‘The world is changing rapidly and we must keep up to ensure diversity and equality are pursued with urgency’

Glob­al polit­i­cal dis­course is uncer­tain at best; all around the world com­mu­ni­ties brim with soci­etal fric­tion and economies are chang­ing. In some respects, it’s an incred­i­bly unset­tling cli­mate.

Yet, in truth there is also immense poten­tial. Amid the frag­men­ta­tion, huge swathes of human­i­ty are com­ing togeth­er, unit­ed in shared val­ues and demon­strat­ing a refresh­ing take on activism, futur­ist think­ing and empow­er­ment. Change is uncom­fort­able, but it presents oppor­tu­ni­ty to face the world’s chal­lenges col­lec­tive­ly. How? By dri­ving and liv­ing greater diver­si­ty and inclu­sion across every­thing we do.

I believe our mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ty can pow­er rev­o­lu­tion. We are in a strong posi­tion to be advo­cates of equal­i­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty, so we should be part of a crit­i­cal social trans­for­ma­tion. There has nev­er been a more impor­tant time for brands to stand up for diver­si­ty. Espe­cial­ly when cer­tain polit­i­cal lead­ers dri­ve greater divi­sion and big­otry.

Brands don’t have to be polit­i­cal, but I do think we must stand up for the social issues that con­sumers feel pas­sion­ate about. It was this mind­set that led to Airbnb’s #weac­cept cam­paign around the Super Bowl. Our mes­sage about inclu­siv­i­ty was not polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed; it was moti­vat­ed by our belief in human­i­ty.

Change must start at a grass­roots lev­el. To take on the role of moral com­pass and gen­uine­ly impact soci­etal change, the mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ty needs to take a long, hard look at itself. If our pro­fes­sion­al DNA is not diverse, how can we expect our work to be?

Sad­ly, the adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing indus­tries are too good at hold­ing up mir­rors of them­selves – and the reflec­tions tend to be an incred­i­bly nar­row rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the world. We have the same few peo­ple look­ing in the same few places, espe­cial­ly when it comes to recruit­ment.

As an indus­try, we mar­keters dri­ve a very clear inno­va­tion agen­da, but we fall short of inno­vat­ing in terms of the peo­ple we attract and retain. Too often it is only lip ser­vice that is being paid to change, no more so than in our own ranks.

This isn’t a new prob­lem. Anti­quat­ed roles and struc­tures have been an issue for decades. The 3% Con­fer­ence, the Girls Lounge and out­spo­ken indus­try lead­ers such as Cindy Gal­lop have chal­lenged gen­der inequal­i­ty and change is, final­ly, under­way.

That said, it ulti­mate­ly took two decades before board­room quo­tas slow­ly crept up and female voic­es with­in the cre­ative indus­tries were final­ly heard. While this change is heart­en­ing I don’t want it to take two decades to see the same rep­re­sen­ta­tion of eth­nic minori­ties.

I draw inspi­ra­tion and ambi­tion from cre­ative organ­i­sa­tions such as the EMMYs and Oscars that made great efforts to address chal­lenges of diver­si­ty and inclu­sion. They have done an incred­i­ble job.

But the adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ties are not work­ing as hard. Chief mar­ket­ing offi­cers (CMOs) need to work hard­er at build­ing out diver­si­ty with­in their own teams and set clear diver­si­ty expec­ta­tions from their agency part­ners. Anto­nio Lucio, CMO at HP Inc, is lead­ing the way in terms of set­ting real tar­gets for HP’s agen­cies and tack­ling issues like uncon­scious bias with­in his organ­i­sa­tion.

I believe our indus­try must become a com­mu­ni­ty built on a foun­da­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tion and inclu­siv­i­ty. If pol­i­tics calls for walls, then mar­ket­ing must cre­ate bridges. Our work will ben­e­fit from broad­er per­spec­tives and a high­er sense of empa­thy for those on the periph­ery.

At Airbnb we believe in a world where one day all 7.5 bil­lion peo­ple will be able to belong any­where. Diver­si­ty and inclu­sion are at the core of this brand belief.

Now is the time for bold, pro­gres­sive action. The world is chang­ing rapid­ly and we must keep up to ensure diver­si­ty and equal­i­ty are pur­sued with urgency. I’ve often cham­pi­oned the idea that agen­cies and brands must devel­op ideas which are dan­ger­ous and chal­leng­ing. It’s this kind of approach that will move diver­si­ty from a token achieve­ment to the indus­try norm.

Jonathan Milden­hall is pres­i­dent of the Cre­ative Effec­tive­ness Jury at the 2017 Cannes Lions Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val of Cre­ativ­i­ty