising to you. I mean, what is your take on this progress? Evolution? Slow, fast. I mean what what's your reaction to hearing those two bookended together?

00:06:46:10 - 00:07:25:02
Speaker 1
Well, a number of things come to mind. First, there's a, a pressing need. Part of the reason that we're here, you and I are speaking, is that there's a pressing need for companies in partnership with academic institutions to rectify the underrepresentation of blacks in marketing communication firms. And although society has become increasingly more ethnically diverse, the marketing communication industry, in my opinion, has woefully trailed behind in their efforts to diversify the workplace.

00:07:25:04 - 00:07:59:03
Speaker 1
Advertising agencies and other marketing communication firms have, in my opinion, had made little progress in hiring blacks. This is particularly troubling to me, given that, as I kind of alluded to in some of that research from my 2016 paper, that, this problem was really identified, you know, about 40 years ago by the New York, Human Rights Commission, who actually threatened to force executives of a leading ad agency to testify about their dismal record of hiring ethnic minorities.

00:07:59:03 - 00:08:38:08
Speaker 1
Really come up in and explain, hey, why is this the case? What's the problem? How has this how has this occurred? So, given a historical and current dearth of blacks in marketing communication agencies, there was a dire need to create a program that could help to address this problem. Maybe shifted a little bit, in terms of kind of why I started the black advertising as a teacher communication association because of this long history of underrepresentation of blacks in marketing communication.

00:08:38:10 - 00:09:05:08
Speaker 1
Field, if you will. So I know that agencies seek talent with strong educational backgrounds. They want young people to have relevant professional experience and a broad understanding of the industry. And in many ways, that's what we're trying to do with Bask. I created the black advertise, the Strategic Communication Association. About. Well, it wasn't about it was ten years ago.

00:09:05:08 - 00:09:07:18
Speaker 1
In fact, we just recently celebrated our 10th year.

00:09:07:21 - 00:09:11:01
Speaker 3
Happy anniversary. That's amazing. It's a big milestone.

00:09:11:03 - 00:09:48:19
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And but basket aims to do is to lead more black students to aspire to and attain, careers in advertising, PR, marketing and other strategic communication related occupations. Bhaskar also provide students with access to professional mentors. Create create opportunities for students to gain professional experience through internships. Despite our limited funding, we've been able to over the last ten years.

00:09:48:21 - 00:10:39:04
Speaker 1
Take Bhaskar, take our basket members. Roughly over 100 of them, for an annual professional development and career networking trips to major cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, DC to meet industry professionals and at these organizations. And we've gone not only to, all the cities we visited, a number of companies such as, on our on the Way, Coca-Cola, the NFL, CNN, Headline News, Ketchum, Edelman, BBDO, Ogilvy and may there, Chicago Tribune, Leo Burnett for rail communications and places like Spotify, Showtime.

00:10:39:04 - 00:11:10:22
Speaker 1
And of course, one of our favorite places was, Genius Communications. So while we were in New York, we were at the, Good Fortune to come to your company and visit. We had a, remarkable time. I should also mention, if I may, that we've also made an imprint here. Locally, busk has been able to build relationships with industry leaders here in the greater Columbus area.

00:11:10:23 - 00:11:59:09
Speaker 1
And many of the industry leaders at companies in the greater Columbus area has helped busker to engage and, engage our members in internship opportunities, resume workshops, life skills. And in addition to that, we have, meetings every, twice a month. And we bring in executives from all over the area here. Bask, in my opinion, has helped black students acquire knowledge, necessary skills and experience, thereby generating a pool of top graduates from which local and national agencies, can choose.

00:11:59:11 - 00:12:26:23
Speaker 1
And in that paper, the 2016 paper, I discuss some of the, for lack of a better word excuse, is that companies have used to explained underrepresentation of ethnic minorities, in particular blacks at the company, at these companies. And what we hear is that all the agencies expressed that they want to hire more ethnic minorities. Many claim they cannot find diverse can.

00:12:26:23 - 00:12:31:01
Speaker 3
Oh, yes. That's been a long time trope that I've heard over the years.

00:12:31:01 - 00:12:37:06
Speaker 1
And my argument is, well, now they can get back is helping to add to that pipeline.

00:12:37:06 - 00:12:56:17
Speaker 3
So, you know, the pipeline piece. And I want to talk about the pipeline because you've helped me deepen my thoughts about it. In reading your work and talking with you, because it's something I've reflected on for a very long time. You know, my background as an undergrad, as a liberal arts person. So I didn't come out of a communications background.

00:12:56:17 - 00:13:37:19
Speaker 3
So I'm sort of an accidental business person, accidental communications executive. But I did encounter in the late 80s, early 90s when I was an English major and a women's studies minor. And I think I mentioned to this to you when we spoke that that was the first time that I realized, as a women's studies, person who really was committed to the concept of feminism, I really ran right up against an immediate and necessary and just life changing critique by authors like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, who made it very clear to me that feminism centered on whiteness could be a social justice movement that was also oppressive and, replicating racism and systemic oppression.

00:13:37:21 - 00:13:56:03
Speaker 3
To get back to the pipeline, you know, I've, I've had a lot of angst as an executive in this field, and I should about this this whole claim of we can't find the talent, where's the talent? And that sort of sense of throwing your hands up in helplessness. And I think I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

00:13:56:03 - 00:14:12:16
Speaker 3
And obviously Basque is one answer, but the other side of it that you brought up to me in your paper is the Academy and the education side, and what it is educational institutions need to do. Do you want to talk about either of those two mentioned, those two sides of the coin?

00:14:12:18 - 00:14:51:22
Speaker 1
I think it's a partnership. And what I mean by partnership, I think it's a partnership between academic institutions and industry that we need to work together to develop and nurture, as you mentioned, cultivate and empower the black talent. The Academy has a responsibility on their side, to increase the interest in the number of majors and strategic communication, related areas.

00:14:52:00 - 00:15:34:17
Speaker 1
What that means is active recruiting and retaining students in those strategic communication related majors. It also means providing a atmosphere and environment that is conducive for those students to succeed, to have a sense of belonging. And certainly specific things that we can do is you there should be student organizations within, the academy, let's say a school of communication should have student organizations that are geared towards ethnic minorities and other community groups, if you will.

00:15:34:17 - 00:16:30:07
Speaker 1
But in this case, we're talking specifically about, blacks who have a black student organization that deals primarily with issues related to the industry, or I should say that is focused on, professional development, like basket. Other things that can be done is having a diversity or Dei committee within the School of Communication, because a Dei committee or some kind of, chief diversity officer within the school, within the department, who can have as their job to embrace diversity, to focus on issues of retention, recruitment and, and also whose responsibility it is to, engage in, connecting with, with students.

