Ep 18: Inclusive Marketing Across the Globe with Sonia Thompson
Shownotes
In this episode, Joyann and Sonia discuss the differences of inclusive marketing across the globe, including a variety of topics like diverse teams and inclusive language.
Sonia is an inclusive brand strategist, coach, educator, keynote speaker, and CEO of Thompson Media Group. She also writes columns for Forbes and Inc. on inclusive marketing, belonging and customer experience and is the host of the Inclusion & Marketing Podcast.
You can watch the episode on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dloiNcWu17g&ab_channel=JoyannBoyce
Useful links:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7aWWizuX8YSGrkosiK3qyN?si=6f57a86974a4434b
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/latine-vs-latinx-what-young-people-think
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7dTZifo9nrzFCbzIYRqxRv?si=1d0dcefcc59346a4
https://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/fury-over-doves-racist-advert
https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/sainsburys-advert-racism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1PMtKNWsg&ab_channel=HyundaiUSA
You can find Sonia at:
https://inclusivemarketing.co/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/soniaethompson/
https://twitter.com/soniaethompson
https://www.instagram.com/soniaethompson/
http://www.gothompsonmedia.com/
You can find Joyann at: https://twitter.com/joyannboyce
Transcript
[00:00:00] Joyann: Welcome to the Marketing Made Inclusive Podcast. I am your host, Joyann Boyce. On this podcast, we're gonna discuss all things inclusive marketing, from persona creation campaigns, and even some of the mishaps we see in the media. Tune in and let me know your thoughts on how we can make inclusive marketing the industry.
[00:00:23] Welcome and welcome back to the Marketing Made Inclusive Podcast. I am so excited for this episode because I have what I'm calling a inclusive marketing OG with me. We were here before 2020.
[00:00:40] Sonia: Yes.
[00:00:41] Joyann: Um, I am joined by the amazing Sonia Thompson. Um, I'm wanting you to introduce and just talk about what you do and let the people know everything about you. So I'll give you the floor.
[00:00:52] Sonia: Aw, thank you. Um, I'm Sonya Thompson. Uh, I'm an inclusive marketing, um, coach, strategist, and consultant. And yeah, I've been in this space. I would say I started in it 2017, but really went all decided to go all in probably like 2019.
[00:01:09] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:10] Sonia: Um, and basically, um, I am somebody with a lot of differences and that's how I got started.
[00:01:19] Um, really talking about inclusion from a marketing standpoint because I am. Um, have very often been a frustrated consumer because of my differences. I'm a Black woman, I follow a gluten-free diet for health reasons. Um, now, um, I have, um, I was an expat for a while. I lived in Argentina. Um, my husband is Argentine, so we immigrated to the US
[00:01:49] two years, well, he immigrated to the US. I moved back to the US two years ago. Um, so we have this intercultural, um, interracial marriage. We have, um, in a biracial bicultural, um, bilingual daughter, right? So there's a lot of things going on.
[00:02:11] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:02:12] Sonia: Um, that for me, it's not just about my career, my profession, like I live in on a daily basis.
[00:02:20] Um, so it's just been an interesting, fascinating experience. That one I was already sort of leaning into from my career, cause I've focused a lot on customer experience. Um, but really as I started diving into more inclusive marketing, I realised that customer experience and inclusive marketing aren't two separate things.
[00:02:39] They go hand in hand, like they're inseparable twins, right? So.
[00:02:42] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:02:43] Sonia: Um, yeah. Like, I've just been in this space for a little while. Interesting to see more and more people getting into it. So I'm excited about it. Um, but at the same time I, I kind of have some trepidation as I look at more people getting into it cause I don't think that everybody's fully, quite gets, understands the weight depth of
[00:03:02] what inclusive marketing really means, why we're doing it, and what it feels like on the other side of it. It's not just something that we're doing, but like, as consumers, this is our lives, right? Like the stakes are higher for us. So there's, there's a lot more, um, To do with it versus just like, you know, I think some people think it's more just about changing up some photos and things like that, and it's not.
[00:03:25] Joyann: There's so many layers to it. I'm always fascinated because you mentioned coming in from the consumer perspective and that B2C, like direct impact aspect of it. What, what do you think was the first kind of stone in your shoe that made you start to feel that this needs to change?
[00:03:43] Sonia: Um, I. It started, so there's always been rumblings of it, right throughout my life.
[00:03:50] One thing I didn't mention, I'm also left-handed, right? So I remember growing up thinking that I was just a bad cutter. Like, I was just, I couldn't cut.
[00:04:01] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:02] Sonia: Like I was just a, a skill that I did not acquire come to realise I didn't acquire this skill because I didn't have a tool that was designed for me.
[00:04:11] The scissors were made for right-handed people. And whenever I tried to do it with my left hand, it just, it didn't work. Um, it was a hot mess. And then whenever I switched to my right hand, it still was a hot mess because I'm left-handed. Like I, you know, I'm not meant so, those were the, the inklings of the frustrations where I started like later on connecting the dots.
[00:04:33] Oh, like this isn't a me problem thing. This is like a marketing issue, right? Um, and then I would say later on, more into like late teens, adulthood, it came around seeing, needing stockings. Um, and not being able to find nude stockings that actually matched my skin tone. Um, so again, going around looking a hot mess in stockings that were, that like just did not match and just feeling like, why?
[00:05:10] Like why does it have to be this way? Um, and I think I really, but just being frustrated because there weren't really other options. And I think it really sort of, hit me and I got angry, like angry whenever I ended up having to start a gluten-free diet. And then just seeing how going into restaurants, like how just not enough people catered to, um, people who had these restrictions.
[00:05:39] And I think once I started living in Buenos Aires, um, and then actually seeing that it was possible actually seeing restaurants that were 100% gluten free and that other people were able, who weren't gluten-free would go there and they love it. And it was, it was, you know, because it was delicious food.
[00:06:01] It was one of those things that it started to click like. It's not that they, these businesses can't do it, it's that they're choosing not to do it. Yeah. Um, and here are businesses that have decided to cater to the person who has, you know, quote-unquote, um, different needs, um, or accommodating us and they are still thriving.
