We are living in a time when some consider elevating diversity a lost cause, but organizations like BRIDGE help to keep DEI&B alive. Their focus is literally on helping companies bridge the inequity gaps we often see amongst underrepresented communities. 

“How can inclusion become a practice in your organization? Not just in the workplace, which is focused on talent acquisition and retention, but also across your marketing management and commercial practices?” asks Sheryl Daija, Founder & CEO at BRIDGE. While only some brands may be ready for advocacy, it is crucial to view inclusion from a business practices perspective. This holistic approach ensures companies can genuinely embed DEI&B into their core operations, driving ethical and financial benefits.

As the first independent DEI&B Trade Organization for the global marketing industry, BRIDGE believes that inclusion is not just a moral imperative but also a business necessity. BRIDGE integrates inclusion into traditional workplaces, marketing management, and commercial practices.

“We look at it from the perspective of knowing there’s a moral and a business imperative,” Daija says. This dual approach ensures that inclusion is not a mere checkbox exercise but a fundamental component of a company’s growth strategy.

Measuring Change With IMAX

At the end of last year, BRIDGE launched IMAX, an Inclusion, Maturity, Assessment, and capability-building tool, that offers companies a unique opportunity to measure inclusion maturity across their entire organization.

If a company’s internal inclusion efforts are weak, its advocacy efforts can appear disingenuous and are likely to fail. “IMAX presents companies with a first-of-its-kind opportunity to measure inclusion maturity across an organization,” Daija explains. 

“We believe all companies should advocate for the communities they serve and be intentional and authentic about it. We want to be careful that companies aren’t out there doing advocacy work if their own house isn’t in order because that’s when it starts to fall apart potentially,” 

Daija emphasizes. “With IMAX, companies can use its structured approach to identify their strengths and weaknesses in inclusion. For instance, companies like Campbell’s have piloted IMAX to compare brands within their portfolios. This comparison revealed varying levels of inclusion maturity among brands, highlighting areas where inclusion competencies could be better applied. “They knew that they had a core competency in their organization that wasn’t being applied against all of their brands,” Daija explains. This insight allows companies to address gaps and strategically enhance their overall inclusion efforts. 

Developing IMAX: Goals and Framework

At its heart, IMAX is about elevating the roles of Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) and their impact on business. “CEOs need to recognize that their CDOs are the hidden gems that can create a huge business impact,” says Daija. Over the years, Daijia has engaged with numerous CDOs, understanding their challenges and potential contributions to business growth. This exposure was instrumental in shaping the creation of IMAX.

In collaboration with academics from Emory University, the University of Georgia, and Indiana University, IMAX was developed to help companies understand how inclusion can become a business practice and ultimately a brand metric. “Through our  Voices of Inclusion research, we discovered one of the big gaps in our industry was understanding what business practices contribute to equities and inequities in the marketplace,” Daija notes. This foundational research informed the development of IMAX, ensuring it addresses real-world challenges companies face.

IMAX’s importance was further solidified by the Voices of Inclusion research program by BRIDGE. By interviewing CEOs, CMOs, and CDOs, BRIDGE gathered insights into the practices contributing to equity or inequity in the marketplace. “We decided to do a research program called Voices of Inclusion, where we interviewed CEOs, CMOs, and CDOs to understand what approaches and practices were contributing to either equity or inequity in the marketplace,” Daija explains. These insights were crucial for designing a tool to assess and enhance organizational inclusion capabilities.

Success Stories and Practical Applications

The transformative power of inclusion as a business practice is highlighted in several success stories. Fenty Beauty, for instance, recognized a gap in the marketplace and has now become a billion-dollar company. Similarly, Tristan Walker’s Bevel addressed a specific health and beauty need for Black men, turning it into a $40 billion company that P&G later acquired. “Tristan created a company around a single-blade razor, thus closing that inequity,” Daija says, emphasizing how addressing specific community needs can lead to significant business success.

Moreover, IMAX’s flexibility to operate at company and brand levels allows for tailored inclusion strategies. Companies can assess and improve inclusion practices across the entire organization or within specific brands, depending on their unique needs and goals. This adaptability ensures that IMAX can drive meaningful change in diverse organizational contexts.

DEI&B and The Power of Authenticity

“If companies want to build their cultural competency, they must look at the people they are with and the communities they spend time in,” Daija advises. This approach is particularly crucial for marketers to engage authentically with diverse communities. By immersing themselves in different cultures and experiences, companies can develop a deeper, more genuine understanding of the audiences they serve.

“Diversity without inclusion is performative,” the CEO asserts, highlighting a critical challenge in DEI&B efforts. She criticizes the over-reliance on heritage months as the core of DEI&B activities, often leading to performative actions rather than genuine inclusion. “We’ve fallen into the trap of heritage months as being the center of DEI&B efforts.” For inclusion to be authentic, companies must build cultural competency and understand different lived experiences.

From a media perspective, Daija stresses the need to move beyond simplistic demographic categorizations. “We need to start thinking about the world as people, not just demographics.” This shift requires recognizing individuals’ complexity and multifaceted nature, which can lead to more effective and respectful marketing strategies. According to Daija, authentic inclusion demands the same rigor and strategic thinking as any other business practice.

The Role of Media in Shaping Attitudes About DEI&B

Media plays a significant role in shaping perceptions of diversity and inclusion. At BRIDGE, there is a strong belief in reconstructing how media is bought and sold, which better reflects inclusive practices. “We need to deconstruct what’s not working and reconstruct the right model,” Daija asserts. This effort has led to the launch of an inclusive Media Marketing Development Committee, including major brands and agency holding companies.