00:16:30:09 - 00:17:01:09
Speaker 1
So student organizations, dei committee. It is also important for heavily for academic institutions to reach out to high schools. And a lot of students. When I was growing up, I didn't know anything about advertising, and I didn't know anything about public relations as a kid growing up in Long Beach, California, in a very, you know, indigent, poverty stricken, gang infested environment.

00:17:01:11 - 00:17:30:16
Speaker 1
My what I focused on primarily was, sports in, in playing basketball, academics was very important in my household. My mom and dad valued, academics. But because we had no money, the way in which I felt I needed to get out of that environment and go to college was through sports. So I played basketball, got a scholarship to play basketball at Santa Clara University.

00:17:30:18 - 00:18:02:15
Speaker 1
I apologize, I didn't really go over my my educational background, but it wasn't until I got to college, in effect, to graduate school when I was working on my PhD, that I really learned anything about advertising. And I was, getting my PhD at Stanford University. And I saw that there were some fliers across campus that talked about, a chairman and CEO from an advertising agency was coming to speak at Stanford.

00:18:02:17 - 00:18:32:20
Speaker 1
In fact, he his name is Joe Mewes. He was the chairman and CEO of muse at the time. Was music Darrell and Jen that ultimately turned into music communications. And again, I'm a PC student. I'm probably, I don't know, 25, 26 years old. And I went to go watch him. I went to go listen to his, presentation and he talked about his business.

00:18:32:20 - 00:19:09:00
Speaker 1
He talked about why he started, music direction or Miss Communications, which was a, racially which was a multicultural advertising agency. And there weren't a whole lot of them. We, we had real communications, which has, been the standard historically, but there weren't many of those. And as I listened to him in Hersham talk about how much joy, how much passion he had for advertising in the industry, and as he talked about what advertising was and what it did, it fascinated me.

00:19:09:02 - 00:19:32:03
Speaker 1
So this was really the first time I was able to hear about advertising. And this was coming from a black man, chairman, CEO of an ad agency, and he was black. So at 25, this is kind of my first introduction to advertising outside of watching television. I'm looking at a guy who worked in the industry. I immediately said, you know what?

00:19:32:05 - 00:20:12:15
Speaker 1
This is an area that is open, available and accessible to me because I see someone who looks like me, who's doing it. So I say that in the context of, when you go to high schools, the academy or industry professionals, and you talk to kids about what you do, it informs them not only about the industry, but they not only do they get to know about it, they can start aspiring to careers or occupations that or, that they hear about that they see people who look like them.

00:20:12:16 - 00:20:49:04
Speaker 1
So I think it's important for industry professionals and the academy to go into high schools and talk about advertising, to get young people informed about it and to start aspiring to those careers, I think is particularly important to have, scholarships, within these schools that are specific to, diverse groups and not only specific to diverse groups rewarding in acknowledging ethnic minorities, in particular blacks who are excelling academically in those areas.

00:20:49:06 - 00:21:47:00
Speaker 1
And that's particularly important to acknowledge and to provide, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of reward for those students who are doing well because it lets them know that they can continue on in that field, and it's a rewarding one. So, and the last thing, and I'm sorry to be so long winded, it's important to provide mentors, for young people, to work with academic institutions, as industry professionals, to work with young people who are aspiring to get into com areas and mentor them, help to advise them on the right path, the right journey, let them know what pitfalls they may face in various challenges, but also help them understand

00:21:47:01 - 00:21:55:15
Speaker 1
the benefits of getting into those fields and that, the field is welcoming. It embraces diversity.

00:21:55:17 - 00:22:12:12
Speaker 3
I mean, I would say people talk about a journey, and I think it'll be a big theme of mine. And other leadership this year is trying to kind of erase zero sum thinking. And what I mean by that is that multiple things can be true at one time. We can, as she us be making and have made real progress.

00:22:12:14 - 00:22:37:08
Speaker 3
And we can also be not there yet and also not be great in other areas. You know, there can still be microaggressions or cultural issues or things that we need to work out together. So I really believe that. And one of the areas and I want to talk about this question of representation. You know, one of the things that we know we need to work on over time is representation at the highest levels of our agency, the owner group, the senior leadership.

00:22:37:08 - 00:22:57:16
Speaker 3
And we're really trying to take steps to do that. But there's always that phrase representation matters. And I think in the dialog out in the world today, there's other counterpoints to that or they're not even counterpoints, but there are other threads like diversity isn't enough. We need to get to equity. We need to get to belonging. We need to get to a real sense of inclusion.

00:22:57:17 - 00:23:16:05
Speaker 3
We need to get to justice. Or, you know, we don't want to be in the early days. And this is where all of these debates around affirmative action come in, which get very ugly and are very timely right now. But, you know, what is it about numbers? But what you're saying, and I'd love you to reflect on it more, is that I do feel representation does matter.

00:23:16:05 - 00:23:33:18
Speaker 3
To see yourself in leadership, to see that it's possible, you know, when you talk to your students, how do you think they reflect on seeing pathways through other human beings that share their experience or look like them, or part of a shared identity? How does that affect them, do you think?

00:23:33:20 - 00:24:01:12
Speaker 1
Let me elaborate on some things that companies can do. When we think about kind of representation, how do we get representation? First and foremost, we or industries, partners need to hire more people of color, in particular blacks. That starts off first and foremost with, hiring folks who have experience. Oftentimes, no one's going to get it get hired unless they have some experience.

00:24:01:12 - 00:24:47:02
Speaker 1
How do you get experience? You can't get experience unless you get hired. That happens with, internships. And I know that, internships for students are particularly valuable so that they can gain that experience and hopefully gain, the job within, a company. But so let's think about some things in terms of what companies can do when they can offer mentorship programs, which is something that I talked about before, because mentorship and guidance can help students, go down the right path and, develop experience knowledge that particularly important to be marketable.

00:24:47:02 - 00:25:39:14
Speaker 1
These two companies can advocate for diverse candidates. And I think you and I have had conversations before such that if there are people of color who work at the company, especially blacks, it's important to not only have mentorship, but to have folks in the company who advocate for, folks of color. Oftentimes, I think. This is unfortunate, but in many cases, it's important to have as a black person to have allies who don't look like you, who can advocate for you because in many cases, their comments, their, advocacy in many ways matters more.

00:25:39:14 - 00:26:07:10
Speaker 1
It holds more credibility among white mainstream employees and managers. And so that that's very important tip advocates, who look like you and who don't look like you. Also, it's important to create a workplace that embraces diversity. I mentioned some of the things that, G and S is doing in terms of things like having affinity groups.

