Eight minutes and forty six seconds captured the attention of the world and set off global protests. George Floyd’s death – while handcuffed in custody and stating “I can’t breathe” – at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer reignited a critically important conversation. Inexplicably, the widespread, systemic racism that exists today has been allowed to perpetuate for generations. Countries, cities, communities and companies haven’t yet solved it. Closer to home, it has resulted in an under-representation of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour in marketing. BIPOC marketers in Canada deserve nothing less than a full seat at the table.
With these very public conversations over the last few months, there’s no excuses anymore.
There’s no more room for ignorance. As a result, marketing leaders must now make an intentional decision to do something about hiring practices and creative decisions. Or they’re continuing to perpetuate the system. And that’s simply unacceptable.
To learn more – and to support this important conversation – In Partnership With connected with an impressive marketing leader. Throughout his career, Julian Franklin, the President of Franklin Management Group – a strategic marketing, sponsorship and activation consultancy – has developed and spearheaded well-known marketing campaigns for organizations in Canada and the U.S. For over 20 years, he honed his marketing expertise with the Toronto Blue Jays, Weston Foods and Kraft Heinz. On the agency side, Julian was Managing Director for Geometry Global. In addition, Julian is an active volunteer sitting as a SMCC (Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada) Board Member and a Founding Member of POCAM (People of Colour in Advertising in Marketing). This new association advocates for the inclusion and advancement of BIPOC marketers within the profession.
Attaining a Culture of Diversity and Inclusion
Julian is strident that to foster a culture within the marketing profession that is representative of our rich cultural mosaic, it’s going to take a team-based approach. Not only individuals who are members of the BIPOC community, but also white people within the marketing and advertising world. That is a realization that is becoming apparent as we’ve gone through a tumultuous 2020 and have started the process of change that is needed in the industry. Considering it in a long term view, it is going to take time to solve.
Progress in the Canadian marketing community requires a broad partnership to ensure both BIPOC and white people create space to allow equal advancement to happen.
Fortunately, Julian believes there is a lot of good that has come out of the discussions and decisions as we’ve begun the process of introspection. It matters when developing creative, and the way that we showcase BIPOC Canadians to consumers. Positive transitions are underway. It’s a much needed, and long overdue, shift. Julian recognizes that the key thing is once the transition starts, there is no turning back:
The permanency of the inclusiveness and diversity transition that is underway is something that can’t be taken for granted.
For instance, it’s not good enough to say “for six months we’ve done our best to showcase BIPOC individuals in advertising, but now we’re going to slide back to what we’ve always felt comfortable with, which is a much more homogenous view of what the Canadian consumer is.” That would clearly not be acceptable or sustainable progress.
Opportunities for our Industry
Creating a more inclusive, accessible and engaging environment for all unlocks significant opportunities in the workplace. Unfortunately, an “opportunity” at times is met with “intransigence” and can pose a hurdle to the pace of change.
The challenge is that the opportunity to make change by those who are able to make those decisions – who just are not compelled to for whatever reason – whether it is too hard, whether it is not worth the fight, whether it is a comfort level with the framework of how success has been identified to date.
Julian truly believes that the marketing industry has the opportunity to lead by example.
But we also have to be honest with ourselves that there is an element comfortable with the status quo. And that’s scary but true. That’s the reality right now. This transition will take time. Julian asserts that BIPOC marketers are ready to lead, to educate and be the voice for positive change.
BIPOC Talent and Hiring Decisions
It’s important as a hiring decision maker to ask yourself some basic questions. Are you comfortable with the current racial and cultural diversity of your team? Is there room for you to do better? Julian notes that companies who make diversity, equity and inclusion a priority is something that helps organizations in many ways. Looking at it just from a direct business standpoint, many successful companies are not successful because they just do one thing. They diversify with different channels, launches and expansions of categories because there’s a constant desire to grow. That’s the same way you should be looking at your people.
When hiring, the Canadian marketing profession must include a greater representation of BIPOC individuals to counterbalance the fairly homogenous current reality.
New, diverse faces present a massive opportunity to consider a different way of thinking, suggests Julian. Often, the response to this is “we just can’t find BIPOC talent within our industry.” And we know that that is factually not an accurate statement because there are many people of colour who are working within marketing and advertising. There are BIPOC professionals who are within circles that we know. But there’s just too many in circles where they’re doing work behind the scenes or running their own agencies or being freelancers because they have not been given the ability to get their foot in the door.
What Individual Marketers Can Do to Help
There is a desire by Julian to assume positive intent by everyone. He’s naturally a glass-half-full leader. He has observed there’s many marketers who may not feel comfortable with the lack of pace of change within their organizations and struggle on how to communicate it. Perhaps they have not had the opportunity to push back. Or, some may not have had the ability to stand up to their leaders.
Marketers should always ask themselves “can we do better?” Can we showcase the consumer in a more authentic way?
It takes an understanding that asking these questions and going through that process may actually be more difficult. But in the end, the payoff is much greater. Those are questions that all of us as marketers should be asking ourselves.
Julian believes if you take the long term view and you have that commitment, it doesn’t go away in six months and it shouldn’t go away in six years. It should be an ongoing aspect of who you are as a marketer so you could look back and say “here’s where I was involved in making some really systematic changes in the way my industry is.” That’s progress.
When mentoring younger marketers entering the profession, Julian acknowledges that the BIPOC community has to play the long game. We can all be a part of something special by delivering steady progress. That’s what keeps Julian going.
BIPOC Marketers: Associations and Resources
As a leader in the marketing profession, Julian knows that great insights come directly from stakeholders and magic happens when people work together. Over the past several months, a new marketing association, People of Colour in Advertising in Marketing (POCAM), was created and Julian is proud to be a Founding Member. POCAM’s mission is to ensure the voice, vision, and talent of BIPOC professionals are fully and fairly present in Canadian advertising and marketing. POCAM’s first priority was to gain a deeper understanding of its members through its inaugural research study, Visible & Vocal – Canadian BIPOC Advertising and Marketing, to gather the latest status of the BIPOC marketing community and to glean insights as a representative benchmark for further support and advocacy.
There’s a growing number of associations for BIPOC marketers to join and Julian hopes that both members and their white allies will promote these opportunities.
Increasing the awareness of these resources and the creation of alliances, associations and partnerships are going to be key. For instance, the Code Black Communicator Network connects Black integrated communications professionals. T1’s Mark Harrison created A Black Talent Initiative to help more Black people enter and succeed in our industry. Black Professionals in Tech bridges the talent gap in the tech industry for Black technical and business professionals. Please engage with these resources. It’s too important a conversation to miss.
In Partnership With
Julian Franklin is an accomplished, dynamic business leader with 20+ years client and agency experience in consumer-packaged goods and sports. His career is distinguished by marketing leadership roles in Canada and the U.S., including for the Toronto Blue Jays, Weston Foods, Kraft Heinz and as Managing Director for Geometry Global. Currently, he is the President of Franklin Management Group (FMG), a strategic marketing, sponsorship and activation consultancy. He is also a Founding Member of POCAM (People of Colour in Advertising & Marketing), an association that advocates the inclusion and advancement of BIPOC within Marketing.
Tim Bishop, CM is a multi-disciplined executive with a proven record of optimizing strategic efforts to expand the influence of leading organizations, such as the Canadian Marketing Association, Cineplex Entertainment, Lavalife.com, IMI International and Northstar Research Partners. In Partnership With is his latest focus to curate Canadian marketing experts to celebrate the power of strategic partnerships in a perspective-based content series.