This committee aims to address the systemic media buying and selling issues perpetuating exclusionary practices. By bringing together diverse stakeholders, BRIDGE is working to develop best practices and standards that promote genuine inclusion. “We’ve convened an inclusive Media Marketing Development Committee of over 50 companies, brands, all the agency holding companies, and platforms so that we can now deconstruct what’s not working and reconstruct what we think should be the right model,” Daija explains.

Daija envisions a space where inclusion is not an afterthought but a fundamental component of strategy. “Inclusion should have the same rigor and strategy as any other business practice,” says Daijia. This commitment to rigorous, authentic inclusion sets a new standard for the industry, demonstrating that ethical practices can drive significant business success.

The post Bridging the GAP: Driving Results with BRIDGE appeared first on AdMonsters.

As the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) continues to evolve in the fast-paced world of digital advertising, the expectations and challenges faced by today’s marketing leaders are growing increasingly complex. 

We had a very informative discussion with Brace, during which she shared her insights on how CMOs are now embracing the dual priorities of building strong brand visibility while also managing budgets to optimize top-line growth. She highlighted the innovative strategies employed at XR Extreme Reach to ensure authentic audience engagement, address diversity and inclusivity through comprehensive data analysis, and leverage AI to unlock valuable insights.

In this conversation, you’ll learn how XR Extreme Reach sets itself apart by providing a holistic solution for ad delivery and data management, ensuring compliance through meticulous adherence to standards, and fostering inclusivity as a driver for better business outcomes. 

“In general, we do believe inclusivity is good for business, whether that’s represented in Diversity & Inclusion  rules or just at the core of the company,” Brace said. “Inclusivity matters, and we’re committed to bringing the data to market to help companies understand that. We’ll do whatever we can to make sure inclusivity is prioritized.” 

This commitment is reflected in XR Extreme Reach’s efforts to expand its global D&I report to encompass broader themes like sustainability and creative intelligence, ensuring a comprehensive approach to inclusivity.

Join us as we explore Meredith Brace’s vision of the evolving role of the CMO and her commitment to inclusive, data-driven marketing practices that resonate with global audiences.

Yakira Young: The role of CMOs is undergoing a significant transformation these days. How has the role evolved over the past few years, from your perspective?

Meredith Brace: I can talk from my perspective as a CMO and from the perspective of our customers. With CMOs, we’re seeing this shift to Chief Growth Officers. We’re really thinking more about revenue than we’re thinking about awareness, visibility, and perception.

So, it’s really the idea of taking a budget, balancing those two perspectives, and doing what you need to establish the brand and some of those upper funnel metrics. As marketers, we must ask the question: What are we doing to engage the people that we need to do business with?

There’s a lot more pressure on revenue, and that’s why I feel like you see the CMO tenures maybe shortening. This is too bad because I think sometimes it takes a long time to build a system to do that properly and build the right team and the right skill sets. So that’s what I’m seeing from the larger picture.

YY: You mentioned the importance of brands and companies engaging with the people they do business with. What are some of the strategies at XR Extreme Reach to ensure authentic audience engagement?

YY: Speaking of data, we did a LinkedIn Live with Madeleine Want, the VP of data at Fanatics Betting & Gaming. We discussed behavioral data. Are you guys working with any behavioral data at all? And if not, what other forms of data are there? 

YY: How do you go about finding the right data partners? 

YY: What sets XR Extreme Reach apart from what’s already available on the market?

MB: Nobody does what we do in aggregate. There are some companies that do linear delivery, some do digital delivery, and there are some that just do talent payments, but nobody but us can do each of these.

That is the secret sauce for what we do because we touch every aspect of production, content management, and content delivery. That is how we can provide incredible visibility. If you’re using 20 partners for all those different things, it’s hard to know what’s happening. It’s hard to track the efficacy and the management of all those assets using a single partner, which many of our customers do. It just unlocks incredible insight and value and streamlines the business for them.

So it’s not just an ease of workflow; for us, what we’re uncovering is unlocking all this business intelligence. And so what’s exciting to us is that we have a lot of different siloed competitors, but nobody does what we do in total.

YY: How does XR Extreme Reach ensure compliance with its clients?

MB: Before my current role, I worked at a measurement company, which means I know the complexities of being MRC accredited. We’ve done the tough work to ensure that we are MRC accredited, which is wonderful. 

We have a new Chief Information & Security Officer (CISO), an incredible woman, Donna Kladis, who ensures that our privacy remains intact. We really have the best of the best because we sit on very precious data. We do everything we can to make sure that it is handled appropriately. We also work with lots of industry bodies like the IAB Tech Lab, CIMM, and everything else to make sure that we are up to the standards that our customers require.

YY: Is AI helping XR Extreme Reach overcome any specific data challenges?

MB: We use AI to look at the massive amounts of assets in the system. When we manage global assets for a customer, and you multiply that by all the customers we use, the only reason we can look at things like skin tone representation, gender expression, and sustainability messaging is that we use AI to do that. You wouldn’t be able to do that with people scoring every asset. So we use AI to help us get to that data in real time.

YY: Any new products or technological advances that pertain to DEI&B?

