Diversity policies aren’t just about doing the right thing or responding to last year’s civil unrest but also are having solid market impact for Johnson & Johnson, the company’s global president of self care told the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing Conference Oct. 6.

Manoj Raghunandan recounted how he participated last year in a protest, lying face down for eight minutes and 47 seconds following the death of George Floyd. Last year also was a catalyst for J&J to convene all of its top agencies and digital platforms Google, Facebook and Amazon to make commitments around diversity, equity and inclusion. That included creating more multicultural content and measuring the results, he said. Those results from more diverse agency and production teams making ads with more diverse casts have been significant. Raghunandan pointed to Tylenol, buoyed by “Care Without Limits” ads from Doner showing how pain affects everyone.

Already the top brand in analgesics, Tylenol has grown household penetration by five percentage points since 2019, “which in our categories is unheard of,” he said. “And guess what, 57% of that household penetration growth was Hispanic and African American households.”

Staffing behind one key “Care Without Limits” spot was 75% diverse, while content Tylenol recently created for Mother’s Day came from a group of creatives, suppliers and staff who were 100% women, Raghunandan said.

“If you can commit, the business results will come,” he said, also noting that “our Hispanic advertising has a higher-dollar ROI than any of our general population” advertising.

J&J’s ability to get that data points to something else different today than 10 years ago — better measurement and analytic tools, Raghunandan said. He referenced the Cultural Insights Impact Measure (CIIM) developed through the ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM).

Last year’s focus on social justice also helped J&J fix a longstanding oversight and find a new agency, he said. The oversight was that Band-Aid only was sold in versions that matched white skin tones. J&J committed to fixing that, and this year launched the Ourtone line for people of color. Ourtone, in turn, is providing funds to encourage more people of color to become nurses and enter other health care fields, addressing a deficit Raghunandan said has contributed to COVID vaccine hesitancy.

Advertising for Ourtone comes from Black-owned Hero Collective, he said. “They are not an agency that we were using before, but they are absolutely an agency we will be using moving forward.”