The BrandLab’s 2023 Fearless Conference: A Force of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

The BrandLab’s Fearless Conference May 4th date selection was no accident. It conveniently coincided with National Star Wars Day, which is a nod to the line loved by Star Wars fandom: May the Fourth be with You. Kelli Williams, The BrandLab CEO, may have mentioned it a few times in her welcome before transitioning the topic from force to fearless.

Fearless to some may imply confidence, but in the spirit of this conference and day it took on the connotation of being courageous. Kelli encouraged the 400 attendees in person and virtual to be unafraid to make mistakes and acknowledge them, and to be okay with being uncomfortable. “It’s all part of how we learn and grow. It’s part of your ongoing commitment to DEI&B,” she noted.

The four pillars of exposure, access, opportunity, and equity structured the format and content of the conference. And while those themes were aligned with dedicated talks and panel conversations, there was a great deal of intersectionality between them. Ultimately this overlap deepened the understanding of connectivity and how they work together.

The history and experience of The Brand Lab, founded in 2009, with Minneapolis and Kansas City locations, wove its way into discussion. The perspective of youth to seasoned creatives filled the room with energy. It also felt significant to acknowledge the DEI&B awareness set into intense motion nearly three years ago, and listen with the lens of reflection on what we’ve learned and what we know today.

THE YOUTH PANEL

Hanuel Seo, Kennedy Pierre-Toussaint, Moustapha Tall, Yayoua Yang, were the first to take to the stage to share in a panel moderated by Dorion Taylor, long-time advocate of The BrandLab and recruiter at Pohlad Companies. These youth talked about exposure in terms of what they knew of the advertising industry from a young age and what drew them to it. They touched on their access to global culture, how they see it everyday and experiences anywhere in the world can and do feel close to them.

Each youth, connected to The BrandLab in some way, credited the org for opportunities that opened doors to internships, provided continued mentorship, and helped them find ways to build their confidence. The seasoned audience sat in a bit of awe as the panel weighed in on hybrid work and anxiety, the outdatedness of “hussle culture,” and a move to break free of what diverse youths are told: you’re going to have to work ten times harder to get opportunities. This generation inherently understands that work and career is not the entirety of their experience. So refreshing, many 35+ in audience may have mused, but how?

KENI THACKER, 100 Roses from Concrete, Founder

Keni gave us a lively bio of being a Black college graduate and a little bougie, with skills in developing diverse talent and initiatives, creating platforms, and building sustainable and responsible partnerships. His personal mantra is: being underestimated creates superheroes, and all superheroes have that common experience at their core. With that he set the flow to evolve ourselves for the day with the goals of listen, learn, share, and leverage.

Keni’s presentation married data and story. He shared a pie chart series comparing demographics between the U.S. to that of the Twin Cities and Kansas City, then looking at each city’s ad industry with a Caucasian to POC lens. The Twin Cities at a 90/10% and KC at 88/12%, indicating ad agency employees do not reflect the general population breakdown (64/36% and 55/45% respectively). From this we are to gather that even in a diverse community, it is hard for POC to get a job in advertising. This is because many agencies’ talent issues stem from the lack of exposure, which leads to less access that transforms into less opportunity and even less equity for those that are considered “other” in this industry.

He wrapped with encouragement to find our own cocktail (his: hope, faith, and dreams; shaken not stirred with James Bond energy), and see that advertising is everywhere down to the logo on your shoe.

ANTONIO LUCIO, 5S Diversity, Principal and Founder: Executive Fellow, Yale SOM

Kelli welcomed Antonio to the stage for a fireside chat from his location in San Francisco to dive into themes around access in the ad industry. As a global marketer for 40 years and May 2023 inductee to the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame, he’s known as a visionary leader for transforming business and experiences through DEI&B. In that grand context, he led us down the path of access created by mentorship and sponsorship.

Distinguishing mentoring and sponsorship and the roles individuals can and should play in your career is important. Mentorship is outside of your employer, sponsorship takes place within the structure of your employer organization. Mentorship offers objectivity and provides a mentee with a stable advocate to help you navigate career opportunities and shifts. A sponsor role is best filled by someone within your company who can help you achieve the stretch assignment. If you’re working to achieve career growth consistently, your potential will always be higher than your capabilities. Essentially sponsors are making a bet on your potential. Kelli built on this, asking the room, who are you supporting in both of these roles? In line with The BrandLab mission, please ensure you’ve got our young people!

Antonio, as a father to five Latina daughters and a lifelong career with global brands, centered us on relationship building. With that focus, he commented, you can move away from transactional, intimidating conversations and into approaching others by finding points of commonality and adding value first.

JOYMARIE PARKER, Instagram, Culture and Community Marketing Lead, Consumer Marketing (Meta)

JoyMarie’s beginnings as an emerging designer in New York found her supporting multi-cultural and DEI&B initiatives with global brands. She has an intuitive sense that brings storytelling and culture together with profound impact, as seen in the Art Basel video montage she shared with the audience. We spent the next 45 minutes touching on that spark, recognizing how and where it shows up, and taking in her insights around the theme of opportunity.