MB: We do a global D&I report every year. This year, we plan to expand that report to include more than just D&I. However, in the last few years, we have discovered that this data resonates with people. Our CEO spoke at the LinkedIn B2B conference recently about inclusivity in advertising and inclusivity in leadership. It’s expanded beyond just advertising into inclusivity, which is good for business. 

We’re also part of BRIDGE, a member-driven 501c6 that helps companies bridge the gaps that have created inequalities for underrepresented and untapped communities in the workplace. We can track the measurement aspect of it and prove that it’s good for business. So, the D&I Insights, while we thought it was really interesting and got it out into the world, we’re seeing so much traction and appetite for what we can do.

We are looking at all sorts of things because, for some brands, it was really important and critical for them to understand how they were being represented in the market. So it’s been great momentum for us, and it’s just helped build this creative intelligence pillar that we’re leading our go-to-market.

The post TWIM 2024 Honoree Meredith Brace: Pioneering the Path to Data Inclusivity appeared first on AdMonsters.

Without a doubt, Possible was the place for digital media and marketing professionals. The 3-day conference was jam-packed with tons of digital advertising content, and just about everyone you know from the industry was there. Even Ad Tech God was there…allegedly.

Attendees indulged in poolside conversations and meetings, which offered a refreshing change from the typical Zoom and office settings. The event content was diverse and engaging, ensuring that there was something of value for everyone in the industry. 

“While Possible’s second year did not have the Elon/Yaccarino jaw-dropping headliner, it matured into an impressive gathering of decision-makers,” said Richy Glassberg, Co-founder and CEO of SafeGuard Privacy. Possible tackled many important conversations, including brand safety, sustainability, the health of the ecosystem, DEI, and more, in a spirited environment with brand marketers everywhere.”

Last year, Possible emerged as the first conference to headline AI, and this year, it extensively focused on the application of AI. The event united diverse viewpoints across media, communication, ad tech, and MarTech industries. Stepping away from New York and immersing ourselves in a new environment with varied perspectives really inspired out-of-the-box thinking.

Since the Fontainebleau was right alongside the ocean, it was hard to hear at times. But here is what we heard beneath the wind. 

Navigating The Discomforts of DEI

Before getting hot and heavy into the bulk of ad content, the event launched with a lunch focused on diversity. Panelists discussed the power of ensuring inclusivity in your workplaces to provide a safe space for your team to show up as their whole selves. Tish Archie Oliver, Chief DEI&B Officer at Unilever, talked about being completely comfortable wearing her hair naturally curly to work and not hiding her identity. She explained that reaching this point took a long time.

Brianne Boles-Marshall, Global Marketing Services Diversity Media Strategy & Investment specialist at General Motors, fueled the conversation by encouraging the audience to embrace their discomfort in the workplace. “The fact that something is making you uncomfortable should let you know that there is something to be learned. Take it as an opportunity to grasp the situation in a way you never have. We should call it an opportunity to learn and grow with that person or through that situation versus feeling like, I’m going to mess this up,” Boles-Marshall said. “That’s how learning and growth take place.”

Your Business Strategy Comes First, AI After 

Sean Downey, President of Americas & Global Partners at Google, outlined a few steps publishers and advertisers can take to fully leverage AI. 

His sense of humor tickled the audience when he mentioned how his industry friends always asked him for AI advice. “My CEO said I have to have an AI strategy by Monday. Please tell me what to do,” Downey said. “Who here has gotten that question from their board meeting? Probably every single person. The answer is always that you don’t need an AI strategy. You need a business strategy that you want to apply AI to.”

According to Downey, focusing on a business strategy is paramount, and then you apply AI to solve specific business problems. To establish an effective business strategy, companies must do the following:

1. Understand the importance of consumer behavior and the need for real-time insights to reach them effectively. 
2. Embrace AI applications for measurement, media, and targeting to enhance marketing strategies and ensure quality data fuels AI to make accurate predictions and connections. 
3. Breakdown silos within marketing departments and adopt a holistic customer-focused approach.

The Art of Partnering for Impact 

While discussing all things programmatic with Rose McGovern, Head of Programmatic & Digital Ad Sales at DirectTV Advertising, she emphasized the importance of publishers prioritizing collaboration to thrive. 

“Publishers need to be very deliberate and discerning with the partners they choose as those partners will steward their content and inventory in a compliant way,” McGovern explained. “At DirectTV, our viewer experience and consumer data are critical to us because we have such a loyal fanbase, and that loyal subscriber base differentiates us.”

Any publisher must maintain a focus on their loyal audience. You can’t just offer your inventory to every buyer. Publishers need to develop a framework for evaluating potential partners and ensuring alignment regarding distribution, ad tech, and data partnerships. 

The Biggest Programmatic Trend Right Now? DOOH & OOH  

At Possible, we also chatted with 2024 Top Women in Media & Ad Tech awards honoree Laura Manning, SVP of Measurement at Clint/Lucid. When we asked her about the biggest programmatic trend of the year, she promptly identified DOOH. “It’s a lot easier to transact DOOH inventory, and therefore, more people are including it in their plans, even if they are just a traditional agency,” she said. 

What is the biggest challenge for DOOH? According to Manning, its measurement is hardly surprising. The ecosystem is continuously trying to solve this issue. Tracking who saw an ad can be tough, but the right partners can help agencies and buyers tie it together. 

What is her advice for publishers navigating today’s programmatic challenges? Education. She recommends engaging with others, reading industry newsletters, attending industry conferences, and discussing trending topics like AI— even if some are weary of the topic.. There is value in learning more about it. 