[00:06:23] Right. And just it, it started to really click for me. It, it doesn't have to be. It's a, it's an actual choice. Um, it's a, it's a choice. And as business owners, um, we can all do better to choose to serve people. And one, it's beneficial to your business, but if you think about the consumer, the impact on them is transformational,
[00:06:49] right? And, um, and whenever consumers who are traditionally underserved, um, for whatever reason, whenever they find a brand that actually does serve them and as intentional about doing them, like the loyalty that we have is. It's, it's like intense, right?
[00:07:10] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:10] Sonia: Like the number of times that I go to or latch onto a restaurant that serves, you know, good gluten-free food, like I'm there all the time and whenever I eat out with like my people, we are there all the time.
[00:07:22] Um, and it's just one of those things where you start to see that like, this isn't just the right thing to do. It makes just great business sense.
[00:07:29] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:07:30] Sonia: Um, so yeah, those are kind of when things started to like. The, the, the dots were always there throughout my life. And then it's just as I started to get more and more data points, I started to see that there, the dots were connecting.
[00:07:43] Um, and just kind of helped me see that this is, this is a real thing that we need to spend more time talking to, that not enough people understand. Um, because I think most people were just kind of oblivious to it if they didn't have someone in their. Um, or them, them and themselves who experienced these challenges because of some difference that they had.
[00:08:05] Joyann: So many truths there.
[00:08:07] But something you mentioned really stuck out to me. You experienced what it could be. And that's so relatable cause I grew up in Trinidad. And Trinidad in the Caribbean is a melting pot. Literal melting pot. Like everyone is something of something. And I always remember when I came over, I look back and I say to my Mum, oh, this was the first time I kind of realised I was Black coming to England.
[00:08:31] Ah, okay. Because there was a differentiation in Trinidad, you are Trinidadian. Yes, you may be of African heritage, your Indian heritage, your Chinese heritage, but you're a Trinidadian. It's.
[00:08:40] Sonia: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:40] Joyann: There's no separation. Um, so there was always something for everything. We can walk into the shops and find things.
[00:08:47] We can see ourselves in TV, in print, in marketing. It was natural.
[00:08:53] Sonia: Okay.
[00:08:53] Joyann: And I say sometimes when I'm talking to clients, it's easy for me to look at their campaigns and just imagine what an inclusive version would be, because I've experienced it. I'm like, right, that is possible.
[00:09:06] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:09:06] Joyann: It's not, and it sounds so similar to what you're saying, that you experienced that and I, you know, you're like, this is possible, so why are you not doing it?
[00:09:13] Sonia: Right.
[00:09:15] Joyann: So simple. Um, so you mentioned people are, stepping into inclusive marketing, but not necessarily approaching it or doing it in a way where they're concerning the consumer. How would you define inclusive marketing?
[00:09:30] Sonia: So inclusive marketing for me is all about being intentional about who you will serve and who you are not going to serve, and intentionally incorporating them into every aspect of your marketing mix.
[00:09:45] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:45] Sonia: Um, it's the being intentional part where I see a lot of people, um, feel like inclusive marketing means that you have to serve everybody. And that's, it's a nice thing to do, but it's unrealistic for most businesses because there's so many dimensions of diversity. Um, but where I see people, and it becomes a bit of a pet peeve for me, but like I think where they struggle to understand the depth of what really being inclusive is.
[00:10:16] Is that, they want to do it purely on the side of, we wanna serve more people to get them to buy more of our stuff, not in that we are truly inclusive, so we're gonna build teams that are representative of the people that we wanna serve. We are going to actually do something to support the communities.
[00:10:38] Um, and serve the communities and lead them off better, um, and address some of these inequities that exist that, you know, cause 'em to be underrepresented or underserved in the first place. They're not necessarily addressing all of those. They're just, how can we sell, how do we, how can we get them? How can we get this community to buy more of our stuff?
[00:11:00] And I think more and more consumer and it's, well, it's nice to, um, have more people sort of interested. I kind of liken it too. It's like whenever somebody didn't invite you to their party.
[00:11:18] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:19] Sonia: Um, and they, for years they, you just were never got an invitation to their party. And then all of a sudden one day they came up to you and it's like, Hey, you wanna come and.
[00:11:28] Expectation is that of course you're gonna wanna come.
[00:11:32] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:32] Sonia: But more and more consumers are like, you didn't invite me all these. Like, why should I all of a sudden feel like want to come? Like just because you invite me doesn't mean that I'm interested. And I think that a lot of times brands kind of take that approach where it's a feeling of entitlement that all I have to do is.
[00:11:51] You know, start getting some attention to people from these communities and of course they're gonna wanna buy our stuff, right? Like they're, of course, they're wanna kinda, you know, give the, give us their attention. And it's not really that, and I think that people don't understand that. Our expectations as consumers is that you have to do more to earn our trust.
[00:12:11] Like the people that we're already buying from, that we're super loyal to, they've done the work to, because they've been intentional about serving us when nobody else was.
[00:12:20] Um, and they've understand us and they've, they've done the work to make us feel like they belong. And that really is at the heart of it.
[00:12:27] Whenever I talk about inclusive marketing, belonging is really the goal and it takes a lot to make someone feel like they belong. It's not just about doing things at a superficial level for like me to feel and belonging is like a universal need that everybody has and. We all might not be able to describe what belonging is, but we know it when we feel it, because we felt it in different aspects of our lives.
[00:12:53] So whenever you feel it from a business standpoint with a brand from trying, you know, and, and consumer, um, point of view, but also from a brand in their values or as an employee, like we know what belonging feels like and. More and more how we're deciding of who we're gonna be loyal to and who we're going to, you know, give our money to, and our attention to, or our resources and our time, like, you know, our expertise. It, it comes down to that.
[00:13:20] Joyann: So it's really interesting on that aspect of belonging, cause I guess the way I would see a marketing team being able to make consumers feel belonging and belonged into their communities. Understanding it. But one of the things I kind of say to clients is that they could implement inclusive marketing even if their team isn't diverse.
[00:13:39] Sonia: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:40] Joyann: What is your view if the team isn't, if they're not making any effort at all internally to make that team diverse, and do you think they can still do that?
[00:13:51] Sonia: They can, if they have a deep degree of intimacy with. The people that they're trying to serve.
[00:14:00] Joyann: Okay.
[00:14:00] Sonia: And that deep degree of intimacy generally comes through proximity, right?
[00:14:05] Um, so not, it's not saying that if you're a team of men like you, can you really serve women? Yeah, you can. You probably be better off with, you have some women on your team of course, because there are aspects of. The experience of being the woman that no matter how much research you do, you might not be able to really get that nuance and understand it fully.
