Making the Metaverse Accessible and Inclusive by Design

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Making the Metaverse Accessible and Inclusive by Design

4 min read

There is no doubt that the metaverse is full of promise as a new creator economy that offers access and equity to people online. That’s not a new promise—it’s been the goal ever since the internet first entered homes more than 20 years ago. So, what stopped this dream from becoming reality?

Web 2.0, the most recent iteration of the internet characterized by the rise of social media and user-generated content, did much to reframe the social consciousness around race, gender, sexuality, disability and more. While social platforms elevated a diverse range of voices, the leadership behind them are often white and male, betraying the notion that digital is the welcome space for everyone that it should be.

As we begin to envision and engage with the metaverse, we have the responsibility to help build a digital environment that is truly inclusive and accessible, that gives everyone (regardless of ability, economic situation, or any other factor) the chance to create and participate. Because the more people who can, the better the metaverse will be for everyone.

We All Have a Responsibility to Make the Metaverse Accessible

There’s the phrase “Nothing for us without us.” What it means is that the design of policies should not be decided without the representation and participation of those who are affected. To this respect, the gaming industry has made considerable inroads with the disability community: the much-celebrated accessibility features of racing game Forza Horizon 5, which released late last year, were created in partnership with direct input from the community. These features tend to trickle down into other games and immersive experiences like those found in the metaverse. Still, brands and businesses that lead in the creation of the space—builders of hardware, platforms and digital experiences—can do much more to enable true access and participation.

Broadly speaking, accessibility in the metaverse means providing an equitable playing field so everyone can contribute to the key economic driver it is: the metaverse economy is expected to be worth $13 trillion by 2030. Yet only 63% of the world’s population are connected to the internet at all. Lack of connectivity isn’t reserved for developing countries. Nearly a third of New York City households lack broadband internet, a base requirement for the immersive experiences that characterize the metaverse. Having access to broadband internet is essential for any creator hoping to build, sell or trade assets in these new worlds, or to develop the fundamental skills needed to thrive in the metaverse.

Many countries are addressing these concerns by declaring digital access a human right, including Estonia, which has established a national digital literacy system. But we shouldn’t wait for governments to catch up to the pace of technology; businesses can play an important role in upskilling and providing access. This could include supporting coding camps or donating hardware to schools, helping the next generation prepare and keep competitive for the virtualized economy.

The Importance of Representation and Self-Expression

Building is a fundamental activity in the metaverse, in which audiences participate in shaping experiences by leveraging the tools provided by developers. This makes representation important in metaverse experiences and storytelling, enabling audiences to construct identities that feel authentic to them—whether that means a 1:1 representation of the physical self, a complete departure from reality, or somewhere in-between.

Just as accessibility options have opened gaming to large audiences, a wide variety of representational options can enable belonging in the metaverse. While there’s still room to improve, games like The Sims serve as an excellent example for how to represent diversity to construct avatars and identities, like expansive gender options and eliminating the exclusivity of options between male or female characters. Likewise, those building and designing metaverse experiences can include inclusive options like Black hairstyles, prosthetics, assistive/mobility devices and more to ensure everyone in the metaverse can be themselves.

Still, real-world biases are likely to spill into the metaverse—meaning people may not always feel comfortable representing themselves in ways that reflect their physical appearance. Hardware limitations may also affect the faithfulness in representing a wide variety of bodies; for example, VR headsets on the market today were originally developed with certain color gradients as a lesser priority, evoking similar issues in photography from the days of film to now. Though by enabling diversity in both the creation and participation in these spaces, developers of metaverse platforms and experiences can cultivate a digital culture of respect where we hope to see a shift away from these concerns.

Platforms Must Anticipate Safety Concerns

Access and representation are crucial so that people of all walks of life can visibly participate in the metaverse, either as industry professionals building the technology or audiences participating in communities and experiences. But these efforts fall flat if it’s not a safe space for everyone, meaning an inclusive and equitable metaverse must account for user safety.