Regarding OOH, Lucy Markowitz, SVP, GM US Marketplace at Vistar Media, offers her insights on the space”

“The fragmentation in OOH has been part of the reason for the rise of programmatic buying in this space,” Markowitz said. “Being able to leverage multiple publishers as part of a single campaign simply and easily has helped to create opportunities to do better work on behalf of clients as opposed to taking what could be viewed as an “easy route” only leveraging a few publishers to mitigate work.”

According to Markowitz, as advertisers better understand consumer ad fatigue, they try other channels, making DOOH and OOH a great opportunity.  

“Advertisers are recognizing the value of OOH ads, which can adapt to real-time contexts and audience movement,” said Markowitz. DOOH can integrate technologies that boost contextual relevance to audiences, whether driving along the highway or browsing the aisle at the pharmacy. According to the Out of Home Digital Advertising Association, the medium has an impressive 82% ad recall.”

The Evolutionary Journey of the CMO

Over the past two years, CMOs and their strategic importance to the industry have gained prominence. We sat down for a poolside discussion with Natalie Bastian, Global CMO of Teads, to hear her thoughts on the future of the role.

“I’d love to see CMOs turning to CEOs,” she said. “That, to me, is a great indicator of the power and the strength of marketing, and if marketing has a seat at the table at the company as part of the business plan and part of those business decisions, then marketing will be successful. It’s about being simple and correlating the value you can bring to your target audience. Accountability is also a big takeaway; CMOs must be more accountable and responsible with their investments.”

Looking to the future, Bastian advises that CMOs maintain a close-knit relationship with the CFO. Speaking the same language and creating alignment between the two roles is the secret sauce to success; ensuring marketing investment can be effective and scale.

The Future of Advertising in Social Media 

Social media has proven to be an extremely resourceful marketing tool and it is only getting more efficient. As social platforms continue to leverage AI and machine learning, advertisers can employ these tools to create more personalized ad experiences. As well, the shift towards video and interactive content will only continue, with social commerce, like the TikTok shop, gaining more ground.

To gain more insight into the future of advertising in social media, we spoke with Bill Schild, GM of Americas at Channel Factory. As a data platform, Channel Factory uses contextual to maximize ad effectiveness while prioritizing brand safety and suitability on YouTube. The company’s partnership with the YouTube Measurement Program grants them unique access to YouTube’s data, resulting in more accurate and dynamic campaign adjustments. 

“There’s enough commentary to tell us that social media often gets the short end of the stick,” Schild explained. “However, there are two sides to every story, and enough positive content is promoted on the internet that can be a force for good. This should be how the future of social media advertising operates, and it’s something we actively help brands uncover. We envision a future where conscious inclusion and suitability are paramount. Brands, agencies, and advertisers will adopt inclusion-first strategies and utilize advanced AI to grasp context and achieve results that enhance their return on investment (ROI).” 

The Publisher’s Advantage In The Shopper’s Journey

By 2026, commerce media will represent over $150 billion in global ad spend. What does this mean for publishers? According to a recent report by Criteo, publishers across all regions can expect to make money through retail media networks in the next 12-18 months. 

With the end of cookies on the horizon, the ecosystem is diversifying revenue and heavily pursuing commerce media as an alternative.

“Like retailers, publishers have a wealth of first-party data, but their differentiation lies in their ability to connect with shoppers higher up in the shopper journey,” said Sherry Smith, Executive Managing Director for the Americas at Criteo. To effectively operate within the broader commerce media environment and drive new revenue streams, publishers must activate their powerful first-party data while building long-term partnerships with brands, agencies, and retailers. This combined effort will unlock direct access to powerful commerce data that provides continued personalized advertising on their owned and operated channels.”

Smith predicts publishers will look more like retailer websites in the next three to five years. The sites will combine personalized commerce experiences with core content, creating tailored user experiences where customers can shop and consume their favorite publications. 

Planning on Attending Possible Next Year?

If not, I am sure the following testimonials from ad tech industry leaders are enough to convince you. 

“In the constellation of industry gatherings, Possible shines as a guiding star, its second year solidifying its status as a premier tent pole event. Under one roof, Gen Z consumers, diligent workers, and esteemed executives converged to delve into the depths of industry trends, challenges, and the transformative potential of AI and other technologies. While Cannes will always retain its allure, Possible democratizes the stage, inviting every voice to contribute their brilliance to progress.” – Heather Macaulay, President MadTech 

“A mini-Cannes, complete with a productive mix of brands, agencies and solution providers. AI was a recurrent theme during the conference. It was exciting to hear how marketers are narrowing in on AI solutions that aren’t just flashy distractions, but instead genuinely help address some of marketing’s most basic challenges – like connecting the right ad with the right viewer.” – Peter Crofut, VP, Business Development – Agencies & Brands at Wurl

“This was my first time attending POSSIBLE and it exceeded my expectations in turns of scale and productivity. As we prep for Cannes and our engagement strategy for the rest of the year, I felt like it provided a nice combination of inspiration, engagement and opportunity to fuel creative ideas to take us through 2024 and beyond.” – Meredith Brace, CMO of XR Extreme Reach 

The post Revealed at Possible: Insights Shaping Marketing’s Future appeared first on AdMonsters.