00:26:07:12 - 00:26:44:13
Speaker 1
Having a, Dei committee. And I think you have, Janus has, both of those, this is an important one and maybe somewhat controversial in some circles, but promotions should impart be tied to the development of diverse talent we speak a lot about. Okay. Oh, we have a committee that's doing this, or we had a workshop on this or we've we've spoken to our, black professionals in our company.

00:26:44:14 - 00:27:09:01
Speaker 1
But how are we holding each other accountable if we really embrace diversity, if it's really important, then maybe part of our is as managers, as supervisors, maybe part of our promotions or our raises should be tied again in part to how we're developing talent. How are we leading? So I think that's particularly important.

00:27:09:07 - 00:27:26:06
Speaker 3
I love just to jump on that really quickly, not to take you off track, but I think it's so important because it is that question of accountability. And that's what's been missing. Now, again, the New York City Human Rights Commission tried to create some years ago, but this question of how do you embed it in your values? But then how do you make that real?

00:27:26:06 - 00:27:44:16
Speaker 3
And what are the KPIs or the key performance indicators for each person as they go? And we do have our task force and we're actually even examining like, should we still call it a task force? Is it how do we look at an ongoing body? We we haven't formed formal affinity groups yet, but many other methods of conversation.

00:27:44:16 - 00:28:04:16
Speaker 3
But I think that question of how do we and we're in our performance review cycle right now, as I talked to you today, it's like, how do we lean into helping managers at all levels understand what it actually means to incorporate the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion as a champion, as advocate, because one of the observations that I have.

00:28:04:16 - 00:28:36:06
Speaker 3
But it's like not surprising. I mean, it's something we've talked about is that bringing talented individuals in from marginalized communities, especially from the black community, because of the unique history of the United States and the unique challenges that we face in this area. To say the least, so deep in the DNA of this country, it's one thing to bring folks in, but it's another to help them feel that they want to stay, you know, and that's that's to me, even I can't you know what?

00:28:36:06 - 00:29:05:03
Speaker 3
I can't prioritize one over the other. They're both so important because we haven't we're making progress in recruiting. I'm just talking about us as the example. I know the best that I want to speak for others, but I certainly know a lot about what's going on other companies. But how how my colleagues who are here, who identify as black in America today, whether they, you know, African American, come, you know, from that history or Caribbean or Africa, you know, wherever blackness is centered in their lives, like how do they feel good about being here?

00:29:05:05 - 00:29:23:11
Speaker 3
That, that that I think is something that I didn't know if we would get to this level of conversation in the corporate world, to tell you the truth, 30 years ago. But I feel like we're starting to have it now. I mean, are you seeing that more too, in terms of retention? And, it may not be the thing that you're engaged in all the time.

00:29:23:11 - 00:29:25:02
Speaker 3
I'm just curious of your thoughts.

00:29:25:04 - 00:30:00:00
Speaker 1
You know, in society in general. And I'll probably talk a little bit about my research, what we're seeing in society, whether you're watching the news, especially when we look at the news media, much of the popular press and even some academic literature point to a bleak picture for the future of race relations. We see so much divisiveness, out in the world, at least that's communicated to us through media.

00:30:00:02 - 00:30:42:00
Speaker 1
But in my opinion, I think the negativity, the divisiveness, the racial tension that we hear is in many ways overstate. It the reason I say it's overstated. We have a tendency to focus on negativity, at least from a media standpoint. I, encourage because I see young people who have inter racial friendships. I see, middle school kids in high school kids who are interacting with other diverse groups on a regular basis.

00:30:42:02 - 00:31:17:06
Speaker 1
When I walk across campus, I see black students and white students sitting down having lunch together, talking about, exams and homework. I see much more inter racial interaction. And I, although we it's the, Bhaskar is the black advertiser strategic communication association. There are number of, diverse students who are part of my organization, whether they're black, white, Hispanic.

00:31:17:12 - 00:31:56:12
Speaker 1
So I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm encouraged because there's a lot more focus, one from academics in many industry folks and being intentional about creating environments that are conducive for, people of color to succeed in. I'm encouraged because young people are much more progressive in their thinking, and it's much more commonplace for them to interact with one another.

00:31:56:14 - 00:32:25:01
Speaker 1
And they're much more open minded, in less close minded. They don't see in many cases. And my research kind of points to this. They know a white person doesn't necessarily among young people don't necessarily see blacks as outgroups. They often see blacks as in-group members because we we look at race and we want to see that, oh, because someone is white and someone's black, they're outgroups.

00:32:25:03 - 00:32:57:23
Speaker 1
But whites, for example, don't always use race as a way of determining similarity or commonality. They oftentimes use things like social class, cuz or occupational cues to determine if one is similar to another. So the reason that outgroup and in-group aspects are important because when you start looking at someone as being different to someone who is being who is an outgroup, you engage in biases.

00:32:58:01 - 00:33:34:18
Speaker 1
It prejudices. So there's something that I call the the ABCs of, understanding key communication processes. And this is particularly important, I think, for corporate America, the ABCs are there needs to be awareness. And what I mean by awareness is be aware of the psychological mechanisms that impact our thoughts about interactions with one another. What that means is when we come across someone, we tend to immediately make similarity judgments.

00:33:34:20 - 00:34:06:00
Speaker 1
We make similarity judgments based on how people look. You know, they're superficial. But if I'm a white person, I see another white person. That person is similar to me. I begin to think that that person is part of my in-group. When I, see someone who doesn't look like me, I kind of see them as an outgroup. And that can be manifested in biases, even though it may not be, it even though may be implicit, there can be biases that causes you to not interact with someone who is different.

00:34:06:01 - 00:34:36:12
Speaker 1
So we need to be intentional about looking and interacting, having conversations with people who look different from us outside of our first impressions, of making these kind of surface and long lasting, impressions, they're often times based on superficiality. Be so there's a awareness. There's be we need to banish bias. And what I mean by that is minimize or banish cross group bias.

00:34:36:12 - 00:35:08:13
Speaker 1
That means how do we do that? We engage in perspective, taking up someone who is different from us. We engage in intergroup contact. That means literally going in, as I said before, having communication, having conversations with someone who is different. You know, what's interesting is people generally overestimate the existence of differences between their own group and those of other groups, even rival groups.

00:35:08:16 - 00:35:35:18
Speaker 1
So we tend to overestimate, you know, differences, for example, that blacks have it whites or whites have with blacks. So we have to be intentional about banishing bias, be aware of our implicit biases, and try our hardest to, be aware of that and to respond to it in the last thing, which is, see, create connections, recognize the power to make positive and meaningful connections between groups.

00:35:35:20 - 00:35:54:02
Speaker 1
Take more time to make meaningful, connections. We need more intentional look beyond, as I kind of alluded to before, look beyond the surface characteristics of others. So a awareness be banish the bias and three create connections.

