How a diverse and inclusive agency culture leads to winning campaigns

Diversity is a keyword across the industry, but representation is only the first step. The transformation lies in leveraging diverse perspectives as a source of imagination and impact. 

This sounds simple, but while diverse teams have the potential to be highly innovative, delivering on this promise requires a steadfast commitment to creating an organizational culture that is truly inclusive.

“We’ve never seen an organization that didn’t attract more and more diversity when people there behaved inclusively,” said Francesca Gino, Harvard Business School professor and behavioral scientist. “By learning and embracing the skills to create an inclusive environment, you can tackle more complex problems, get more out of relationships and take your team and clients to new heights.”

The marketing industry is usually the first to embrace change, but progress in diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) efforts has been too slow. In fact, the annual diversity report by the Association of National Advertisers showed only a 3% increase in diversity among marketing employees between 2018 and 2022, with Black, Hispanic and non-binary representation still lagging behind. 

Our long-standing commitment at Taylor is working to help turn this around.

In 2009, five years after his appointment as Taylor’s CEO and managing partner, Tony Signore unveiled a new vision, business model and recruitment strategy that attracted talent from global consulting firms, advertising and digital agencies, and market research. 

“We understood the critical importance of infusing diversity of thought across all disciplines within Taylor, along with the impact it would have on behalf of our client partners,” Signore said. Many of those clients who were part of Taylor’s initial transformation are firmly behind the agency’s DE&I efforts today, including Diageo, Capital One and P&G.

In 2018, Taylor established a formal alliance with Gino to ensure that the agency continued to harness the power of difference to maximize its creative output. 

“It led to our evolution as a purpose-led marketing agency that shapes possibilities,” said Maeve Hagen, Taylor managing partner. “Embracing this approach at every level fuels engagement, collaboration and a collective spirit of innovation.”

Pioneering campaigns that make a difference

A team that’s not afraid to put its thinking through the test of different views and disagreements can create breakthrough solutions for its client partners, according to Garlanda Freeze, Taylor’s executive VP, account.

“We sit on a mountain of insights about backgrounds, sub-communities and cultural movements, and these insights fuel authenticity and originality,” Freeze said. “We invite debate on controversial issues. In a respectful environment all voices are heard to rewrite the rules of the industry.” 

Taylor’s recent campaigns prove the point. For example, Crown Royal's “The Royal Ride” highlighted the diverse history of the American West by hosting a procession of all Black riders through the historic Fort Worth Stockyards in advance of the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. The whisky brand also honored Opal Lee, the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” as the “Royal Rider” recipient, and secured 382 media placements and more than 206 million impressions.

In addition, the AIG Women’s Open 2022 elevated the insurance brand’s commitment to gender equity and its support of women’s golf, personified by AIG ambassador and British golfer Georgia Hall. The women’s tournament was notable because Scotland’s Muirfield course only began to admit women in 2017. The campaign produced 2 million U.S. broadcast video views, 12 million social media video views, and a 15-times year-over-year increase in campaign reach. 

Lastly, Capital One’s 2022 ESG report is a testament to the organization’s mission to “Change Banking for Good.” The interactive design, data visualization and multimedia elements tell dynamic stories of workplace diversity, inclusion and belonging as well as community engagement and social impact. The project resulted in a 44% increase in report viewership year-over-year and 569,000 impressions across Capital One platforms. 

“Being challenged makes every idea stronger,” said Suyin Sleeman, Taylor’s executive VP and executive creative director. “I love feeding in inputs from multiple disciplines and walks of life; it adds richness and depth to our work. The numbers never lie, the make-up of our country has changed and new approaches must be developed to represent the ever-changing melting pot of America.”