Going into a new venture (i.e. the creation of her podcast) and exploring intersections doesn’t have prescribed outcomes, she said. You don’t know what opportunities exist. For JoyMarie, it appears brilliance has unfolded time and time again as she’s tapped into this philosophy. Being fearless -- in the sense of embracing failure as necessary to learn and optimize and accepting 100s and 100s of no’s for what they are -- allowed her to forge her own path.

She also touched on her network and community and how that essential lens applies to her work. Her peers are her strongest network. Having them at the ready for instant collaborations that spark when something is reflected by consumers as in need of immediate amplifying, is how she operates. Essentially she’s noticing a trend or voice, then being the conduit through funding and platform access for that individual or small business to do what they need to do with their communities. Michaela Clubb, The BrandLab’s National Programs Director and moderator of the talk with JoyMarie, wrapped it with the power of opportunity that lies in sliding into the DMs of the folks you want to access.

DR. CAREY YAZEED, Behaviorial Scientist iThink Change, Founder

Dr. Carey stepped onto the stage in yellow, the color of hope. With transparency and detail she wove her resilient story, including her experiences as a Black woman attending a university and the impact of not being heard. In the context of her research and books, addressing why Black women can’t be vulnerable in the workplace, she quoted Audrey Lord, “when we speak we are afraid our words will be not heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid.”

Then she got right into equity. She cited moments over a lifetime (as a now 53 year-old female) where she was not heard, or hushed, been told we’re not talking about that right now, and witnessing offenders in her life who received no consequences. In the movement to reveal how toxic workplaces impact Black women, she named the importance of psychological safety, which is an absence of interpersonal fear, where a person can show up as their authentic self.

We have a long way to go to achieve psychological safety in the workplace. She stressed that the murder of George Floyd made it cool for companies to care about DEI&B. And although companies and organizations have focused heavily on ensuring their talent pool is both diverse and inclusive since the summer of 2020, there’s work to do. It starts with not hiring a person with a diverse background to be your DEI expert, supporting EAP and ERG initiatives, and celebrating the accomplishments of your diverse employees.

THE PROFESSIONAL PANEL

The flow of a conference that began with youth viewpoints bookended on a panel of professionals in the industry including Tina White, Peter Kim, Dr. Michael Walker, Sam Bonds, and moderator Gail Peterson, Ecolab, Inc. Gail prompted the experts to weigh in the day’s content and the connectivity between these themes.

Peter, Creative Officer at MKR, passionately dove into the pillar of opportunity. He asserted that opportunity isn’t random. It comes to people who put their whole selves into owning what they want for their career. You have to speak it and not just with a few select confidants. When people know about your vision with clarity, they’re empowered to make connections for that to happen. And when you hear that of someone else, you should do something to forward that, too. 

Dr. Michael Walker, Assoc. Superintendent at Minneapolis Public Schools and CEO, Critical Questioning, drew from his leadership in education and his work with a Black male student achievement program, to press us: how do we change the system to make sure we’re not perpetuating the problem? [of lack of access, opportunity] He noted that we have adults in our education system who don’t believe in our young people. And how initiatives like The BrandLab’s partnership with Minneapolis Public Schools and South High School can impact change at that level.

Sam, SVP Creative at Barkley, cited the importance of creating the forum in workplace so that leadership and employees can expect to hear from people who are not like you. Setting this stage and creating this dialogue encourages a cross pollination of folks. It is powerful and serves as community building in itself, lessening the belief gap (i.e. this diverse employee is unique and amazing, but we couldn’t possibly find another like them).

Tina, CEO and culture and team builder, honed in on the importance of active listening in the workplace by leadership, which means assigning no judgment, refraining from paraphrasing, and moving feedback into active work. Hiring and being attune with employees is not just a bullet point list and process, it needs to disrupt in order to change. Moderator Gail chimed in with new language she’ll be trademarking: active hearing.

The panel wrapped with goodness like ensuring your brand value overlaps with your audience value (good creative does this); including different perspectives at the table to ensure belonging; slowing down to check our biases; and leaning into the knowing that diverse talent and work performs really well.

FEARLESS GOING FORWARD

Kelli concluded the conference experience for the audience, reiterating The BrandLab’s mission to change the face and voice of the marketing and advertising industry. To that end, she announced the recent release of a biannual study and the importance of audience engagement to continue to share qualitative and quantitative insights for measurement of impact. It was a day of learning and growing together and re-centering commitment to DEI&B at this May 4, 2023, moment in time. With that re-energizing message, the conference ended with a community of 400 prepped with new learnings to take back to their organizations and the world – fearlessly and with force.

--- Event recap provided by Jen Gilhoi of Sparktrack, who covers events so event hosts and attendees can continue the event inspiration beyond the event itself. Find her on LinkedIn @jengilhoi or online at sparktrack.com. The summary captures the spirit of sharing and the themes of the event in a quick or longer form digestible way so that attendees can refer to it and take action; it also allows the host to archive what was shared and build on that for future events and use in marketing promotions.