As we’ve seen over the last two decades online, anonymity can lead to destructive behavior—and there’s no reason to believe those behaviors will simply go away in a more embodied digital space. Moderating in digital has historically been difficult to scale, though the developers of games and tech platforms can mitigate unsafe experiences by implementing features that help people take greater control over how others can interact with them. The Safe Zone feature in Meta’s Horizon Worlds, for example, allows people to distance themselves from others by setting personal boundaries. Metaverse platforms can continue to evolve and adapt these features as needed.

No single company or culture can build an equitable and inclusive metaverse. That’s why those in our industry—including the brands, partners and tech platforms we work with—must unite with the communities we serve to develop open, secure and trusted virtual environments. Together, we have an opportunity to do better and build a new era in digital that’s inclusive from the start. Let’s get working.

Insights for this piece were contributed by Catherine D. Henry, SVP Growth, Metaverse & Innovation Strategy; Lewis Smithingham, Director of Creative Solutions; James Nicholas Kinney, Chief of Diversity and Talent Discovery; Iulia Brehuescu, Digital Accessibility Manager; Sam Haskin, Inclusive Marketing Practice Lead; Rona Mercado, Chief Marketing Officer, Cashmere Agency; and Vanessa Zucker, Director of Marketing and Communications.

As we begin to envision and engage with the metaverse, we have the responsibility to help build a digital environment that is truly inclusive and accessible for everyone. metaverse inclusive marketing brand virtualization diveristy diversity and inclusion

Want to Ensure Your Marketing Is Inclusive? Make Sure Your Research Is.

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Want to Ensure Your Marketing Is Inclusive? Make Sure Your Research Is.

4 min read

As marketing professionals it’s our responsibility to celebrate people as they are and respect the depth and nuances of the audiences we speak to on our clients’ behalf. That means we must be intentional about creating content that authentically reflects our audiences’ lived experiences. But how to know if your marketing is truly inclusive?

Before you even get into creative, the most important place to infuse DE&I thinking is in your research. “Inclusive marketing research is about being truly human-centered in your approach,” says Media.Monks Strategy Director, Naomi Heckroth. “The key is in designing research to address real challenges so that brands can connect with their customers on a more meaningful level.” More inclusive and equitable research approaches and techniques will help you show up with eyes wide open for a more accurate and diverse view of who to reach and how to better connect. The result will be better strategies, better campaign performance and deeper, more empathetic connections with your target audiences.

Cultivating a DE&I mindset for marketing research, whether managed by internal teams or external partners, can be the difference between creating meaningful and sticky messaging or completely missing the mark. That’s why we put together an Inclusive Marketing Research Tipsheet chock full of tips for conducting radically inclusive marketing research. Here’s a quick rundown of just some of them from our resident experts.

Start at the Beginning

In creative work, your job is to reach and attract people to your brand, product, or experience. Ideally, they represent various groups who respond to messaging based on their diverse backgrounds, upbringings, and world views. And marketing research is the starting point for better understanding and engaging with those ideal audiences. But if that research is flawed—let’s say you’ve inadvertently missed an entirely underrepresented group, or asked questions that have an unintended cultural tilt—the results will color everything you do. “Flawed research leads to flawed insights which, in turn, means missing the mark when you’re trying to connect with audiences,” says Sam Haskin, Media.Monks Inclusive Marketing Lead. “So starting with an awareness of DE&I in your research—who you’re asking, what you're asking them, and how you’re asking—is a very important step in creating authentic messaging.”

A man at a table working on a laptop computer

Marketing research that’s designed for diversity brings the right perspectives into the room and ensures that all voices are heard. And effective research teams challenge every assumption to get to a better outcome. Here are a few tips for starting your research off on the right foot:

Know your team’s biases. Even the best-intentioned individuals and teams cannot completely know and understand all audiences. And, as humans, most of us have unconscious biases. Assembling a diverse team can help but will not completely counter bias—the key is to be aware and honest about gaps in understanding to try and sidestep inadvertent exclusions.
Build a representative sample. This includes counteracting weaknesses in general population statistics by oversampling commonly undercounted groups that are relevant, and paying attention to how weighting may provide more inclusive insights.
Examine secondary research resources closely. The more diverse your secondary sources are (who funded the research or who authored a report can provide hints) the more inclusive and complete your insights will be.