[00:14:30] Like it's helpful to have that degree of intimacy that helps, that really make things click. Um, I, I speak Spanish, right? Um, and I spent time living in Argentina. My husband is Argentine. Like, there's so much of the culture. But the, but I, there, I, I can't fully grasp what it means to be Argentine. Um, like, you know, like I, no matter how, like even, and I've got proximity to it, right?
[00:14:55] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:56] Sonia: And so it's, it's gonna be helpful for me. Like I'm, I'm always asking my husband explain like how this feels and different things like that. Um, in, in the point of view and the background knowledge, because there's just some things that with. Recent years of experience entrenched in it. I'm still not gonna know.
[00:15:14] I still don't know all the history. So having people where it's their lived experience is always beneficial. So even if, because you know, I know sometimes, depending on the size of your brand, headcount can be an issue, right?
[00:15:28] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:28] Sonia: And so it's not like, oh, our team's not diverse. We're just gonna go and change everybody tomorrow, right? It's, that's not the expectation.
[00:15:34] However, you can work with consultants, you can co-create with people who are part of those communities. Um, and that's gonna be how. You one developed a degree of intimacy that you need, but also it's going to signal that you really do care about that community and that you want to serve them, and that you're actually doing something to change that degree of, um, whatever caused 'em to be under underserved by kind of changing it within your own team or with the people that you're choosing to work.
[00:16:11] Joyann: I think that ties back really nicely to um, the episode we had last week or week or two ago about choosing influencers to work with on campaigns.
[00:16:19] Sonia: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:19] Joyann: And even if you don't have the internal team, the influencers you could you work with can show your understanding of those different communities, those different backgrounds.
[00:16:28] Uh, that's really good. I'm so curious, cause you mentioned living in Argentina. What did you see the differences in marketing there? I, I dunno if you can speak for the whole, um, Spanish or Spanish-speaking community. Is there inclusive marketing in that aspect?
[00:16:47] Sonia: So what I did start to notice, and it's funny, my husband started pointing it out to me as we were go in different places.
[00:16:55] Um, we started to see from an inclusion standpoint, um, there, there are different dimensions that we would start to recognise, right?
[00:17:05] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:05] Sonia: So we started to see mannequins, um, of different sizes in some of the, um, stores, right? Um, interestingly enough, whenever you go to restaurants, then you're, more and more you have them serving people who are gluten-free.
[00:17:24] But also what would be interesting is there'd be restaurants who would have entire menus in English. Um, so of course everybody speaks Spanish, but right. The population speaks Spanish. But there would be times where underneath it, they'd have the English version of it or they'd have an entire menu apart, like, you know, that they would bring and sit on the table cause they would hear like me or my friends sometimes speaking in English.
[00:17:48] They'd just bring it the English menu. Um, and those are little things that they would do, the show that they're prepared. But like, think about here in the us like. We do not.
[00:17:59] Joyann: Spanish should be, technically.
[00:18:01] Sonia: It should be right, like we do not like you go into a restaurant. It's not that you have, you know, a menu in English or it written in both languages, unless it's a um, um, you know, a Latino-specific restaurant, you know what I mean?
[00:18:18] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:18] Sonia: Cause then they're gonna have them both languages. So those are the different types of things that we would see. I remember whenever we went to Argentina last year, we were coming back and we were in like, at the airport restaurant. And, um, we were looking at the, I was looking at the menu and I took a picture of it.
[00:18:33] The menu was written in Spanish, English and Portuguese, because those are the three primary languages that you're gonna find if you're gonna be in Argentina, right?
[00:18:42] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:42] Sonia: Um, or the tourists that are coming that covers a lot of bases, Spanish, English, and Portuguese. And it was just there. And I was like, look at that.
[00:18:50] Like, you know, it, it didn't take that much effort. Um, it doesn't require you to necessarily change your servers and things like that because you can just point, right, this is what I want because it's in your language. So I found that they were much more inclusive or we're starting to see those changes on that front.
[00:19:08] There's an interesting debate that's going on, um, in, um, Spanish language. You're starting to see it in basically languages that derive from Latin. That use gendered, gendered—
[00:19:22] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:19:22] Sonia: Um, language. Um, so there's a lot of, um, what should we be using? Um, should we be. Changing, like, you know, there's a camp of don't change the language, right?
[00:19:36] Like this is the language that we've grown up with. Is this inclusive by actually change? Like is this doing anything by changing the language? Like there are more purists, there are others who like, we should we, we should be changing these things. And you know, we should, wherever possible, eliminate the gendered option.
[00:19:52] Like there's these debates that are going on. But the debate is helpful because people are thinking about it from an inclusion standpoint. Of course, you know, there are different camps of points of view, but the conversation is helpful just to see that they're thinking about it on different levels.
[00:20:08] Joyann: And that's such a tricky one cause there's so many language debates that I observe online and I'm just so fascinated by it.
[00:20:16] But I don't necessarily have a stake in, like.
[00:20:18] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:20:19] Joyann: So that one is one, like with gendered wording, I don't even know which way would go. I, if I were in a community that had gender language I'd probably more lean on the side of introducing a third. I think there should always be a third option. Non-plural and changing, but not removing, but I don't know.
[00:20:38] Um, but the other debate I've seen online, and I wonder if you've noticed it and what your opinion on it is, is, um, referring to disabled community as disabled people or person with disability.
[00:20:49] Sonia: Okay.
[00:20:50] Joyann: And that one I have seen both, like it seems divided.
[00:20:55] Sonia: It is. So, um, I, so whenever I worked in corporate, the last, um, position that I had, I worked for, um, we made insulin pumps for people with diabetes, people with diabetes, because that was a, that was a very specific language choice.
[00:21:13] It wasn't diabetics. Um, it was always people with diabetes. This person has type one diabetes. And, um, we spent a lot of time working on our marketing team. We were, we had people on our team who had diabetes, um, and we spent, we were, I would probably say that that position was the closest that we were to the consumer.
[00:21:38] Like we were very much integrated and connected and had a deep degree with the consumer.
[00:21:42] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:42] Sonia: And that community, in particular, was very much, I'm a person with diabetes, not, um, a diabetic. I am diabetic. Right?