At a time when DEI&B is seemingly under attack, its significance is still of great value to businesses. Sheila Marmon, CEO and Founder of Mirror Digital hit the nail in the coffin when she said, “Diversity is not just an initiative; but rather a reality of our pluralistic society,” if you were thinking of cutting DEI&B out of your business conversations, don’t!

According to Kantar’s “Brand Inclusion Index,” there are still huge financial advantages to putting DEI&B at the forefront. Black, Latinx, and AAPI consumers have the third largest economy, with over $5.2 trillion at stake. Who is silly enough to miss out on that? At the end of the day, the dinero is still green. 

During an afternoon mainstage session at PubForum Coronado Island, Lisa Mae Brunson, founder of Wonder Women Tech, Alex Haluska, Sr. Director of Revenue Operations at MyCode, and Sheila Marmon (mentioned above) discussed the strategies that they take in their roles to make sure that everyone on their team has a seat at the table, and that their business is inclusive and relatable for all consumers. 

DEI&B is no longer just an ethical consideration. In a world where societal norms and demographics are continually shifting, businesses must embrace these principles. Recent debates surrounding DEI&B only underscores the urgency of staying tapped in. 

Navigating the Turbulence: The Need for Resilient DEI&B Strategies

Headlines detailing setbacks in the advancement of DEI&B have raised concerns about the authenticity and durability of these initiatives. However, these challenges highlight the significance of reinforcing resilient strategies that ensure DEI&B remains a core priority. 

“It’s about how we are being inclusive as a whole. Companies really should think about that in their strategy, their data collection, from A to Z,” explained Lisa Mae Brunson. “Create inclusive practices not just from hiring, but also from how we create a culture of retention. How are we making sure that we’re being respectful of humans with different backgrounds? Those are some of the easiest ways to create inclusive environments.”

Addressing the issue of weaponizing DEI&B is a crucial starting point, and it involves adopting measures to counteract the negative narratives and divisive forces that seek to undermine the principles of diversity and inclusivity.

Inclusive Hiring and Representation

The commitment to inclusive hiring practices and representation is at the heart of any effective DEI&B initiative. It is important to create diverse teams that reflect a broad spectrum of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. This requires going beyond traditional definitions of diversity and encompassing a wide range of identities, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, age, and more. 

To drive this effort, implement the following:

• Rethink sourcing strategies to tap into a diverse pool of candidates.
• Establish clear diversity goals and hold leadership accountable for meeting them.
• Provide unconscious bias training for hiring managers and interviewers.
• Partner with diverse organizations and educational institutions to widen the talent pipeline.

Create a Culture of Inclusion and Belonging

It’s a must that company culture is more than inclusive, as DEI&B cannot exist in isolation. A truly inclusive culture encourages every employee to bring their authentic selves to work, promotes open dialogue, and values the contributions of all team members. 

“The biggest thing here is making sure that everyone in the room feels like their voice is important,” explained Alex Haluska. “I don’t know what I don’t know, and someone with a better perspective than me about a subject matter should be treated as such. Having a diverse group in the room will lead to better results.”

Businesses can create this type of environment by: 

• Establishing Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that provide a platform for marginalized groups to connect and influence company policies.
• Implementing diversity-focused training programs for all employees, fostering understanding and empathy.
• Encouraging open conversations about identity, biases, and experiences to break down barriers.
• Recognizing and celebrating diverse cultural events and holidays.

The Harmful Exclusivity of AI in DEI&B

When it comes to AI in DEI&B, of course, it’s a mess right now. AI is informed by the data collected, and the undiversified data leads to biased and incomplete outcomes. Even facial recognition struggles to recognize darker individuals due to insufficient representation in the training data. 

“We call it artificial intelligence, but it’s really collective intelligence,” explained Marmon. “It is the information we have all put into the universe and shared. If you have people building AI tools and experiences that are just totally outside their purview, they don’t even know what they’re missing. So those are things that we have to account for.”

We must fix the data input issue at its core so that all audiences are represented authentically and properly.

Where Do We Go From Here?

There is this common misconception that DEI&B is driven solely by activism and advocacy, but the truth is that it is a strategic business move that not only aligns with ethical considerations but also makes good economic sense. 

The rise of the multicultural majority and their significant purchasing power emphasizes that embracing DEI&B is a win-win situation, leading to increased innovation, consumer engagement, and profitability. 

In a world where diversity is an asset and inclusivity is a success driver, businesses prioritizing DEI&B are poised to create lasting impact. By implementing the strategies outlined by the panelists, businesses can foster an environment where all individuals are empowered to contribute their unique perspectives, leading to a more inclusive, innovative, and prosperous future.

The post Strategies for Sustaining Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging as a Business Imperative appeared first on AdMonsters.

“A confident leader gives away the accolades and creates moments for their team to shine in easier times. In challenging times, a confident leader absorbs the team’s stress, takes the reigns, and leads from the front. We should all strive to be confident leaders,” said Pyle. 

In today’s fast-paced business world, leaders must be willing to think outside the box and adapt to industry changes quickly. During her keynote, “Redefining Success: Leading with Vision and Innovation in the Modern Workplace,” at the AdMonsters Ops Conference, Pyle will share insights into effective leadership practices that can help organizations stay ahead of the curve.

Becoming dentsu’s First Chief Equity Officer

Pyle is the first Chief Equity Officer at dentsu, a role she assumed a little over two years ago. 

“As ‘the first’ in my role, I recognized the potential to make a lasting impact at dentsu,” said Pyle. “I joined the company during a pivotal moment in the U.S. and globally, following the murder of George Floyd, during a global pandemic, and amidst widespread racial injustice.”