Choose Inclusive Partners

Conducting marketing research can be a lengthy and time consuming undertaking. If you’re considering collaborating with an external partner, evaluating a potential partner’s commitment to DE&I from the outset will help set you up for success. “Neutral” does not equal diversity.

Here are a few things to consider:

Include diverse vendors in your RFP process.
Look for partners who are committed to DE&I in their own organizations.
Select the partner with an intentional approach to representing all consumer voices.

A man and woman stand next to each other talking up against a wall

Hold Yourself Accountable

You don’t have to wait for a new research project to start integrating more inclusive and equitable approaches. To help set a baseline for measuring your progress and hold yourself accountable to real change so you can continue to build your practices with inclusivity at the forefront, conduct audits of existing research methods such as customer segmentations and personas, customer needs studies, brand positioning research and campaign effectiveness tracking.

“Although the primary goal of an audit is to discover where you currently stand, keep in mind the longer-term goals that you plan to accomplish once you have implemented your DE&I marketing efforts,” says Executive Creative Director Susan Parker. “Goals will help you keep your eye on the ball as you evaluate and formulate recommendations.” Here are a few questions to help guide audits and ensure your marketing research efforts are focused on inclusivity:

Participant demographics. For target audience studies, what was the rationale for screening only that set population? What relevant perspectives may have been missed as a result?
Primary research. Are surveys provided in multiple languages? How are quantitative studies weighted?
Secondary research. What are the biases, perspectives and lived experiences of the authors or financial backers of these sources?
Question framing. Does the way you ask questions reinforce stereotypes or cultural biases?

Including diverse perspectives and voices in your marketing research increases your potential to produce work that better represents—and resonates with—the world around you. It balances listening, empathy, and data. The effort you put in at the beginning, and throughout the journey, will pay dividends for your business and society in the long run.

Want to dig deeper? For more detailed information on conducting radically inclusive marketing research as well as a wealth of pro tips, insights and helpful resources check out our tipsheet.

Download our inclusive marketing research tipsheet

Diverse, equitable and inclusive marketing begins with market research designed with diversity in mind. Our DE&I team offers tips and resources. Diverse, equitable and inclusive marketing begins with market research designed with diversity in mind. Our DE&I team offers tips and resources. inclusive marketing inclusive design diversity and inclusion

Inclusive Marketing Is All of Our Responsibility

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Inclusive Marketing Is All of Our Responsibility

4 min read

Humans are social creatures at heart, and we take a lot of cues from our environment. We unconsciously use those cues to help calibrate our sense of “normal” and triangulate our place on the social map. If the cues that we’re getting from our environment tell us in subtle ways that we aren’t part of the definition of “normal” or if they flatten aspects of our identities into tropes and stereotypes, that has a significant effect on the way we view ourselves and each other.

As marketers, our job is to build the bridge between brands and their customers in creative and engaging ways. To do this effectively, we often tap into what we see as common cultural understandings and use them as vehicles for our messages, then project those messages at scale to the public. But it’s critical we understand that we have the power to “normalize” culture. Our work can foster either belonging or exclusion, and we haven’t always gotten it right.

It’s our responsibility to use our tools to celebrate people as they are and respect the depth and nuance of the audiences we speak to on our clients’ behalf, fostering belonging through accurate and respectful representation. This requires a shift in the creative culture of our industry toward more inclusive marketing. And that shift starts with each one of us.

We Have a Lot of Work to Do, and It Can’t Wait

The work we do focuses first and foremost on our clients’ goals—often with very little thought put towards the secondary impact it may have. One of the tools we use to further our clients’ goals, for better or for worse, is aspirations. We often try to present a case where our products or services will help people achieve some aspirational state—frequently one that we’ve conveniently painted for them.

While this may feel a bit disingenuous at best, it can be downright dangerous when applied to cultural norms or stereotypes that don’t offer a healthy reflection of the people in our culture—and it’s critical that we understand the role we play in defining so-called ideals. For example, aspirational marketing around certain “ideal” body types has contributed to a host of unhealthy side effects, including an epidemic of eating disorders. Aspirations-oriented marketing has also played a role in perpetuating an idealization of lighter skin tones, which can have an awful impact on how people view themselves and each other relative to perceived “norms” around attractiveness.