[00:21:51] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:51] Sonia: And so, I remember was introduced to that sort of conversation and that sort of nuance then, and it was, it was a fascinating thing, right?
[00:22:02] Like, and as someone for me, I, um, have some autoimmune disorders. And I even started to think about like, how do I wanna describe it? Like, do I have it or—
[00:22:16] Joyann: Have I?
[00:22:16] Sonia: So it's like, you know what I mean? And so then I was, so then I started to say, oh, I'm someone who battles it. Right? So then it's not like part of my identity, but it's like something like I deal with it or, and sometimes, like everybody, I think it's a very personal decision.
[00:22:34] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:35] Sonia: Um, it's not really for marketers to make, it's for marketers to respect. Um, and knowing that there's probably not gonna be a right answer. Going back to the language thing, somebody's always gonna be upset. Somebody's always gonna be like, this isn't right.
[00:22:50] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:51] Sonia: So, um, as marketers, it's gonna be, let's listen to what the people that we're serving and the people in the community are saying, and then you have to take an informed decision.
[00:23:04] Based upon that, knowing that there's probably always gonna be somebody who's not happy about whatever choice that you make. But you have to stand firm in it. Go, which goes back to what I was saying about inclusive marketing. It's all about being intentional about choosing, right?
[00:23:17] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:18] Sonia: And you have to choose.
[00:23:19] Joyann: And standing in it.
[00:23:19] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:23:21] Joyann: What, so I would love your help on this. Sometimes I'd get clients that say, I wanna say what's the right thing? I wanna have an inclusive language guide that tells us what's right. And I'm just like, it's not right. It's what, so have you had clients approach you saying, like, we tell us what's the right thing to say?
[00:23:40] Sonia: I had, um, a client that was, we were having this conversation about language, and it was specifically one about Spanish language because it was about this gendered thing. And again, my counsel was them, is like, you have to choose because again, what do they, they listen to a group of people. Um, and they changed everything to, um, be gender neutral but not gender neutral in the sense that, um, They, they used it with like the newer, um, I think it was like instead of saying, um, Latino, Latina, they said Latine.
[00:24:17] Right? Which is the newer gender-neutral way of saying it with an e, Latine.
[00:24:20] Joyann: Latine?
[00:24:21] Sonia: With an E.
[00:24:23] Joyann: What, so is Latinx not anymore?
[00:24:26] Sonia: Latinx is something, it's, it's, it's, it's different. So I remember having this conversation with my husband. I'm like, what do you think of this term? And he's like, what is it? Like, what does it even mean?
[00:24:36] Like he had no idea what it meant. He had never heard it before. It wasn't part of his circles from him. It was something that people in the US who weren't from, of Latino descent, we're calling people of Latino descent. Now I started to dig into it a little bit more, um, and it really didn't generate from, um, the Latino community, but it, it's, there's still, I think I saw, uh, some research by Pew from Pew Research saying that only 4% of the population,
[00:25:07] whatever say that when referring to themselves. Um, they, or they hadn't heard of it. Like it was just a, what, what is that? So it's very sort of divided, like, so I think you're either gonna have people saying Latino, Latina, right?
[00:25:21] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:22] Sonia: Um, but then you have a very different, smaller group, right? Um, who is gonna say Latin, because that is like the newer gender-neutral version of it, but Latin, Latinx.
[00:25:36] If you think about like, grammar of how it works in Spanish, like that's not, that's not a, it's not a, it's not an option. It's not a, it's not an option. Right?
[00:25:46] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:25:46] Sonia: Like it's, it's like a, my understanding of it. Cause clearly I'm not the, like, I'm not a grammarian and, you know, Spanish is not my first language, but my understanding of it, like, you wouldn't see that in any other form.
[00:26:00] It's, whenever you see people writing women and they change the E to an X.
[00:26:05] Joyann: I was just about to say, an E to an X.
[00:26:06] Sonia: It's like that, like, and I think the intentions are right when people are doing it, but there's, there's some offense that people have. Like why are, why are we doing this? Because then it brings in a whole different, um, sort of can of worms as you're thinking about, um, you know, the trans community.
[00:26:23] It just gets very complicated, right? So then it goes back to you have to choose. So I have a, um, a translation team that I work with. Um, and we, we, you know, offer this as a service. And what we do is we use gender-neutral language wherever possible, not in the sense that we're using, um, we're changing, um, the meaning, right?
[00:26:50] Adding like the, the, we're not changing it that way. We just reword a sentence so that gender isn't necessary.
[00:26:58] Joyann: Okay.
[00:26:58] Sonia: Um, so we take that context out of it. Sometimes it makes it a little bit longer, but we eliminate in a lot of cases the debate. Now, we had an instance recently where. Um, they were, the team was translating some legal document and so they were like, we couldn't avoid it because it would've changed the meaning completely.
[00:27:16] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:17] Sonia: Of this document. So we left it as it is, but we're just advising you. Like in this instance, it was more trouble to, it, it wasn't the right thing to do for, meaning because when you're translating, meaning and understanding is the most important. Um, but it's just a matter of as a brand, you have to make your own guidelines.
[00:27:36] Right? And, and you, and, and making those guidelines no one can tell you if it's right or wrong. You just have to choose. It's like whenever Unilever, um, a couple of years ago, decided we're not gonna use the word normal. And our personal, um, products are beauty brands because normal, who decides what normal is?
[00:27:55] Joyann: What, what, what is normal skin, right? What is normal hair? What is, yeah.
[00:27:59] Sonia: Right? Right. And it was from their research, they realised people were feeling bad about themselves if they needed something that wasn't labeled normal on the box, right?
[00:28:07] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:09] Can I come and tell them you should. No. They had to come to that conclusion based upon the research.
[00:28:15] Now there're gonna be some people like, come on. Like, why did you have to do. But they'd, they had to take that decision based upon their values, based upon, you know, their commitment or their, their, their intimacy that they have with the consumer and how they felt. And they took a stand and they went with it.
[00:28:32] Joyann (2): I wonder, but I wonder if the, I dunno if you remember the Dove advert that that kicked up a little controversy where they had, um, a white woman standing in front of a representation of a skin in image and background and had normal over her. And then the Black woman was standing in front of image and it said, dry skin. And—
[00:28:54] Sonia: Oh.
[00:28:54] Joyann: The commercial kept referring to normal as good, showing the white woman and then bad as Black skin. Is what is the probably of all the kind of recovery stuff, Dove has made the biggest recovery.
