INTA Virtual Conference: can brands live up to new D&I standards?
As the events of the past week show, there has never been more pressure on brands to confront their sometimes uncomfortable histories.
PepsiCo’s dropping of the Aunt Jemima brand, steeped in antebellum-era stereotypes, was “long overdue”, it was argued in WIPR. The move also prompted several other brands to look inwards and drop brands which had overstayed their welcome.
ConAgra brands (Mrs. Butterworth syrup), B&G Foods (Cream of Wheat cereal), Mars Food (Uncle Ben’s), have all pledged to update their branding and remove any racial caricatures.
These developments show that there is a greater expectation than ever on brands to champion diversity, equality, and atone for their mistakes.
This backdrop weighed heavily on a panel discussion held yesterday, June 23, by the International Trademark Organisation (INTA), as part of its virtual conference on “Brands in Society: Their Influence and Responsibility”.
The session, entitled “Diversity and Inclusion: How to Live Your Values to the Benefit of Your People and Your Brand”, was dominated by a discussion of one major brand which had already undergone a transformation in recent years.
Barbie is one of the most recognisable children’s toys in the world. But despite its enduring popularity, Barbie didn’t speak to everybody. The brand has faced criticism for reinforcing harmful ideas around body image and beauty standards.
What kind of message was it sending to young girls when Barbie dolls depicted a particular, often unattainable, body type? This was among the ideas explored in the 2018 Hulu documentary “Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie”.
The documentary charts Project Dawn, as it was codenamed, the Barbie redesign effort led by Mattel’s head of design, Kim Culmone. The project led to a new wave of ‘curvy’ Barbie dolls
Culmone was a panelist at the INTA discussion, alongside Mattel’s assistant general counsel Michael Moore. Speaking yesterday, Culmone acknowledged that Project Dawn may have been “too late”. But it came about, she said, after she had seen “dismantling of norms in industries like fashion”, with more “curvy models hitting the runway”.
As the documentary highlights, Mattel realised its outdated Barbie dolls were out of step with social norms, and its sales were suffering for it. “There’s potentially a real cost to sitting out,” Moore said, arguing that “diverse teams get to more markets”.
These rebranding exercises are, of course, business decisions. There are more expectations than ever on brands, and there are financial consequences if they fail to meet them.
The flipside is that there are also consequences to weighing in and getting it wrong. Pepsi received famously bad press in response to a TV ad starring Kendall Jenner. The TV star is shown offering a smiling police officer a can of Pepsi at a Black Lives Matter demonstration.
Peter Dernbach, partner at Winkler Partners in Taipei, said taking on diversity issues can be “daunting for brand managers”. But it’s still incumbent on them to act, he argued: “Many times you will get it wrong, but … brands are expected to have values, act on and articulate them.”
As Sanjana Sharma, associate general counsel at Underwriters Laboratories, noted, it’s not just global brands like Mattel who are expected to do better. Even smaller companies and law firms are now expected to meet certain diversity and inclusion standards internally.
Dernbach pointed out that Intel had this year introduced a diversity rule setting specific standards that its legal counsel must meet. It would be surprising if more companies did not adopt similar measures in the future. It’s clear that in 2020, brands won’t be forgiven for “sitting it out”.
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