The challenge is that any decisions we make that aren’t directly informed by the brief come from our own perspective and experience, which leaves a lot of opportunity to project our own biases and incomplete understanding out to the world. Ideally, all of our creative, strategy and account teams would be full of diverse and intersectional viewpoints that round out each other’s perspectives and offer opportunities for us all to learn. However our industry has a big problem with representation overall and, even if some agencies are doing a good job at pulling together people from different lived experiences, the training, recruiting, and shifting leadership profiles that are really needed to make a difference at any scale will be a long-term effort.

But we can’t wait. And the plan should not be to make it other people’s responsibility to fill gaps in our understanding. The responsibility is on us to better understand the people and communities we communicate with to ensure that what we project into the environment represents them in positive and inclusive ways.

How We Addressed this Challenge

At Media.Monks we started to explore what this responsibility meant in earnest a few years ago. Our first step was to create an internal working group so we could share experiences and learnings and develop our point of view as a marketing organization.

As we began this work, we found there were very few resources available that discussed inclusion and representation in the context of marketing creative. We found lots of great examples of things that worked, a lot of wonderful discussions that focused around individual communities, and a ton of data, but nothing that pulled it all together into one place that we could share with our broader teams. So we set out to do it for ourselves.

What began as a group of volunteers with a common interest in furthering our inclusive marketing efforts and approach, developed into a full blown, year-long (plus) labor of love, listening to the voices around us and developing guidelines for creating diverse and inclusive marketing practices and content.

We use this work to help train ourselves in the development, curation and delivery of content and uplevel the baseline cultural awareness of our creative, strategy and account teams. And we’re sharing our work with the creative industry at large.

A person looking over pictures on a wall with a pen writing notes

Let’s Use Our Power for Good

Many in our industry have already taken important steps toward more inclusive content and campaigns. We admire brands like LinkedIn for highlighting the positive impact of a diverse workforce, Nike for celebrating all kinds of athletes and Oreo for showing us what it means to be an LGBTQ+ ally all year long. We admire these brands even more for going beyond a single campaign and striving to make inclusivity and representation values that live as an integral part of their marketing efforts, every day.

This is no easy task. It means continually seeking out ways to demonstrate that we see, hear and value all of our customers. It means showing up to every strategy session, brief, photoshoot and creative review with an inclusive mindset. It means doing our best to do what’s right, always. That’s why it's important to create guidelines and materials easy for teams to digest, use and refer to as they produce work.

As marketers, we have the power to create real change when it comes to inclusive marketing. Let’s continue to learn from each other and be open to support so that we can further the industry together and use our power for good.

Media.Monks Inclusive Marketing Lead Sam Haskin shares the role that marketing plays in initiating inclusiveness—and where brands can begin. Media.Monks Inclusive Marketing Lead Sam Haskin shares the role that marketing plays in initiating inclusiveness—and where brands can begin. diversity and inclusion inclusive marketing inclusive design

#CareWithPride • Influencers Inspiring Meaningful Action

Client
Johnson & Johnson
Solutions
SocialInfluencer MarketingSocial Campaigns

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Case Study

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Every person has the right to a family.

Families come in all shapes and sizes. And they deserve to be treated equally. So Johnson & Johnson wanted to start a conversation around LGBTQIA+ rights and the key role that the nonprofit organization Family Equality plays in driving positive change in society.

By partnering with Monks, Johnson & Johnson was not only able to build advocates for positive social change, but for their brands as well. Through the #CareWithPride campaign, we helped them build an influencer network that authentically represented and connected with audiences to drive donations and awareness toward Family Equality, whose mission is to advance the legal and lived equality of LGBTQIA+ families.

Elevating community voices.

To support this important cause, we asked a group of 42 outspoken and engaging influencers—individuals and families handpicked for their connection with the target audience—to add a little more color to the world. By participating in two #CareWithPride campaigns throughout the second half of 2020, these creators shared inspiring stories about what family means to them and what they take pride in, exciting audiences to support this important initiative and helping change hearts and minds.

Inspiring meaningful action.