00:35:54:04 - 00:36:18:05
Speaker 3
This is an amazing way. I mean, first of all, I am so heartened by your very research and data based view of as well as qualitative are being encouraged because I do feel that way as well. And I and I think my big message for everyone is that embrace, you know, and really with an open heart, the fact that you can be making progress and also not be there yet.

00:36:18:05 - 00:36:40:11
Speaker 3
And that's okay. And that's really our industry has been as a whole, very defensive. And sometimes I hear this thing of a wall or doing everything we can. It's like, no, let's just let's hold it more loosely and let's be open hearted about we're making progress. Look at it. But it's not good enough yet. Okay, great. But I love ending with the ABCs.

00:36:40:13 - 00:36:54:01
Speaker 3
And just before we sign off today and thank you for all your time. I mean, I just I love every time we talk, but is there any particular book or reference or website that you might want our listeners to check out, just that you think would be helpful to them?

00:36:54:03 - 00:36:58:14
Speaker 1
Oh man.

00:36:58:16 - 00:37:10:13
Speaker 3
I mean, some of them I know that we've read as a group is for some of us, which was really helpful to understand, sort of the underlying currents of American society. Also. Bias by Jennifer Eberhardt I know that was.

00:37:10:13 - 00:37:36:18
Speaker 1
One you know, a thing to me. I was thinking of that same book that the first one that comes to mind, because I think we need to be aware of the implicit biases that we have and how that can manifest itself in our attitudes and behaviors. So that actually was going to be the book I, would recommend, both because it gives us real understanding of those implicit biases.

00:37:36:20 - 00:37:57:02
Speaker 1
It gives us real research, provides research evidence of how these things really happen. There it isn't just, you know, in the imagination that people have bias. He definitely has them. I have them, you have them. But it's important to be aware of those. So that would be a book. That would be the book that comes to mind.

00:37:57:04 - 00:38:15:07
Speaker 3
Yeah. So that's biased. Everybody can Google it. But doctor essay up here, Ohio State University, The Ohio State University, thank you again so much for being with us today. And, everyone can look for the follow up episode where I get to talk to three of the students from the executive board of Bhaskar. Thank you so much.

00:38:15:07 - 00:38:19:16
Speaker 3
Have a great day.

00:38:19:17 - 00:38:48:16
Speaker 2
We are gas business communications. We are a team of media strategists, storytellers and engagement experts who meet you at the intersection of business and communications. To learn more, visit Gas communications.com. You're listening to Building Brand Gravity, attracting people into your orbit. A business communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player.

00:38:48:21 - 00:39:00:12
Speaker 2
If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

00:00:01:05 - 00:00:25:10
Speaker 3
Hello and welcome to this episode of Building Brand Gravity. I'm Steve Halsey, your host, and with me today is Rob Levick, who's a managing director of the Harris Poll. A little bit about Rob. He's a globally recognized expert on data driven business, society and health care trends. He's regularly interviewed and featured in publications like The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes.

00:00:25:12 - 00:00:48:20
Speaker 3
If that wasn't enough, he's a frequent lecturer and speaker at the Columbia School of Business, the Rotterdam School of Management, Tuck School of Business, and he's the guy that, senior executives and their management teams come to when they're really looking for cutting edge research and analytics to guide their path forward. And Rob's also been based not just in North America, but Europe, in South America.

00:00:48:20 - 00:00:51:10
Speaker 3
Rob, welcome to the program.

00:00:51:12 - 00:01:07:16
Speaker 1
Thanks. Happy to be here, Steve. So, and Edwards is in South Africa, not South America. I have worked at South America as well, but, so that South Africa was, was was kind of the, was home base for, for a while, and a very, you know, exciting and really kind of eye opening in for at a time.

00:01:07:16 - 00:01:11:12
Speaker 3
So were you down in, Cape Town or were you in Johannesburg?

00:01:11:14 - 00:01:28:09
Speaker 1
We were. We were actually based out of, Pretoria. We worked for, for a most of, I think, the largest companies in South Africa, but also one of the biggest clients was the government. So we were between Pretoria and Cape Town because you have this whole kind of rotation of parliament. Quite a lot. In addition to Jo'burg.

00:01:28:09 - 00:01:36:18
Speaker 1
Jo'burg is really kind of the commercial capital. So if we if you're talking about banking or mining, or a variety of other industries, it's really kind of a central hub.

00:01:36:20 - 00:02:05:03
Speaker 3
Well, and I think with that basis of, of global, that's really got to make kind of your perspective and your council unique because you've been in the different regions, you've been in the different territories, you've really seen the dynamics, not just from a US multinational perspective, but really how the issues play in region. So so that's got to be, a really compelling voice that you can bring to the discussion.

00:02:05:05 - 00:02:24:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, and honestly, a really great set up for, for today's discussion as we're talking about things like ESG and sustainability, which can actually have quite different connotations, in, in different markets. And especially when you, when you even go out of, the English language, you know, the term ESG doesn't really mean much if you're if you're not, kind of an English first speaker.

00:02:24:07 - 00:02:43:11
Speaker 3
Excellent. Well, yeah, I'm really interested. Get into that. Before we really get rolling on that, maybe you can tell me a little bit about about the Harris Poll. I know you've been leading a lot of the research in the area of sustainable and and consulting, C-suite on that. But but tell me what's new with Harris?

00:02:43:13 - 00:03:04:12
Speaker 1
The question is, what's not new? It's a Harris. Steve. I'm joking, of course. Right now, I mean, we're, we we've been we've been around for for a long time over 50 years, doing really opinion leading polling, have worked, you know, the Harris poll and a lot of our leaders have worked in politics, for a for a very a number of presidents and prime ministers.

00:03:04:14 - 00:03:24:07
Speaker 1
So, you know, Tony, Tony Blair in the UK, in the US for, for JFK, for Reagan. But right now, kind of the, the core focus of, of the organization is really not politics. It's very much around kind of what's happening in society, what's happening in business. And in particular, how do we how can we enable and help?

00:03:24:09 - 00:03:51:08
Speaker 1
Companies, brands and organizations just be much more effective in, in leveraging their brand and reputation as a real kind of business asset, for moving the ball constructively forward, which is, again, it's it's never been, it's never been more important. Right? As, as you're looking at these intersections of, you know, societal issues, massively changing economic, shifts, political shifts, national security and geopolitical shifts.

00:03:51:10 - 00:04:17:04
Speaker 1
And then kind of the, you know, the the pulse behind all of our work is really how do you bring kind of technology and digital to the forefront of everything? Everything's moving just so fast these days. And if you're not, like, finding the intersection between kind of, you know, core market research with a key stakeholder to, integrating with digital data, whether it's third party or third party data, to to understand how things are moving, to really getting into those intersections with digital, you're, you're you're missing part of the picture.