[00:29:09] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:29:09] Joyann: In terms of their representation.
[00:29:11] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:29:11] Joyann: But that's, that comes to mind that that's how they used to use normal, like, oh, normal or you have the problem or you have to do this.
[00:29:18] Sonia: Right, right.
[00:29:18] And it sounds like cause the normal thing, like who, who defines it? But it sounds like they had just some other unfortunate. It wasn't just about the word, it was the visuals accompanying that that took on a completely different meaning and all this different way, et cetera. It's like, ugh, no. And so then it becomes not just about the words, it becomes all of the campaign and goes through the cultural intelligence that you have to have.
[00:29:43] I remember I was listening to your podcast talking about, um, the H&M example, right?
[00:29:48] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:49] Sonia: Because if they had used the word that shirt, the monkey, you know, coolest monkey in the jungle on a kid, on any other child besides a Black child. It wouldn't have been an issue. It would've, right? It would've been fine.
[00:30:01] But you know, it's just, that's why having the cultural context is so important. And why, going back to what we were saying before, having people on your team who have lived experiences, um, who are part of that community will be able to help. Um, But you know, this isn't okay. Right. Like, and, and to warn you about like things that could, could be easily missed.
[00:30:29] If it's somebody, it's not your experience. Right. It's not your day-to-day.
[00:30:33] Joyann: Mm-hmm. I fully agree and I'll always add to that and data, cause I feel like in that H&M example, I always imagine somebody would've said something.
[00:30:42] Sonia: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:44] Joyann: They would've been, oh, it's not that deep. But as if they could've coulda showed them, Hey, here's, here's some data of all the times this went wrong, or here's some data of how this impacted X, or whatever.
[00:30:54] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:30:55] Joyann: It could've backed that person. Cause another campaign, I dunno if it was H&M. No, it's been a few, but another campaign theme about, yes, it was London Knife Crime.
[00:31:04] Sonia: Okay.
[00:31:05] Joyann: They decided to do a campaign where they printed stories about young people. And how they've used knives and had those, you know, impact their lives.
[00:31:14] Really insightful. They worked with a community organisation, grassroots, um, but they printed the stories inside chicken boxes.
[00:31:22] Sonia: Oh.
[00:31:22] Joyann: And it was just like fast food, chicken shop, and everyone's just like, are you, what are you trying to imply here? What are you, what are you trying to say?
[00:31:33] Sonia: The stereotype doesn't quite work so well.
[00:31:37] Joyann: Yeah, and every Twitter went crazy. They found the agency that created the campaign and there was one Black person on their team, and that person was very junior and unfortunately her, her picture was next to the office dog and Twitter just went ham. They were just like, oh my gosh. This shows how much you respect people and so forth.
[00:31:56] Sonia: Oh.
[00:31:58] Joyann: It always reminded me that even when the person who has the knowledge and lived experiences in the room is sometimes so difficult to get them to believe, I think we get so much privilege being able to come in from the outside and literally that's our title. Like I, I go in to say the things your team wants to say to you.
[00:32:16] Sonia: Right. Well, I think it, that's why it goes back to what I was saying before about belonging, right. If you're on the team but you don't feel like you belong or you don't have the psychological safety that enables you to speak up and raise the alarm, whenever something isn't quite right, then you're not providing the value of, you're not gonna get the benefit of having a diverse team, right?
[00:32:40] The, the diverse team. Just because you diversify your team doesn't mean that you're gonna get the benefit of having a diverse team because it has to be an inclusive culture where people feel like they belong. Right. And if they don't belong, if they're nervous about backlash or you know, their voice, if they feel like they're there to check a box.
[00:32:59] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:00] Sonia: And their voice isn't really valued mm-hmm. Then it doesn't matter, right, that you have this Black person on the team, or you have this woman on the team. If she can't say what she needs to say about, you know, the, the campaign or what it is that you're doing and that this isn't quite right and her voice, that voice be heard.
[00:33:18] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:19] Sonia: Right. And valued. Yeah. So it's not just enough to have the person on the team, like they have to be able to speak up.
[00:33:27] Joyann: That's, be to say and have, have some because yeah. H&M is the one that was, somebody had to, I just, I, that is one of my goals to interview somebody who works on that campaign. I dunno if they'll ever wanna do it, like probably, but I'm just like, somebody had to, cause I remember they interviewed the mother and she said she didn't see it, but I'm just like the power dynamics there.
[00:33:49] Even if you did feel uncomfortable with it, you wouldn't be able, they are paying your, you and your child to model. There's a power dynamic there that doesn't allow the mother of that child to be like, Hey, you know?
[00:34:01] Sonia: Well, yeah. And that goes to um, cause I remember reading about like the mother saying, like, it didn't bother me.
[00:34:06] And I think that goes to why, um, a lot of times what brands will do is they'll go to insert whatever num, element of diversity or person on the team has. And doesn't matter if they're in the department, that doesn't matter if that's their job, doesn't matter their level of expertise. Oh, you're, oh, you're an immigrant.
[00:34:29] Oh, you're whatever you, and they, the expectation is that you can speak for the entire group of people if. Your expertise is, yes, you have lived experience, but like my lived experience is different from your lived experience. It's different from another's, and we all have this opinion, uh, we all have our own opinions about different things.
[00:34:48] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:48] Sonia: Right? So you can't just expect that this one person that you talk to, um, can, can or should be the voice of an entire community because, you know, we've already been talking about how there's like different communities. They, they haven't found agreement on variety of different topics and issues.
[00:35:10] So it's, it's important to make sure that you've got that depth of knowledge and that you're not. Um, write a whole campaign or decision on one person's experience, right? Or one person's point of view, because it can be very different. It might not all be in line with, you know, the way a lot of people in the community could think.
[00:35:33] Joyann: Mm-hmm. And it might cost you 4 billion dollars.
[00:35:35] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:35:36] Joyann: Yeah. That is my favorite and most terrifying stat that I love 4 billion because I.
[00:35:43] Sonia: That's a lot of money.
[00:35:44] Joyann: I feel like it's probably more than that. That's just how much they would, it's, it's a lot. It's a lot.
[00:35:49] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:35:50] Joyann: But, um, all right, so let's think about the small businesses and solo marketeers. Are there any tips you would give them about approaching how to start getting that closeness to their customers? How to start making their customers feel like they belong when they have limited resources.