To spark the conversation and celebrate the cause even more, we painted social media with a branded filter for Instagram Stories, and brought all of the influencers together in a short video that was shared by each of our superstar creators after being released on the company’s own channels.

By leveraging meaningful times of year like Pride Month and National Coming Out Day in the US, we helped Johnson & Johnson feed the feeds with support and creative expression from across the community—and put the advancement of legal and lived equality for LGBTQIA+ families front and center. The #CareWithPride hashtag made it easy for people to share the message with a broader audience to keep the initiative top of mind while allowing users to connect with brands they already trust and love.

Results

16 million combined impressions.
43% increase in earned media content.
413% increase in product page views.
462% uplift in sales.

1x Influencer Marketing Award
2x Pro Awards

Impact

A response to be proud of.

Everyone has the right to form and sustain loving families and live in communities that recognize, respect, protect and value them. The #CareWithPride campaign—supported by an enthusiastic influencer network handpicked by Monks—helped Johnson & Johnson not only drive awareness for the need to advance legal and lived equality of LGBTQIA+ families but also generate much-needed funding to further the cause.

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Humans First: How to Build an Approach for the Future Based on Accountability, Diversity, and Inclusion

Read more about Humans First: How to Build an Approach for the Future Based on Accountability, Diversity, and Inclusion

Humans First: How to Build an Approach for the Future Based on Accountability, Diversity, and Inclusion

9 min read

We’re currently in the midst of a very long and overdue national dialogue about systemic racial and economic bias and inequality.

This conversation has become even more urgent as the pandemic continues to highlight disparities among communities: COVID-19-related unemployment and mortality rates are significantly higher for BIPOC Americans, the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities. And the increasing racism and acts of violence toward Asian Americans have only amplified the need to openly discuss these crises and take action.

We believe employers have an essential role to play in stamping out these systemic structural inequalities and changing industries for the better by fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) internally in a more strategic and holistic way.

Our global agency, Firewood, was built on people-centric values based on respect and inclusion that have always guided our actions. We’ve been partnering with inclusion and diversity consulting firm Forshay since 2019, so when Ad World asked members of the Firewood leadership team to speak at its May 2021 global conference about how companies can incorporate DE&I into their operations, it was only natural that we asked Forshay diversity and inclusion consultant Dr. Jon Shafran to serve as the moderator. We are immensely grateful to Jon for guiding us in this in-depth discussion. Below are some of the key takeaways.

Lanya Zambrano, Firewood co-founder and president, on why a third-party DE&I assessment is important:

Jon Shafran, PhD, Forshay: In the last six months, we’ve seen a huge uptick in the number of organizations reaching out to us at Forshay to do the kind of work that we’ve been partnering with Firewood on these last few years. Lanya, can you share what motivated you to reach out to us for support in your DE&I commitment?

Lanya Zambrano, Firewood Co-founder and President: Part of our value system is listening to our people. And, like every great marketer, we do that through surveys. In 2019 we were growing very, very rapidly, so we sent out an internal diversity and inclusivity survey focused on our values to make sure that as we were growing, we were holding ourselves accountable and living up to what we stand for. One of the outcomes of that survey was that we felt we needed to create an internal DE&I working group that would get together and have honest conversations around what was happening in the organization—a group where everyone’s voice was represented. That was a connection point where we felt it was important to seek an outside perspective to assess and guide us. We reached out to you at Forshay and it was one of the best decisions we’ve made.

Jon: At Forshay, we’ve found it’s really important to identify those collective blind spots and start to think about this work first by collecting data to get a clear understanding of where your strengths and your areas of growth are. A lot of times, organizations begin this work with a set of assumptions about how equitable or inclusive they are without having the data to confirm or disconfirm those assumptions. So it’s always great to have an outside perspective. And while you folks rightly saw that there were some areas that needed improvement, Firewood had the highest sense of belonging among employees that we’d ever seen. That segues nicely for moving into the topics at hand: how the events of 2020 shined a light on the inequities in our system, the need for employers to fully commit to diversity and inclusion, and the strategies you and your team have enlisted for building DE&I into your organization’s DNA.