00:04:17:05 - 00:04:23:08
Speaker 1
Right. Which and blind spots they are. You know, they're not kind of like a trip in many cases. They're they're more of a flop.

00:04:23:11 - 00:04:47:22
Speaker 3
Well, what what I find interesting about how you talk about where your focus is right now at, at the Harris Ball is a lot of that really fits squarely in, kind of traditional definition of sustainability, which is kind of like the three legged stool of society, things like standard of living, you know, jobs, equal opportunity economics, which was all about gross profit, cost savings, things like that.

00:04:48:00 - 00:05:09:11
Speaker 3
And then the environs, MIT when you're thinking about biodiversity, pollution prevention, those type of things. But what's interesting is, you know, you talk about where a lot of the intersections of these, you know, that's where you're seeing between, you know, the social, economic aspects are business ethics, fair trades coming in. You look at the environmental, economic kind of area.

00:05:09:11 - 00:05:35:19
Speaker 3
And that's where energy efficiency, renewable fuels, green tech fits social. Environmental is kind of where your conservation policy, environmental justice. So there's a lot packed into this concept of sustainability. But then you have ESG, you know, the environmental, social and governance, which really covers a wide range of things that may have direct or indirect impact on a business.

00:05:35:19 - 00:06:10:06
Speaker 3
You know, things like resource management, supply chain management, health and safety policies, building trust through transparency. And if that's not enough, then you have the concept of ESG investing, which is socially responsible investing approach in a companies that score well in ESG. So I guess my question for, for our listeners is where do we start or where where do communicators need to, ground their bases for a discussion about sustainability or ESG?

00:06:10:08 - 00:06:29:13
Speaker 1
Next simple question. Thanks. Do you, I think that, you know, what you're laying out is just the the whole kind of tapestry and ecosystem around ESG and sustainability. So if we're going back into to, to the past and we're looking at kind of the evolution of a lot of sustainability trends, it's very much an environmental trend, right?

00:06:29:13 - 00:06:54:08
Speaker 1
It's around kind of resource allocation. Is there an impact on on the environment? And really building that into business processes and addressing it? What you're seeing now, whether you're talking about ESG or sustainability, and I'll talk a little bit about separation between those, one of the biggest shifts that, I would hope that all listeners leave this call or this, this discussion from is or with is, is just around employees as being kind of a central piece of it.

00:06:54:10 - 00:07:16:10
Speaker 1
Right. So employees both in terms of being able to actually execute the strategy, of your business strategy with kind of sustainability as a core enabler to be able to execute and implement that. But then also in terms of employees as, as really kind of a clear depiction and showcase, of what you're doing around sustainability and, and, and ESG.

00:07:17:16 - 00:07:38:09
Speaker 3
Well, and it's it's interesting that you start with employees because at least based on my experience as a, as a communicator, you know, over the last two decades, it's been very much about outward facing communications. You know, what do we say to the NGOs? What do we talk about customers? Can we use this as an advantage of claiming a first to a market?

00:07:38:09 - 00:07:47:22
Speaker 3
But what you're talking about is something much more core, almost looking at sustainability as part of a company's DNA. Did I get that right?

00:07:47:23 - 00:08:09:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's it's spot on. So it's, you know, that the piece you're talking about is most certainly mission critical, but it's employees. If employees don't believe what you're saying, the NGOs or if it's not part of their like their understanding of your strategy, the the training, the resources that they have at their disposal. Then you're going to have a big mismatch.

00:08:09:19 - 00:08:21:23
Speaker 1
And then also, if you're not bringing in how you're enabling, helping, supporting, empowering employees into part of the discourse with those external audiences, that's also a big miss.

00:08:22:01 - 00:08:47:19
Speaker 3
So you you recently the Harris Poll recently, worked with University of Pittsburgh, if I understand correct. Really looking at what you described as a sustainability culture gap really kind of in, in I believe it was actually called the last mile sustainability culture gap. Can you tell me a little bit about that? I mean, it sounded like there was a pretty big disconnect between your front line workers and what managers thought about sustainability.

00:08:47:21 - 00:09:04:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I, I love this. We're getting to, to kind of the, the root cause of the matter because there's I mean they're all they're all these kind of broader consumer trends impact on inflation that we can also talk about. But the the crux of the matter really does translate into this piece. And that that last mile gap is, is one of the most substantial pieces.

00:09:04:20 - 00:09:44:19
Speaker 1
So we've been working with, the University of Pittsburgh, the business school, at the, at the business school, there's, the center for Sustainable, Sustainable Business. Is is really one of the leading kind of, think tanks and organizations looking at, looking at sustainability and really kind of how do you turn it into and execute it as a strategy, where a lot of the focus of, of, of the research that that we worked on was actually came, from one of the leading professors, kind of, academic research as well as, a recent book that he wrote, which was, specifically around kind of employee focus and called Small

00:09:44:19 - 00:10:08:18
Speaker 1
actions big difference. So one of the things we looked at is, is really just understanding where are companies today. And both and there's really kind of three phases, like in terms of being able to incubate a strategy, launch a strategy, and really an entrenched strategy. But without getting too deep into all those details just yet, one of the, one of the biggest takeaways was, was absolutely in terms of kind of the last mile gap.

00:10:08:20 - 00:10:28:16
Speaker 1
So if you're working in corporate, if you're in in much more of kind of that central setting, you, you have a much better understanding of what's happening with the strategy. You feel much, much more set up, much better resourced, much better trained to actually be able to execute. And you're seeing much more of an integration into the culture.

00:10:28:18 - 00:10:45:10
Speaker 1
If you're at the, at the front lines, in many cases in, in call centers or kind of at the front touch of customers, you, you're not really seeing that that same kind of impact point. I'll say overall, we're it's still very much a journey and work in progress of the numbers are not off the charts startling.

00:10:45:14 - 00:11:16:11
Speaker 1
But there is a very substantive gap between kind of corporate and the front lines. And that's a that's a really big takeaway in terms of not just setting a strategy and kind of talking about the strategy to middle managers, but really being able to get to how do we operationalize this in a way that it builds the programs that we need to bring in the right front line staff and enables our front line staff to be upskilled, in ways that that really enable them to execute, make them feel empowered to execute, and really celebrate that execution.

00:11:16:13 - 00:11:29:13
Speaker 3
So so, Rob, you were talking about ESG and sustainability, and we're at a real kind of inflections change at corporations. And then even how we communicate. Can you can you tell me a little bit about that?

00:11:29:15 - 00:11:51:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So when you're thinking of the inflection point that we're at, there's there's really two core components to it. One is the the evolving definition of sustainability, in the minds of kind of society at large, consumers, employees, virtually everyone, where historically it is much more about just the environment. Now you have a much bigger emphasis on communities, but in particular employees.