[00:36:10] Sonia: It goes back to me, um, for, for customer intimacy and what I like to say, um, and what I advise people is you really need to expand your circle of influence.
[00:36:24] Um, and it doesn't always have to cost money to do that. Sure, market research is helpful. Maybe you can't, you know, um, hire new people right away, but you can follow different accounts on social media. You know, you can have a coffee chat with somebody. You can listen to different voices in different podcasts or watch different shows on Netflix or TV, you know what I mean?
[00:36:46] Like to get a perspective that is different from your own. So if you wanna know more about the LGBTQ+ community and you don't have anybody in your circle, um, and you don't feel like you have a market research budget. There are some books that you can read there. There are some, some Twitter and TikTok and Instagram accounts that you can follow that will give you a degree of education and foundation, not just about like, this is how we feel about this, but just like insert yourself into the community as like even a fly on the wall and like be a participant.
[00:37:24] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:24] Sonia: Right. I remember whenever I, I, whenever I worked in that, um, that that team where we were, you know, making insulin pumps for people with diabetes, there was a guy on our team who would. Um, joined Twitter chats that people in the diabetes community were having and he wasn't saying anything. He was just like tuning in and listening, and he learned a tonne, right?
[00:37:49] Just from being there and being present. And maybe at some point somebody might have asked him a different question, but like, the level of intimacy that you're able to get just by proximity is, is, it's a lot, right? I was talking to someone, um, recently and she was saying that her best friend's child had celiac disease.
[00:38:11] Joyann: Okay.
[00:38:11] Sonia: And because of that, like her and her family, they didn't have it. But she's like, our family is a gluten-free house. Um, because this child is gonna come over to our home and we don't want to risk any type of cross-contamination. Their circle of influence changed, and they got a perspective of what it was like, um, just because of proximity to someone who was in their circle.
[00:38:35] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:36] Sonia: So if you don't have anybody in your circle right now, that doesn't mean, that's not an excuse. Like you can go out and get somebody in your circle, and you don't always have to physically know them, but you can work on building relationships, right?
[00:38:48] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:48] Sonia: There's nothing wrong with doing that, but a very simple thing that anybody can do is change who you're getting information from, where you're getting information from, and you will learn and observe and pick up a lot of stuff, um, and quickly learn like what's acceptable, what's not, what the issues are that are controversial within the community.
[00:39:10] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:39:11] Sonia: Um, and just some of those nuances and. Um, as you start to develop those relationships, you might even get to a place where if you have something you're like, I'm not really sure about, you can ask a question and because of the relationship that you have and the commitment that you've demonstrated by being present, um, people will often enough, you know, give you feedback on or answer your question.
[00:39:35] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:35] Sonia: Um, because they know where it's coming from, not just, can I, how can I extract from you by like doing some. You know, market research so I can figure out how to sell you more of my stuff. Yeah.
[00:39:46] Joyann: Yeah. I, that's one of the my favourite bits of research we do for clients. Cause sometimes they're just like, oh.
[00:39:53] My pet peeve is wondering, oh, they're just not there. Oh, X people, Black people aren't interested. Disabled people aren't interested, and I'm just like, here is five Twitter groups specifically about your subject area.
[00:40:04] Sonia: Yes.
[00:40:04] Joyann: Of this community who are—
[00:40:05] Sonia: Yes.
[00:40:06] Joyann: Basically talking about it. They're like, oh, we didn't, I'm like literally just put.
[00:40:11] When you're searching things, 95% of the time, if you put the word Black woman, yes. Um, disabled. Any word of a marginalised community, there's probably a group somewhere advocating for it. Talking about it, engaging about it.
[00:40:24] Sonia: Absolutely.
[00:40:24] Joyann: Some people just don't think to search.
[00:40:25] Sonia: They don't, I remember somebody had come to me and they were asking me about like, um, how they wanted to reach the, um, the Hispanic, the Latino community here.
[00:40:35] And they're like, normally what I would do in general when I'm reaching businesses, I would go to the Chamber of Commerce. I'm like, but there's a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. There's one in every city. He's like, really? Like he had no idea. Like, and because he wasn't part of the community, like the same way there's a Black Chamber of Promise the same way there's like, you know, like there's, there's all these different groups and communities and they've created these groups and communities out of necessity because they won a place where they feel like they belong and they feel like they can be seen and they don't get in the mainstream.
[00:41:05] But like, you know, people who are often part of the main, like it is, they're completely oblivious that these things even exist, but they're there.
[00:41:13] Joyann: I am literally, I never, I know there's a business Chamber of Commerce in the UK and there's one in Southwest. I dunno if there's a Black one. I think that's one of the things that I do admire about doing inclusive marketing in America.
[00:41:26] It's just, you have, you have the numbers for things like.
[00:41:29] Sonia: Okay.
[00:41:31] Joyann: Yeah, so there's a, there's a Hispanic and a Black Chamber of Commerce, like in every state. Sorry, I'm still taking that in.
[00:41:39] Sonia: There, there, there. I believe there are, I'm, I'm pretty sure it's not just state, like it's cities. Now, you'll probably find it more in the areas where people are concentrated, but at a minimum there are national, like, um, I, I went to an HBCU, right?
[00:41:54] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:54] Sonia: So historically Black college and university and, um, you know. There I remember from going to an HBCU just getting connected to different organisations. Like there's like a Black association, right? There is a National Black Association of Accountants. There is um, um, association for.
[00:42:15] Hispanic engineers, right? Like, we have all of these things that are very specific to whatever group, national and chapter level, right? And, and that's, maybe that's a very us thing because we are accustomed to like, let's find our belonging. Um, let's find these spaces. If we don't feel like we belong in one, we're gonna go create ours in another.
[00:42:36] Um, and so, yeah, I think that it, it's very rampant here.
[00:42:41] Joyann: Yeah. I think that's the, so I've just found the UK version, but it sits within the London one.
[00:42:47] Sonia: Okay.
[00:42:48] Joyann: So I think that's probably we've, I don't wanna say, but I have yet to find something that's truly standalone.
[00:42:55] Sonia: Oh.
[00:42:55] Joyann: And if there is, there's only one.
[00:42:58] Sonia: Okay.
[00:42:58] Joyann: Like.
[00:42:59] Sonia: Okay.