Lanya and the Firewood team on why the collective shared tragedies of 2020, specifically the murder of George Floyd, necessitated action:

Lanya: After I watched the video of George Floyd’s murder, I felt punched in the gut. I had just witnessed a very public execution and it made me sick to my stomach. I was sad. I was disgusted. And I knew that if I felt that way, our people felt it, too. [My husband and Firewood co-founder] Juan and I felt it was incumbent upon us—as leaders of the company—to address what happened. In silence there’s complicity. And we wanted to make sure that our communication with employees was not only aligned around our values, but that we were extremely clear about our point of view. I think with any communication, transparency is important. But with something like this you’ve got to pick a lane, and our lane was: this is not OK—we condemn acts of racism and marginalization. We also felt it was important to focus on our people, acknowledge our Black Firewoodians, and show our support both internally and externally.

Kamron Hack, Senior Director, Global DE&I and Culture, Firewood: For me, it was really personal. I had a very visceral response to seeing someone who looked like they could be part of my family being killed for no reason at all. But this feeling wasn’t new for me. My paternal grandparents moved the family from Memphis, Tennessee to Compton, California as a direct response to the murder of Emmett Till. These stories are woven into the fabric of the Black American, but this time felt really different for me because of how public this murder was. Working at a company where authenticity is a very lived value, I felt not only compelled to share my feelings, but also very safe in sharing my feelings. So I wrote an email to my boss, the head of HR, about how I thought we should say something to our employees. I also shared my thoughts with Lanya and Juan. Thankfully, they were already on the same page, so we worked together to address the issue and offer support, specifically to our Black employees.

On how the events of last year altered how companies should approach DE&I work:

Sam Haskin, SVP of Client Services and DE&I Marketing Lead, Firewood: I think before 2020, DE&I in business was treated like a luxury or extra credit—the urgency behind it wasn’t consistent. It took a number of tragic deaths—George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain—all happening in such a short period of time that people really couldn’t look away. There was this acknowledgment that this has been part of the cultural conversation since even before Rodney King. But passive disapproval—specifically the passivity—has led to this boiling point where we now need to make up for lost time. And it was a pretty quick conclusion to draw that much of this stems from inequity—economic inequity and inequity in opportunities. And companies are now hearing from employees and consumers in a very, very loud voice that they must participate.

Kamron: The subsequent expansion of the Black Lives Matter movement—that started in 2013 after Trayvon Martin’s killer was acquitted—and activists in our communities also played a significant role in bringing additional awareness and adding pressure to companies to look within and assess the ways in which they might be contributing to the problems of inequity and exclusion. I’d like to believe that this awakening is leading companies to more fully understand the necessity and the benefit of having a more comprehensive DE&I strategy that is integrated into every part of the business. It’s becoming more and more clear that these efforts can’t solely live within the confines of human resources.

On how companies can approach DE&I holistically longer term:

Lanya: DE&I has to be woven into every fabric of the organization. What happened last year was a war on our society, our social fabric, and our mental health. Having a safe place—an environment where people feel safe being themselves and expressing themselves—is really important. But the biggest challenge for the longer term is making sure our commitment to change remains strong. This isn’t a one-and-done thing. Leaders have to show up and be accountable. We can say this until we’re blue in the face, but accountability is extremely important. At Firewood, we publish our employee demographics, and that transparency helps ensure that changes are happening. We also started working with groups like Hack the Hood on internship programs and shifted the focus of the inaugural class of our four-year S4 Fellowship Program to graduates of historically Black colleges and universities. We don’t have all the answers, but we’re continually building on the things that we’ve started and we remain committed.

Kamron: We see building a long-term, holistic DE&I strategy as a three-pronged approach. We recruit with an eye toward DE&I, solidify a culture of belonging for all people through training and ensuring opportunities for growth, and then examine what we make and how we make it. Every step along the way we look very closely at areas where unconscious bias or leaning heavily on stereotyping and pigeonholing may have inadvertently crept in to become standard operating procedure. Building a baseline of understanding across the employee population is necessary and can be accomplished through mandatory training on the fundamentals—like unconscious bias and gender dynamics, various forms of discrimination of protected classes, and microaggressions—and supplementing that self-directed learning with special programs that address equity and create a sense of belonging and community within the company. Employee resource groups can create safe spaces for difficult conversations that need to happen. One of our white employees wanted to explore ways for people to be better allies and to foster change through anti-racist activism. She rallied a bunch of coworkers and together they created what is now our anti-racism working group.

