DE&I brand strategies—6 ways to boost productivity, innovation and competitiveness

What do summer blockbusters “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” (2024) and “Barbie” (2023) have in common? Both centered on underrecognized and underrepresented consumers and won big time despite an overall industry decline. Whether brands loudly support or quietly focus on DE&I, one thing is clear: It makes good business sense. Among other things, fear, cognitive biases and organizational inertia fueled the DE&I backlash leading many companies to overlook key benefits. Neglecting inclusivity can carry significant costs, both financially and in terms of missed opportunities. So, what’s a brand to do? There is no one solution—however, a great start is refining brand strategy playbooks using these 6 questions. How do we ensure our content and communications don’t overrepresent the majority? This is a common brand misstep. Many will spend millions on research, campaign or content development, and media placement focused on universal insights yet feature people, stories and situations that are more vanilla. Routine ways of working and traditional assumptions are frequently to blame for audience overrepresentation when employing inclusive approaches can yield greater dividends. 40 under 40 entries are open The final deadline for nominations is Aug. 2 Enter here To what extent are our AI workstreams leveraging diverse and qualitative inputs? AI encompasses everything terrific (access, education, communication) and terrifying (bias, lack of privacy, harassment) about connecting with consumers creating several brand challenges. Among them, AI can inadvertently exclude or penalize underrecognized and underrepresented people. Cross-cultural intelligence, incorporating gender, class, ability, race and other converging aspects of identity, is the future of more accurate AI. User research, ethnography, cognitive walkthroughs and expert evaluations are invaluable qualitative inputs brands can use to refine AI models and customer journeys. How is diversity measured in our supply chain? Do you know what barriers are hindering your organization’s relationships with diverse suppliers? Are your supplier diversity goals clear across the organization? Many companies know how much they spend with diverse suppliers, but few know the challenges in optimizing these programs. Supplier diversity is not only about supporting women and minority-owned businesses, but also about the sustainability of your own business by preventing supply chain disruptions, accessing new markets, achieving cost savings, and improving brand reputation. How cross-cultural are our product development teams and data? There are many wonderful examples of brands developing successful products utilizing intentionally diverse teams. In 2021, United Airlines won many accolades for its digital app; usability soared for everyone because the design team included a visually impaired person. More recently, Google contracted more than 60 photographers of different ethnicities to train the Pixel camera to more accurately capture darker skin tones—forcing critical changes in camera sensors, processing algorithms and editing software. Centering underserved people in design benefits everyone. Whether diversity is built into your team or you’re actively tapping into external sources, ensuring cross-cultural teams and data safeguards product pipelines and future brand revenue. What intersectional experiences are being anticipated in our research? No group is a monolith and there is no average consumer. For brands, this means ensuring market research not only triangulates qualitative and quantitative data, but also identity-based consumer experiences … such as anticipating how consumer journeys may differ by age and income or race and gender. Accomplishing this demonstrates greater consumer empathy and provides more comprehensive insights, more personalized consumer experiences and more effective targeting. To be sure, this isn’t a futile exercise in micro-segmentation, it’s a powerful tool to illuminate context, need states and jobs to be done to inform priorities. In what ways can our policies contribute to unfavorable people outcomes? Despite diversity efforts, one group that frequently gets overlooked is first-generation professionals, those first in their families to obtain college degrees or white-collar jobs. Many policies inadvertently harm them by assuming that family and personal networks can fill gaps. Years ago, a manager-level mentee mentioned that hundreds of dollars in unreimbursed work travel expenses sat on his personal credit card because only VPs or higher were eligible for corporate cards. The holidays were approaching, he also needed to purchase travel home and family gifts and was just asked to book another trip. He was forced to choose between work and family and felt diminished in the process. When was the last time you audited policies for outdated practices or unfair outcomes? Policies can boost employee productivity, engagement and retention … or lead to the opposite. At the core of the DE&I backlash is corporate fear of losing favor with policymakers and investors. However, what organizations miss in prematurely reducing or eliminating DE&I efforts: (a) the outsized influence of many underrecognized and underrepresented groups and (b) the financial risk of excluding them which can reduce competitive advantages, threaten innovation and hamper productivity. 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DE&I brand strategies—6 ways to boost productivity, innovation and competitiveness

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