00:11:51:13 - 00:12:18:14
Speaker 1
Employees are very much kind of a central theme in terms of being able to showcase, impact on sustainability. And that in particular, we're looking at consumer research, some of which we just recently published with, with the Conference Board, you can see a lot of, employee factors. Around kind of wage and treatment as being kind of core components to, sustainability as, as very much kind of like a market mover and a driver of, of preference.

00:12:18:16 - 00:12:45:23
Speaker 1
Or, you know, the opposite of, if you will, in parallel to that, you have the the evolution of ESG. And in particular, when we think of ESG, it's it's the reporting aspect of it, of of it that becomes really important for companies, predominantly because as you have a variety of different, you know, financial institutions, boards, governing bodies such as the SEC starting to kind of lay out a path to reporting.

00:12:46:04 - 00:13:03:03
Speaker 1
It now becomes something that everybody has to have top of mind versus can can consider whether they should or they shouldn't. So whether you're in, you know, operations, marketing, communications or if you're the CEO or the CFO, you really need to be able to get to the heart of the matter in terms of what what kind of data do we have?

00:13:03:03 - 00:13:13:22
Speaker 1
What is it telling us? And then how do we pull that together in terms of looking at our at our business strategy and at the broader positioning and forward looking prospects of, of our organization?

00:13:14:00 - 00:13:39:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's kind of interesting. And as you describe, you know, kind of the employees, really that kind of cultural connection, you talk about alignment with the strategy and purpose of the corporation. Then you talk about external reporting. That puts the issue of sustainability right at the heart. What the chief communications officer does within a corporation. So how should a chief communications officer move forward?

00:13:39:10 - 00:13:47:19
Speaker 3
And is it different if they're in a B2B company than a B2C company, and in how they communicate and tell this story of sustainability?

00:13:47:21 - 00:14:14:06
Speaker 1
It's a great question. And unfortunately, there's no silver bullet answer. Steve. I think it's for for some companies, you're probably feeling ahead of the curve if you're in a B2B company, and especially one that's been, you know, very focused on things like construction and manufacturing, in many cases, you know, you're you may be ahead of the curve because companies have actually been investing in it because they can actually see substantial efficiencies built on it.

00:14:14:06 - 00:14:32:23
Speaker 1
They can actually you can actually build just a much more sustainable business by the by a focus on sustainability. As you're looking at kind of the evolution of a lot of these topics and, you know, there are some companies do have a chief sustainability officer, some don't, some have chief communications officers, some have chief corporate affairs officers.

00:14:33:01 - 00:14:55:19
Speaker 1
So as we're thinking of the CEO and a lot of these other titles in particular, there's a really big opportunity, right. And the opportunity can be taken from any one of those vantage points. But, one one of the key ones is certainly the chief communications officer. In some cases, you have individuals who have both communications and sustainability under their portfolio.

00:14:55:21 - 00:15:18:16
Speaker 1
Right? In those cases, you're not just communicating about sustainability, but you're really foundationally creating an operational organization for that. Being able to collect all the data, interpret it, make sure it's making sense, make sure that that whole process is evolving as the business is evolving, and then also telling the story about what it means and building a strategy around that.

00:15:18:18 - 00:15:49:17
Speaker 1
Right. That's going to be the role of some chief communications officers, right? And most certainly going to be, part of the role for many chief corporate affairs officers. In other instances, it's very much around how do you create a very deep partnership with sustainability and operations, if you're the chief communications officer? So you can really get to the heart of the story versus just, you know, figuring out where the story needs to go and doing some kind of rounding of the of the corners of the story.

00:15:49:19 - 00:16:11:04
Speaker 1
So I think there's a lot of plays and just depending on the kind of company you're in and how deep sustainability is already embedded. So I mean, there's certain organizations like if you're at Unilever, you know, certainly there's, you know, there's a chief sustainability officer who is extraordinarily, deeply embedded in the whole organization that's going to be somebody you partner with versus that at other organizations where this whole concept is still very nascent.

00:16:11:06 - 00:16:28:17
Speaker 1
There are still major opportunities for, for example, chief communications officers to take a much more of a leadership role that moves, beyond just kind of brand and communications and much deeper in terms of, kind of operational sustainability, responsibilities.

00:16:28:19 - 00:16:55:16
Speaker 3
So, so what has been the most surprising finding to you in all the research you've done with this, either whether it's, you know, the, the adoption rate, whether it's this, last mile gap that you talk about, you'd mentioned earlier that even the use and the thinking about ESG and non-English speaking, countries is very different, what with all of this myriad of data and analytics.

00:16:55:16 - 00:17:02:13
Speaker 3
You're looking at what what are the things that you found most interesting or surprising?

00:17:02:14 - 00:17:08:20
Speaker 1
Now I'm going to focus in on your question as kind of like, what do I think is the biggest blind spot? How about that?

00:17:08:22 - 00:17:12:10
Speaker 3
There we go. What? So so what's our biggest blind spot out there?

00:17:12:10 - 00:18:03:15
Speaker 1
Rob I think the biggest blind spot is really being able to understand both what's happening in terms of financial reporting, right. Where the financial reporting aspect of it is, there's stuff coming with 100% certainty, but it's going to be a relatively or most likely a relatively slow roll to to start. Right. You're actually, in most cases, the predominant focus areas for for, for that reporting are, are most likely to be kind of like scope one and scope two emissions and much more kind of environmentally focused, which basically what that means is it's around, you know, their direct impact of your operations and, and, you know, electricity and things like that.

00:18:03:17 - 00:18:36:14
Speaker 1
Right? Your what that precludes or doesn't include is the big impact points. Right. So the net far reaching impact, which is you're getting it to into scope three or beyond. So reporting is going to be based most likely to start on much more of a scope one or scope two. So you're actually going to see a lot of organizations, theoretically doing quite well on some of those that may not like, you're going to have energy companies that are really good at just figuring out how to do the reporting, who may actually be scoring very highly on those things.

00:18:36:16 - 00:19:01:18
Speaker 1
Right. Although you could argue that their broader kind of environmental impact is, you know, has has a lot more kind of like deficiencies or potential negative impacts and things like that. Right? Well, at the same time, when you're looking at kind of building the story, building the brand, building the strategy and executing the strategy, a lot of it is kind of net societal impact focused.

00:19:01:20 - 00:19:38:12
Speaker 1
Right? So you really need to be able to bridge both of those things and create kind of that whole continuum. Right? So getting really, really good at reporting because that's going to have a direct impact on operations. Financials, integrations, the CFO into the CEO. And then also building off of that continuum into really high impact, meaningful, initiative based storytelling that really showcases the impact your having on employees, on communities, on the future.