On how DE&I can (and should) influence external work:

Sam: One of our focuses initially was to look closely at what we were doing and how we were doing it, to see if it held up against our values and through this lens of inclusivity. We started by looking at creative—how we represent people in the creative work that we do. And we put together a system for checking ourselves, auditing the work, and writing guidelines—creating a baseline for cultural awareness within the creative team. But we quickly realized that creative is just part of the environment. Creative gets its direction from briefs, briefs come from insights, insights come from data, and data comes from research. And every step along the way assumes that the step before it had it all figured out and did everything perfectly. What we’re seeing is that a lot of steps along the way have the potential for unconscious bias or habitual behavior to creep in. So we’re pretty far down the process of breaking down all of those pieces and asking pointed questions around how we’re doing things. Some of the tools developed internally show you where blind spots are and where you can improve, and can easily be translated into the work you’re doing externally as well.

On how companies can begin infusing DE&I into their organizations:

Kamron: Some people are really comfortable with the status quo and might not really understand the benefits of this work yet, to the extent that they’re willing to engage. So it’s on leaders to recognize this and to make sure that the messaging that we’re putting out there is inclusive enough that we’re reaching people of all levels of understanding. A big misconception is that creating space to include a more diverse set of perspectives means that you’re taking something away from someone else. And that’s just not true. On the contrary, including more perspectives will make you better, and it will make you more innovative and allow your company to grow and to thrive. And that ultimately creates more opportunity for everybody. And then you have the other side of the spectrum—the people who just get it, and they’ve realized the collective error of their ways and they’re eager to rectify it immediately. I do appreciate that energy, but I will continue to beat this drum of the long journey. You need to build the stamina for this, a measured approach, so that the change can be impactful and long lasting. And that means we have to stay open to this ongoing cycle of listening and messaging that this is not zero-sum work. This is about creating a more equitable workplace for everyone.

On the ultimate goal companies should strive for in rooting out inequities within their doors:

Sam: One goal is the recognition that integration of DE&I is a journey, not a destination. There’s no point when you’re done. We’re dealing with decades, if not centuries, of cultural examination to do. And the nature of progress is that there’s always room to evolve—we’re going to continue to learn things as we go deeper and get better. And then the other is that DE&I is not just about hiring or HR. If you bring a bunch of new voices into your company, the idea is to make sure the culture is ready and able to hear what they have to say.

Kamron: Ensure that your DE&I strategy permeates throughout the organization and promotes a culture in which everyone can experience a true sense of belonging—an environment where they feel safe bringing their unique perspectives and authentic selves to the table so they’re not wasting their precious energy hiding pieces of themselves so that they can be accepted by some norm.

Lanya: And listen, truly listen, to your people with empathy. Pick a lane, stick to it, and make changes. You have to be bold. You have to be honest. And you must be inclusive.

Jon: Thanks very much for giving us a little bit of a peek into the tactics you’re using for ensuring DE&I is realized throughout your entire organization. This conversation strongly leads to the conclusion that DE&I is essential in realizing our shared commitment to creating organizations where everyone can thrive equally.

We believe employers have an essential role to play by fostering DE&I internally. Our recent Ad World Conference panel provides insights on how companies can incorporate DE&I into their operations. Humans First: How to Build an Approach for the Future Based on Accountability, Diversity, and Inclusion de&i inclusive marketing ad world conference diverse culture diverse workplace

Unlock Innovation with Gender-Informed Design

Read more about Unlock Innovation with Gender-Informed Design

Unlock Innovation with Gender-Informed Design

4 min read

Who defines what’s innovative? Design processes have historically been blinded by biases of gender, ability, ethnicity, and so on—but these biases have an undeniable and sweeping impact in holding innovation and technological progress back.

Today women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing decisions, yet 90% of all products and services are designed by men, for men. For instance, the vast majority of medical research is based on studies of men and car crash dummies are largely designed based on the male anatomy. This systematically builds a world that ignores half the population and impacts critical aspects of everyday life for our people.