[00:42:59] Joyann: Um, so that's so interesting.
[00:43:02] Sonia: Yeah. You would go even on college campuses, like traditional, um, that aren't like in HBCU, like more, more traditional campuses, you're gonna find like, um, an Asian student union, um, you know, a Black student like you there every, there's different groups. Think of 'em like employee resource groups, but out and about in different, you know, industries, areas. Yeah.
[00:43:30] Joyann: The university ones we definitely have, but yeah, outside of that, I've always been like, cause it's, it's fun joining a networking environment and stuff like that. But sometimes you just wanna be like, hey, let's just, you know, chit-chat. Yeah. Rather than specific sales of, that was a tangent.
[00:43:49] What I'm also fascinated by some of the differences with, for, I guess from what you've seen online, how do you see inclusivity? If you see anything coming out the UK, how is that seen in America? What is the perception?
[00:44:07] Sonia: I think that in the US when we're thinking about the UK. I think that people probably wrongly associate everything with the UK, with London.
[00:44:21] Right. And so, um, London I think is, from my perception, is very diverse. Right? And I think that people might think that it's like that everywhere else in the country.
[00:44:35] Joyann: Uhhuh.
[00:44:35] Sonia: And I don't think that exists, right? I don't think, I don't quite think that's the case. Um, so I think that whenever people. Are looking at stuff happening in the UK, they might kind of not have the full picture of what life is like or what, um, the diversity landscape is like.
[00:45:00] So I think it kind of taints that view. Unfortunately in the US we still have a very US-centric points of view, so we don't. A lot of people from the US don't often know what's happening or what's going on in other places.
[00:45:14] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:14] Sonia: Um, so, um, and so we don't often even get a lot of those things. Now we can go out and search it and seek it out, but I think from what we've seen, it feels like there's a lot more diversity going on.
[00:45:29] Um, and I don't know if that's the truth or if that's just what is represented on like TV or movies, you know what I mean? Or in like, you know, the media.
[00:45:40] Joyann: I think it's more than it's exported. I think, um, over the recent years, the UK with the rise of like Meghan Markle, but also music artists, like now a recent rise of Black British culture and there's a rise of Stormzy and stuff going out.
[00:45:58] Sonia: Okay.
[00:46:00] Joyann: And then the collaboration between like Afro Beats I think is.
[00:46:03] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:46:04] Joyann: So musically I think is, is that's getting exported. But I'm always curious to know, because I feel from a marketing and a tabloid instance, I have this gut thing that America just realised a little bit about UK with the whole Megan Markle situation.
[00:46:22] Sonia: Yeah. And I, I, well, I think that was maybe our limited understanding of what was happening in with Brexit and just how they are understanding interpretation of just race relations, immigrants. People from different parts of, um, people who are like British, born and British, their, their line is bred versus people who, you know, immigrated come from different parts.
[00:46:51] And I think the race conversation as it related to Megan Markle was a bit of a surprise. Um, but also if we think about the US race is a conversation that we have always.
[00:47:11] Joyann: Okay.
[00:47:11] Sonia: Um, and I say that, and I didn't realize it until I lived in Argentina.
[00:47:20] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:22] Sonia: And realised how little I thought about race and then came back to the US and realised how it was, race is always a part of the equation and it always feels part of the thought process.
[00:47:36] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:36] Sonia: And it, it kind of was a, a bit of a. I didn't kind of realise that. And so I think that we might, from the US when we were looking at other countries, and if we think about the UK, we didn't probably have the idea that race and racism existed on the same level, just because I think that we feel like we know what it feels like here and it might have seemed or felt different from our experiences.
[00:48:07] Whether it's going to the UK or what we see on TV or we're seeing from the culture, um, I think we felt probably like it. It happens much more fluid, like the people are much more connected and integrated and inclusive there versus the way it might feel here.
[00:48:25] Joyann: Is it, that's the bit that I always find interested in the interrelated marketing.
[00:48:31] I always, from the outside looking in, I feel like sticking to race, one of the main things within American marketing wasn't that they weren't representation, it was the type of.
[00:48:43] Sonia: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:44] Joyann: Whereas here in England it was that there wasn't.
[00:48:48] Sonia: Oh, okay.
[00:48:49] Joyann: So it always felt like we were a little behind. Cause I remember a couple Christmases ago, there was a commercial, a Sainsbury commercial where they had a family celebrating Christmas talking about gravy cause it's a very British thing.
[00:49:02] Sonia: Okay.
[00:49:02] Joyann: To talk about gravy. Um, but the family was a majority. It was all Black. Okay? And there was a huge uprising of like, really? How could they do that? That's not British. Da da da da, da da. Looking back—
[00:49:15] Sonia: It's not British because they were all Black.
[00:49:17] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:49:18] Sonia: Oh, okay.
[00:49:20] Joyann: But they were talking about gravy, which is very, it's, it's very.
[00:49:23] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:49:24] Joyann: And I always, when I looked at the American commercials, initially when I looked to them, I was very much like, I don't see the problem. And then I had to take a step back and like, oh, there's stereotypes in this that aren't right.
[00:49:37] Sonia: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I think that, so we still have to work on representation here because we've seen it more so in things that popped up when we've had like. Um, they recasted The Little Mermaid and it's a Black actress, right?
[00:49:56] Um, they just recast Tinkerbell and Peter Pan and it's a Black actress, and people are like, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't seem right. And it goes back to we need to work on changing the narrative. Oh, there was a commercial a couple of years ago with Cheerios where they show, they showed, um, it was an inter, it was a, it was an interracial family.
[00:50:21] It was a little girl. It was the whole title, name of it. It was called Gracie and Gracie's mom was white and Gracie's dad was Black. And I remember Cheerios had to shut off the comments on YouTube because the comments were so vile because people were just in a complete uproar. This is Cheerios, right? Like, you know, it was a sweet little commercial.
[00:50:43] And yeah, I think, um, people really struggled with seeing a different kind of family in that. It might be very different now.
[00:50:58] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:58] Sonia: Right. Um, but this was maybe 2016. Um, it wasn't that long ago, but yeah, there was a lot of uproar. So I think that's why putting different imagery. And representation is so important because it normalises things that are normal in society, right?
[00:51:19] Normal. Go say that word again. But things that happen.