Pyle set out to design a DE&I practice at dentsu that would not only make an impact network-wide but industry-wide. Her initial approach was to closely collaborate with dentsu’s leadership team to thoroughly understand the agency’s business goals, values, and culture. 

“I wanted to know where we were at and where we were headed. I assessed the company’s current state of equity and inclusion, identified gaps, and launched our first-ever DE&I report to share our progress and commitments and to hold us accountable,” recalled Pyle.

Pyle is most proud of accomplishing the DE&I report. The report was the first of its kind among agency holding companies when it was published in 2020-2021. The agency continues to publish the yearly report to measure against its previous commitments.

“Standing up a DE&I practice at dentsu reflects how we do business and is embedded into our company so that DE&I becomes the foundation of our culture, ways of working, and impact on clients and society,” said Pyle.

 Over the last two years, Pyle’s role has evolved as dentsu has progressed in its equity and inclusion ambitions. The agency has adopted greater business rigor leveraging a more data-driven approach to its equity efforts. It is utilizing technology to track and analyze the impact of its initiatives on the organization. 

“I feel proud to share that we now have Chief Equity Officers for every region globally. This has allowed us to ensure that our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is ingrained in every aspect of our operations,” said Pyle. 

Getting a Foot in the Advertising Door

Pyle’s first interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion was initially through a multicultural internship program at the advertising agency Arnold Worldwide in 2007. It is where she discovered her passion for using creativity to drive positive change in society. 

In 2013, Pyle became the director of ADCOLOR, a nonprofit organization that champions diversity and inclusion in creative industries.

“It wasn’t until my time at ADCOLOR that I transitioned my career full-time to focus on the discipline of DE&I,” said Pyle. “At ADCOLOR, I actively played a role in the inception of their award conferences, programs, and various other initiatives that underscored the significance of diversity and community within the industry.” 

Both roles made a considerable impact and ignited Pyle’s passion for pursuing advertising industry opportunities focusing on promoting diversity and inclusion. Her unique background also shaped her career path and personal growth. Pyle’s LinkedIn profile lists her past lives as a pilot, aviator, MTV TV personality, speaker, producer, and marathoner. 

“Each of my past lives has provided me with unique experiences, skills, and perspectives that have informed and influenced where I am today. My time as an MTV cast member definitely prepared me for the interpersonal team dynamics of our beloved business!” said Pyle. 

Prioritizing DE&I in the Advertising Industry

That an agency’s clients are the lifeblood of the business, and they are increasingly demanding more from their agency partners, isn’t lost on Pyle. This is especially true now that those demands also include sophisticated DE&I practices.  

Pyle believes that tearing the paper ceiling is crucial to making the advertising industry safer, more welcoming, and equitable for people of all kinds. The invisible barriers for workers without a bachelor’s degree limit the industry’s ability to hire the best talent. 

 “Equal access to opportunities should be available to everyone, and we must look to change our hiring practices,” suggested Pyle. “To achieve this, agencies must consciously seek out and hire individuals from diverse backgrounds and provide them with pathways to leadership roles.”

Pyle thinks businesses focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion are more likely to attract and retain diverse talent, better serve their clients, and achieve greater business success. This approach helps create a new future of work that prioritizes skills over traditional markers of success, such as education and work experience.

The post AdMonsters Ops Keynote Christena Pyle Inspires Leadership Through Vision and Innovation  appeared first on AdMonsters.

Leading younger marines awarded him the opportunity to not only be patient but to put “the whole” before himself.  As you all know, there is no I in team. Depending on the culture of a company or industry you work in, there are times when being a team player can be detrimental to a career. Still, Valdez chooses being a team player every time. 

Valdez is very passionate about passing the torch, but it’s best if you read his story directly from his own words below.

Yakira Young: Can you tell us about your background and how it has influenced your career path?

Don Valdez: I’m the only child of Teresita Dunuan, a single mother who is a two-time breast cancer survivor. She came to the United States from the Philippines to pursue nursing. She also dabbled in real estate and eventually became a Financial Advisor with Transamerica.

My mother worked a lot, so my grandmother and her siblings helped raise me in Jersey City. When she had free time, my mother would sign us up to volunteer at events that supported the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Christian charities, and organizations focused on Filipino culture awareness. I say all this because being surrounded by strong women of color helped shape my perceptions of hard work, sacrifice, and inclusion. 

I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 2005 and had the chance to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan and travel to Mongolia, the Arctic Circle (Norway), and Morocco. While in those environments, I learned how to work quickly and accurately and had the privilege to lead younger Marines.

YY: How can the AAPI community better support and promote diversity in the advertising industry? 

DV: First, we’d need to inventory all of the AAPI organizations in our industry. For instance, through LinkedIn, I’ve had my eye on Asians in Advertising, a Los Angeles based group. After inventorying all the groups, the first iteration is to get them to collaborate and cross-promote each other’s work/events and start with running an annual conference (forgive my ignorance if this already exists). 

Second, have those organizations collaborate with groups outside the AAPI realm and replicate those efforts. That type of cross-pollination may create surprising synergy. For instance, May is also the Jewish American Heritage and Mental Health Awareness month. If an AAPI group(s) were to join efforts with the two other groups, there could be awareness highlighting the increase of violence towards AAPI and Jewish people and the effects on mental health within those groups. In addition to creating awareness, perhaps they could collaborate to create solutions to further protect the groups or mitigate the violence against them..