This gender bias holds true not just in designing for innovation, but also in the stories we tell about innovation, where women as well as a diverse array of identities have been underrepresented or entirely kept out. Rushali Paratey, a Creative Technologist at MediaMonks, puts it succinctly: “The perspective and experiences of all kinds of people is crucial to innovation and design as they reflect the totality of the human experience.”

Embracing Diversity in Storytelling

We believe in narrowing and closing these gaps in gender and diversity—we are not only putting women in positions to impact and drive effective innovation in our industry; we’ve also worked to build inclusivity beyond the standard roster to tip the scales when it comes to how women are represented in the narratives we propagate about innovation. If you want to see this in action, just look at this year’s Super Bowl. Among more than 60 commercials, we showed up with one of only three female-directed spots. It’s a staggering (but not surprising) ratio—and is emblematic of the need for more women’s voices.

Monk Thoughts The perspective and experiences of all kinds of people is crucial to innovation and design as they reflect the totality of the human experience.

Rushali Paratey

Creative Technologist, MediaMonks

Realizing this, Beryl Chung, a Creative Director based in Amsterdam, drives WoMMen in Tech, a platform that publishes a publicly accessible video and podcast series to make the expertise, drivers and ambitions of women in the predominantly male digital media industry more visible and available to all. And as Beryl exemplifies with this initiative, there’s an incredible amount of conversations necessary at all levels in our industry, and the world in general, about the incredible amounts of intersectionalities that exist.

Designing for Everyone

Both history and the present abound with examples of products and services designed with a biased lens that are poorly suited for diverse audiences. While no one today thinks twice about the need for accessibility options in physical public spaces, accessibility is more often than not an afterthought in digital—despite growing laws and regulations in digital accessibility. Yet without including diverse voices in the design process, it’s easy to delay much-needed innovation and problem-solving.

It starts with systematically understanding, considering and applying forethought. As Anna Herr, a Creative Tech intern at MediaMonks, says, “It’s about getting women into tech in the first place. From a young age, women are looked down upon or are discouraged from exploring tech-related fields. We need to give girls access to tech-related courses, unbiased support and visible female role models for a career in tech.”

When we create ways to personalize communication and to connect with audiences that are more diverse and inclusive, we enable a larger part of the population to share their voices, transforming the experience for everyone—especially in industries that are plagued with biases. Nora Henriksson, Managing Director of MediaMonks Stockholm, applies this mindset when bridging the gap between modern marketing and sports—including projects focused on growing women’s sports.

“This is an area where there’s so much untapped potential, but it’s also about building a better foundation for young girls to continue playing when they become teenagers, for them to be able to dream about being professional athletes,” she says. “By communicating around women’s sports in an interesting way in digital channels, the community can also break free from being measured only by broadcast numbers and stadium visitors. There are new ways to connect with the fans and by that create growth. Sports has so many interesting stories and it ought to be an inclusive experience.”

Diversity is a key component to the work we do. And it starts with creating teams with different perspectives capable of reaching diverse audiences. Meike Overdijk, who recently joined us as a Creative Tech intern, reiterates the importance of diverse teams as “having the ability to perform better because the number of different backgrounds (and therefore opinions) bring more diverse solutions and promote critical thinking. I think that making sure a team has diverse members should be the standard since this leads to better results in the end.”

To support this, it is vital to establish leadership that nurtures a culture of diverse viewpoints—and ensures team members feel comfortable and supported in sharing those perspectives with their peers and colleagues. A formal initiative we kicked off this month is our Women in Leadership program, offering mentorship opportunities to both established and up-and-coming women leaders across S4.

We steadfastly believe that diversity is one of the keys to unlocking innovation and that better-informed and less-biased innovation and storytelling doesn’t need reinventing the wheel. Writing these intersectionalities back into the process of designing and innovating for the world, and the stories we tell about innovation shifts the ground we stand on as a new way emerges.

True innovation and design relies on diverse and inclusive teams. Unlock Innovation with Gender-Informed Design Who defines what’s innovative—and who are they designing for?
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