00:19:38:14 - 00:20:11:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. And one of the things I think has been really interesting in this discussion is really how you've been talking about the changing or evolving definition of sustainability to really be more on the the social side and relationship with employees. Yeah. I mean, I, I just think that that's, that's that's fascinating. And so I guess the question is, as we think about corporate strategy and how you move forward, how does this then impact corporate purpose and how brands need to think about their own purpose?

00:20:11:05 - 00:20:38:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's a fantastic question, Steve. So when you think of, I think, a reasonable model to be thinking about sustainability as well as ESG as kind of like pathways for both, reporting on measuring and creating impact around purpose. Right. So purpose is very much around kind of like the top line, you know, structure, positioning. This is where we're pointing, this is how we're going to do it.

00:20:38:19 - 00:21:02:15
Speaker 1
A lot of what we're seeing around ESG and around sustainability, to really create those pathways for being able to kind of credibly execute as your business as well, because the expectations around these things are going to be very different. If you're an energy company versus a financial services company versus a manufacturing or construction company versus a tech company, right?

00:21:02:17 - 00:21:38:11
Speaker 1
So it does create a lot of, the level of detail when you think of breaking down sustainability and ESG provides a lot of really good data flows and pathways to to build very compelling storytelling. And I think actually it's going to be a liberator for, for a lot of communicators, right? When you're when, you know, from, from my experience, some of if some of the best communicators that are most frustrated that that you know, that I know that I've worked with are when there really isn't a clear enough business strategy.

00:21:38:13 - 00:22:11:06
Speaker 1
Right, and there's not really enough kind of business direction and action to build a very compelling brand engagement initiatives versus where you have more of a clear strategy, and you have a lot of those data points that support it. And you can see that investors are understanding where this stuff is pointing. Then suddenly it opens up massive opportunities for for communications, for marketing the brand building, for thought leadership, right, where you can really add that next layer.

00:22:11:11 - 00:22:24:10
Speaker 1
That makes it a much more dynamic, compelling, credible story, right, versus just kind of, you know, tweaking language in a speech or a newsletter or a press release.

00:22:24:12 - 00:22:49:04
Speaker 3
So, so if you make meaningful change, what are the ripple effects on on the different industries. Right. So you've talked about tech or health care and you counter pose that even with, say the food industry and the supply chain there, if you make really good progress, how does that how does that impact others? How does that change the bar that they're being held to?

00:22:49:06 - 00:22:52:15
Speaker 1
Do you mean competitors or do you mean society?

00:22:52:17 - 00:23:14:16
Speaker 3
Actually both, but primarily, primarily look at competitors. You know, there's the old saying, hey, we can do well by doing good, but if you do that, does it force meaningful change with competitors or does it does it really create a situation where each competitor is going to look at their business strategy and say, how can I be most competitive?

00:23:14:16 - 00:23:18:05
Speaker 3
Not how can I be most sustainable?

00:23:18:07 - 00:23:55:04
Speaker 1
I think the two things are intertwined. So that's the it's again, a great question as you look at sustainability and. Your ability to get into the organization, both to go deep into understanding what's happening. And then also because of a lot of the evolving reporting standards, have to be able to elevate that and communicate it externally for, again, just for financial purposes, for board purposes, etc. that creates, I think it's going to create a new competitive landscape because you're going to have a lot more of this information that that's publicly available.

00:23:55:04 - 00:24:38:22
Speaker 1
So there's going to be a new lens for for competitive positioning. And it's going to you know, to a large degree, enable companies to understand, how others are operating and what's making them, you know, tick and work better or not better. Also, at the same time, it should also operate, open up really new opportunities for distinction and differentiation as you start digging into how a lot of these things work at your company, you're going to find out that there are some really new, unique, different components of, your supply chain, your key stakeholders, what what the frontline employees look and feel like there's going to be huge opportunities to to be, you

00:24:38:22 - 00:24:51:17
Speaker 1
know, really be able to create a lot more distinction based off of, you know, how your culture actually manifests itself around things like executing on sustainability, on ESG.

00:24:51:19 - 00:25:18:07
Speaker 3
Well. And what I think is interesting is, you know, there's all the positive business factors, but there's also, I'm sure you're seeing within companies kind of the inertia or resistance to change that says if we take actions that are more sustainable, one, we may pick up higher costs in the short term, but it also may make our customers by less or not by something that's been a key driver for the business.

00:25:18:07 - 00:25:24:04
Speaker 3
I mean, are you seeing that that is a real challenge that businesses are facing.

00:25:24:06 - 00:25:54:07
Speaker 1
That's a major challenge. Absolutely. So you're also getting to maybe where, you know, this conversation can start in a lot of different places. But one of the most important things to also understand right now, in the US, also in other markets, but really in the US, the hyper politicization and polarization of a lot of this. Right? Especially the kind of the term ESG and especially as you look at the last call it 6 to 8 months in the US, you've had a a huge amount of politicization around that.

00:25:54:09 - 00:26:25:10
Speaker 1
And, you know, as you have those, as you have the intersection between a company, society, politics, you very quickly get into kind of geopolitical and also broader competitiveness issues. So, and this is, you know, part of it really comes down to like, how is your organization working? Where is its supply chain? To what degree are, you know, certain markets or, or countries subsidizing, certain subsidizing certain industries.

00:26:25:12 - 00:26:57:07
Speaker 1
So there's suddenly you start getting pulled into a ton of complexity, especially as you're pulling in like, a country like China. Right? Both in terms of for for most companies, it's a substantial part of your supply chain on at least certain aspects of your business. And then on on the flip side of it is, as you're thinking of, you know, Chinese companies evolving in a lot of spaces and you're thinking like about intellectual property as you're thinking about, just overall kind of subsidies and competitiveness.

00:26:57:09 - 00:27:19:16
Speaker 1
This can have massive impacts when you're when you're thinking about, how do I get for some companies, you know, incur more cost to get this stuff kind of, you know, moving, if you will. Right. What I will say is that the big part of it, that's one of the big change agents here, is the fact that you're going to have, it's going to be now a financial requirement.

00:27:19:18 - 00:27:40:09
Speaker 1
So there's going to be an expectation from financial markets that you're going to need to be spending more on these things. And there's, you know, again, you're going to have to be very judicious about how you're positioning that aspect of it, what you're spending and how you're investing. But that's going to become part of your strategy. Right. And the financial markets are going to expect it because they know you're going to have to be reporting on it.

00:27:40:11 - 00:27:51:10
Speaker 1
So that, again, is one of the one of the big changes. That's that's enabling change. But it all those other dynamics I just mentioned are real, real things. If you're in tech, if you're in manufacturing, if you're an energy.