[00:51:21] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:21] Sonia: Are, that are common occurrences and so the minutes that people see something that's different and like changes their perception of what they thought something was. They, they get in an uproar around about it. And I think that they, we really, that's why it's all the more important to put forth different images.
[00:51:42] So it normalises these types of things for people versus them. But that, that exists in a lot of different things. And distant race, we see that in, um, different, um, types of couples from, you know, different same-sex couples.
[00:51:59] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:59] Sonia: We see that with, um, people with disabilities.
[00:52:04] Joyann: Disabled. Yeah.
[00:52:04] Sonia: Right. Like it—
[00:52:05] Joyann: They tend to do saviour mode.
[00:52:06] Sonia: It happens a lot.
[00:52:07] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:08] Sonia: Right, like there's, there's so many different things. Seeing different people of different body types, um, like representation.
[00:52:16] Joyann: That's interesting though on the, sorry, on the cheerio one because here if there is an interracial couple. 80 to 90% of the time, it will be a dark-skinned Black man and a white woman. If it is a woman of colour. She is lighter than Beyonce.
[00:52:33] Sonia: Okay.
[00:52:34] Joyann: And with a white man. It's never a dark-skinned Black woman represented with a white man or, and I've never seen an ad where there's interracial with Asian and we have very little East Asian representation on TV here as well.
[00:52:49] Sonia: Yeah, there's so much. There's so much. And that's one of my pet peeves also because I would like to normalise for my daughter seeing families that look like ours.
[00:52:59] And so it's whenever you see. Um, interracial couples here. Mostly it's a Black dad. A mom of something else. Right. Okay. Um, never, almost, never do you see a Black mom or a Black mom with dark skin or Brown skin with like natural hair that doesn't look like racially and big. Like you almost never see that, and that's an issue, a problem.
[00:53:29] Joyann: Cool. Yeah, so that representation, I'm excited to see things change with interracial couples. But yes. Talking about the future or the present, what is a campaign?
[00:53:40] Sonia: Can I, can I just go back to what you were saying?
[00:53:42] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:42] Sonia: Um, because in the UK, because the makeup of your population is different from the makeup of our population here, and I just think it's important for brands to understand what.
[00:53:54] The population is of where you are and you should be showcasing that in your representation. It's not like there's no formula, right? But you should more, but I do think it's important whatever, to over-index.
[00:54:09] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:54:09] Sonia: Sometimes on that representation that we're not accustomed to seeing because we need to make it common.
[00:54:17] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:54:17] Sonia: To be able to see that. And so over-indexing is the way to sort of course correct it, um, right now because it's just so rare, which is why you probably had that such bizarre reaction to the Black family talking about gravy, right?
[00:54:31] Joyann: Because they're so not used to it. It was just, yeah.
[00:54:34] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:54:34] Joyann: I always get excited for the Christmas ads cause I'm just like, okay, what's they gonna try?
[00:54:38] Um, I've become a inclusion spotter as well. I can't enjoy commercials anymore.
[00:54:44] Sonia: I totally get it. I totally get.
[00:54:45] Joyann: It was just, just like, oh, that, oh, that was good. That, oh no, that wasn't good. But yeah. So I would love to know a campaign you've seen recently or enjoyed recently that you considered inclusive and just a little description of what it was and how you found it.
[00:55:00] Sonia: I've been enjoying the Hyundai campaigns. Um, the Hyundai um, car company. Um, they've been doing a line of campaign recently that have featured Black families, and I love them because they're selling cars, right? Like, and then they're featuring cars so it can, it's not a Black storyline, it's just these Black families doing different things.
[00:55:29] But what I love about it is they are changing. Narratives that exist.
[00:55:34] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:35] Sonia: Right. So, um, one, it was, I think that Black men have a negative stereotype about their presence as fathers. So without like writing a story that says like, you know, hey, we're change, no, they just had like a Black guy with his nephew playing video games and they were like, you know, in this well affluent sort of area, they had a Black father take his daughter and her friends to like the dance at school and like all the girls.
[00:56:10] Um, had like natural hair and they were Brown skin and dark skin and they, like, it was just, it was images that me and my friends see on a regular basis.
[00:56:20] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:56:20] Sonia: Right. But, and it wasn't like this heavy mess. It was just a family doing things that families do in the car. Right. And they just happened to be Black.
[00:56:31] Me, I felt very much seen. I didn't feel like they were being performative. It just felt like this is a car commercial.
[00:56:39] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:56:40] Sonia: And these are people that I can know, like they felt, but they're also changing narratives like they were saying so much with the visual cues and choices that they made without having to say it.
[00:56:52] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:56:53] Sonia: And they were normalising things and you know, changing the narrative about things that aren't quite right. And they did it in a, just a simple light.
[00:57:04] Joyann: It just felt, yeah, just felt good rather than force.
[00:57:07] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:57:07] Joyann: I love those ones.
[00:57:08] Sonia: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:57:09] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:57:09] Sonia: Yeah. So it's a, it's a series of Hyundai, um, commercials and I, at the end, the hour were like, okay, Hyundai like, and so even as I'm watching, I'm like, okay, hon.
[00:57:18] Like, you know, I get it. There's maybe one that I didn't quite like, but if you go on YouTube, you can probably see a number of them. I'll look for a link and I'll send it to you. Um, but yeah, like they're. They're cute and they're heartwarming, and I think that they, it really showed a sense of they understand their market and they're seizing the opportunity they have—
[00:57:36] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:57:36] Sonia: With their marketing.
[00:57:38] Joyann: I love it when it feels natural rather than forced. Yeah. Um, Sonya, thank you so, so, so much I've enjoyed. We can talk forever. Literally.
[00:57:46] Sonia: We can, we can, we gotta have to do a part two. I have to have you on my, on my, um, podcast Inclusion and Marketing. So let's, let's plan that.
[00:57:53] Joyann: Let's definitely do that.
[00:57:54] Let the people know where they can find you and we'll add all the links in the description.
[00:57:57] Sonia: Uh, you can, um, find me at inclusivemarketing.com. Um, you can have a listen to the podcast, Inclusion and Marketing. Um, and then I'm on social. Uh, my name Sonia E Thompson. Yeah, that's where you can find me.
[00:58:11] Joyann: Great. Thank you so much and—
[00:58:12] Sonia: Thank you.
[00:58:13] Tune in next week to Marketing Made Inclusive podcast. Thank you for listening.