YY: How do you approach mentorship and supporting other Asian American professionals in your industry? 

DV: What’s funny is that I recently talked with my older cousin about how Asian American children have more opportunities for acceptance these days than we did growing up between the 1970s to 1990s. Barely anyone knew what a Filipino was back then, so I was either identified as Chinese or a mix between Jamaican and Japanese. 

That said, I think it’s important for my generation of Asian American professionals not to hold that against the younger generation. They’re so much more talented and self-aware than we were at their age. What we do have that they are still building is our networks. 

It’s important for me to open up my network to good people looking to work hard and change their lives for the better, whether they are AAPI, military veterans, etc. If I meet someone with a similar background or through an AAPI organization, I will be happy to share my experiences and open the doors that they need opening.

YY: In your opinion, what steps can companies take to foster a more inclusive and diverse workplace for AAPI individuals and other underrepresented groups? 

DV: I think a great start is for companies to really invest in their Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and take them seriously. Don’t treat them like a check-in-the-box to fulfill the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) portion of the 10-K Annual Report. When I was at Time Inc., they did a really great job supporting employees when it came to celebrating various cultures. We need more initiatives done right to enable individuals to live their best lives and perform their best work. Let’s start there — genuine investment and respect.

YY: What are some of the proudest moments of your career, and how have those moments shaped your perspective on being an AAPI leader?

DV: This industry, like the Marine Corps, has given me many opportunities to travel and meet many wonderful (and not so wonderful) people. 

I learned what type of person I want to be and many ways to approach many situations. What makes me proud is when my peers or people who reported to me excel (pun, maybe) in their careers and continue to do amazing things. 

What’s missed in today’s culture is that being a leader is similar to being a parent —the goal should be to set up those you lead for success and give them the best opportunity to surpass what you’ve accomplished. That’s how we evolve. The goal shouldn’t be to take from them and I think that’s what a lot of leaders do these days.

YY: Is there anything else about your experience that you’d like to add? 

Those who know me know that I love to read. What’s relevant to this topic is that I finished America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo and America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan. These books highlight different Filipino-American experiences in different eras. Maybe I’ll be brave enough like them to pen my wondrous journey to paper someday. 

Lastly, I was part of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s Veteran Immersion Program in 2014. Shout out to everyone involved in that program because I would not be where I am without it. Thank you to AdMonsters for allowing me to share my story. Have a great summer, everyone.

The post Celebrating AAPI Month: Don Valdez’s Parenting Styled Leadership Approach appeared first on AdMonsters.

But that also means having a diverse workforce behind the scenes at brands and agencies creating advertising and targeting global audiences.

With population shifts, businesses must incorporate diversity into their business practices. Research has shown again and again that truly diverse companies reap the rewards. DEI increases revenue and your customer base.

That’s precisely why BRIDGE was created. BRIDGE is a purpose-driven DEI trade organization serving the global marketing industry with a mission of moving the DEI narrative from a philosophy to operationalizing inclusion as a business practice for growth. With a proprietary framework, BRIDGE helps companies identify and bridge the gaps that have created inequities for under-represented and untapped communities in the workplace, workforce, and marketplace.

Sheryl Daija launched BRIDGE in April 2022 with a board of 13 founding member companies, and it has rapidly grown to upwards of 25. The board’s composition is a deliberate convergence of leaders in diversity, marketing, and business from companies including Campbell’s, Condè Nast, Discover Financial, H&R Block, IBM, iHeartMedia, Indeed, Sephora, and Unilever.

We spoke with Daija about her career in advertising and marketing, founding BRIDGE, the importance of DEI in the industry, and where she sees the organization going this year.

Committing to DEI and Founding BRIDGE

Yakira Young: How did you begin your career in the advertising and marketing industry? How did that evolve to the founding of a DE&I trade organization? Has DE&I always been a passion of yours?

Sheryl Daija: I was born in South Africa and lived under the apartheid regime. So I witnessed what inequity looked like at an early age which fueled my drive for social justice. This, in addition to being part of a multiracial family, has strengthened my commitment to changing the world for the better. BRIDGE is my vehicle.

Professionally, I began my career in marketing and strategy in the health and beauty aid and tech industries. After 9.11, I was recruited into the trade group model and was the general manager at IAB, where I helped turn around the organization during the internet bust and boom. Most recently, I served as the Chief Strategy Officer at MMA again as part of a turnaround team. I have always been passionate about creating industry impact and understand the power of bringing people together to build and drive change. I decided to merge my passion for building a more inclusive industry (and world) together with my expertise in bringing the industry together, this time, to collaborate for good. And so, BRIDGE, an acronym for Belonging, Representation, Inclusion, Diversity, the G for the Gap, and Equity, was born.

YY: What were the catalysts in starting BRIDGE? How and when did you recognize there was a need? 

SD: During the pandemic and after the George Floyd murder, I was fortunate to be connected with some incredible chief diversity officers and other business leaders – we would organically meet every few weeks as an intimate group to discuss various issues, and no topic was off the table. 

It was an incredibly tumultuous time with many people experiencing real pain, and we were all looking for a connection and to be in safe spaces with like-minded others. As we continued to meet, it became apparent that the CDO role was incredibly tough and mostly sat outside the business. On the one hand, there were diversity practitioners who had been doing the work for years; on the other hand, there were people who were placed in the role just by their race. 