00:27:51:12 - 00:28:22:07
Speaker 3
So when, when you're, when you're asked by these, major companies to come in and consult on sustainability, what are they asking you to do? Is this something that is an outcrop of, discussions about reputation and brand? Is are these very specific studies that they want to do to kind of gauge where the market is, is there is there kind of a common way that that people say, hey, I really need to reach out to the Harris Poll to help me, figure out the path forward or the strategy around these.

00:28:22:11 - 00:28:24:13
Speaker 3
This topic.

00:28:24:14 - 00:28:44:22
Speaker 1
And it's a great question. I think, for, for a lot of companies, they're still very much at the inflection point of figuring out how they're going to be dealing with, with sustainability. In most cases in work that we're doing. So, for example, if we're doing work around corporate brand and reputation, it's inherently a cross stakeholder, cross-functional program, right?

00:28:45:00 - 00:29:08:10
Speaker 1
Because of that, it's sustainability is almost always one of the key stakeholders in the mix. So increasingly, one of the things we have been seeing is more sustainability leaders, especially ones who are broadening their profiles or who have broader profiles, where sustainability is coming in, where it's it's becoming a much deeper and more specific aspect to the work.

00:29:08:12 - 00:29:35:07
Speaker 1
And what I mean by that is going much deeper into, again, this differs depending on who the what, what industry you're in. It's really digging deep into a lot of the experts in, in those domains. Yeah, it's going to look the experts when you think of sustainability as it pertains to energy versus tech versus financial services are actually quite different in terms of it being more of like, for example, environmental versus social profile as examples.

00:29:35:09 - 00:29:57:10
Speaker 1
But you have to go you're going much deeper into, into those stakeholder groups. And then also going much deeper into, into the core issues for, for that organization. And that's both in terms of, again, understanding how it works at your company, how it translates from operations, but then also how it manifests itself in terms of programing, positioning, and messaging as a huge aspect of it.

00:29:57:11 - 00:30:24:21
Speaker 1
Right? I, I was like, I can't understate the level of the level of, jargon around this space is, remarkable. And, you know, again, the reason for that is, is that you have it's still, to a large degree, a very insider conversation. So a lot of that jargon makes sense to insiders. But it's a very big problem if you're trying to communicate more broadly, even with policymakers, if you don't get to simple, straightforward language, that's pretty clear about what you're doing.

00:30:25:02 - 00:30:33:00
Speaker 1
You're going to lose a lot of people. And in many cases, they're going to think you're actually obfuscating. Even if you have the right intentions and you're doing a lot of the right things.

00:30:33:02 - 00:31:05:15
Speaker 3
Well. And I could definitely see when we were talking earlier about, the employee connections and getting employees to believe if you're doing a lot of jargon, it can feel like you're not really making a meaningful impact. And I also thought it was interesting going back to when you talked about the blind spots of really that need for the financial reporting and what scope you got and really what you were just talking about now, which is how do you build a, story and a brand that really is talking about the net societal impact.

00:31:05:17 - 00:31:18:23
Speaker 3
So I guess my question, Rob, where do we go from here? What what what do corporate communicators and marketers need to leave this podcast and say, what are if there's three things I'm going to do, what are those three things?

00:31:19:01 - 00:31:46:22
Speaker 1
First and foremost, just get your head around what sustainability means at your company. And what I mean by that is understanding what the impact points are, right? And getting your head around kind of like the data that exists or the data that should exist. So if not leading the charge, getting involved in the group that is setting up for where a lot of the SEC reporting is going to go, just really getting your head deeply around what's available, what's happening and what is going to be needed.

00:31:47:00 - 00:32:15:09
Speaker 1
Otherwise, you're going to have a major blind spot as for example, if you're working in in marketing or communications. The second thing very much is going to be really around rethinking how you think about employees. So they are kind of like that two sided piece of you're not going to be able to execute your strategy unless you get buy in from the employees, and they understand what you're trying to do.

00:32:15:11 - 00:32:52:04
Speaker 1
And, and they actually have the tools, resources and training to, to do it. And at the same time making sure that they become a core part of your external kind of showcase of, of, of making progress. So employee is just a mission critical piece of it. And then the last part of it is, you know, how do you really turn it into a really kind of unique, distinctive driver of your positioning across constituencies, from investors to policymakers to customers, to your supply chain?

00:32:52:06 - 00:33:09:22
Speaker 3
Those those are really, really good tangible points that I think our listeners can put into practice. Rob, anything else that we need to think about on the topic of, of sustainability? It's a light, easy, uncomplicated thing to deal with, right?

00:33:10:00 - 00:33:36:17
Speaker 1
The again, it's as you think of whatever blind spot you have right now, your competitors and a lot of others have that blind spot as well. So your opportunity to move faster right now is, is a major one, primarily because you're going to be forced at some point by the financial markets. So your ability to get ahead of this stuff will turn into an actual business competitive advantage.

00:33:36:18 - 00:34:01:21
Speaker 1
Right. The closer you're in understanding how this works at your company, what is available, what are the things we're doing well? What are the things we're doing poorly? The more quickly it will kind of elevate your ability to be a real business, you know, consultant and and really enabling better business decision making. If you're in, for example, communications or marketing.

00:34:01:23 - 00:34:17:16
Speaker 1
So again, just a really big opportunity. And it's, it's a really kind of a once in a generation inflection point. Right? This is the first time ever you're going to have real kind of like financial reporting. And it's again, it's it's going to be scope one. Scope two. It's not going to be crazy, but it's coming. And you have to be prepared.

00:34:17:16 - 00:34:31:02
Speaker 1
And there's a massive opportunity to turn it into much more of a competitive business asset and which by by that can really become a really key distinctive positioning point for, for your brand and reputation.

00:34:31:04 - 00:34:54:23
Speaker 3
So as I take, kind of the summary of our conversation, you know, key things that really stick out to me are being at an inflection point, being aware of your blind spots and really thinking about sustainability as a as a business strategy. Rob, thank you so much for joining us on, on building brand gravity, everybody. We had Rob Yak Yelich, the managing director of the Harris Poll.

00:34:55:01 - 00:35:05:00
Speaker 3
You can find him by looking up Harris poll on the internet. He's also on LinkedIn as Rob K. Rob, thanks again for sharing your insights with us today.

00:35:05:01 - 00:35:10:03
Speaker 1
Thanks for having me. Steve is a pleasure.

00:35:10:05 - 00:35:39:04
Speaker 2
We are gas business communications. We are a team of media strategists, storytellers and engagement experts who meet you at the intersection of business and communications. To learn more, visit g s communications.com. You're listening to Building Brand Gravity, attracting people into your orbit. AG Business Communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player.

00:35:39:09 - 00:35:50:18
Speaker 2
If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.