In both cases, the expectations were for them to fix things, sometimes with little or no support. As a result of our conversations, I saw the opportunity to create a trade organization that could leverage the same model we used to build marketing platforms. And I also realized that to drive real systemic change, we needed to bring together diversity, marketing, and business leaders and make DEI an integral part of the business. To be quite honest, I didn’t expect that we would get as far as we are as fast, but I think it’s a testament to the incredible leaders who have raised their hands to build BRIDGE together and to the reality of the DEI crisis we are currently facing in this country. 

YY: What outcomes are you focused on/can we expect? 

SD: For the short term, we are super focused on bringing the BRIDGE Inclusion Framework to the industry, which is steeped in our proprietary Voices of Inclusion research. While I can’t share too many details now, we believe we have a new approach that will help companies systematically and strategically build inclusive brands and organizations. 

Additionally, we will soon launch our BRIDGE Stories program and bring the industry together to continue to set the future agenda at BRIDGE 2023, our inaugural 2 ½ day retreat for diversity, marketing, and business leaders. We are also working on several programs to set industry standards and benchmarks for more consistent measurement and accountability. 

For the long term, we would like to help everyone become a BRIDGE practitioner, no matter your role in an organization where inclusion and equity are operationalized.

The Lack of DEI Structures and Practices and Its Ripple Effect

YY: In a Washington Post article about Susan Wojcicki’s departure from YouTube, you discussed the risk and impact of losing women in leadership roles. Can you talk about the significance of Susan’s departure and how women and other minority-represented organizations can better prepare for a woman or minority CEO to step down? 

SD: Unfortunately, we still live in a time where it is incredibly significant when a female CEO steps down from her position, and the level of scrutiny is far more intense than when a male CEO does the same simply because there are fewer of us, and so the impact is so much more significant.

As you might know, only 10.9% of CEO and senior leadership roles in tech are now held by women, and in general, women employed in tech is 26%, which is even lower for people of color. So when a woman or person of color steps down and is not replaced with the same representation, we start from behind instead of building for the future. 

To combat the impact, we need better succession planning and intentionality around appointments, mentoring, and even layoffs. The current systems and structures were not created to accommodate different experiences. So it’s time to start divesting these structures and rethinking more equitable systems that allow for greater inclusion, diversity, representation, and belonging in the workplace and marketplace. 

DEI in the Media, Marketing and Advertising Industry

YY: You’ve said that we have become a nation of “months,” which is not necessarily good. Can you further explain what you mean by this and the implications?

SD: In America, we’ve become a nation that celebrates months such as Black History Month, International Women’s Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, etc. 

While it is positive to bring attention and use the months for education, it has also become a trend that has led some marketers and advertisers to use them to show their commitment to DEI&B. Still, most times, their activities are performative and do not drive any real change. For example, displaying a rainbow flag without advocating for LGBTQIA+ rights doesn’t move the needle. To create meaningful and lasting change, organizations need to consider how they can move beyond performative acts and prioritize the creation of structural and systemic change that is consistent and intentional.

YY: How can marketers ensure that marketing and advertising strategies address the existing lack of diversity and that all voices are represented in their messaging? How can organizations begin to recognize performative vs. intentional and thoughtful marketing around these holiday months? 

SD: It starts with the team – I heard a quote that I loved, “Nothing about us without us!” If you’re going to include a certain culture or underrepresented community as part of your strategies, be sure that there is representation on the team that is listened to or seeks it out in an equitable and meaningful way. This will lead to a far more authentic outcome and execution.

It’s important to be deliberate and consistent – align your core brand values with your communications and understand how you can create strategies that both inspire customer loyalty and influence positive change throughout the year, not just in the month.

DEI work is not 9-5. If your group of trusted advisors and communities all look like you then you’re not building your own cultural competency. Find ways to expand your circle in a genuine way that appreciates and respects individuals for who they truly are. 

Understand who your consumers are and message them in meaningful cohorts. People are multidimensional and so creative – media plans and customer segmentations must recognize this.

And finally, operationalize all of these as critical business practices!

YY: Is there hope and what can those who want to foster DEI&B do to advance it?  

SD: There is most definitely hope, but more than that there is a way to be incredibly successful and use DEI as a driver of growth if done deliberately.

The buying power for Black Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans was projected at close to $5 trillion in 2020 which represents over 28 percent of the nation’s buying power. So this shows that underrepresented communities have considerable clout.

The BRIDGE Inclusion Framework gives organizations a very clear roadmap on how to start, how to identify unique gaps and then how to bridge them. So for those companies that feel like this is daunting, we have a path forward in a very structured way.

We encourage everyone to start thinking of inclusion as their next big growth opportunity and implement it as a business practice across the workplace, workforce and marketplace. BRIDGE is very much here to help.

BRIDGE 2023

YY: You recently launched BRIDGE 2023: Pioneering Next DEI Practices–a DE&I-focused retreat in April that unites top diversity, marketing, and business leaders. What was the driving force behind the retreat, and what do you hope the outcomes are? 

SD: Quite frankly there has never been a more important time than now for us to come together as an industry to drive systemic change. We have state governors issuing directives intentionally mischaracterizing how DEI practices work, tech layoffs setting diversity back by decades, and discriminatory education practices that grow the chasms to achieve equity. 

On the other hand, we are seeing the power of the world’s top diversity, marketing, and business leaders courageously working together to build a more inclusive industry. So we launched BRIDGE 2023 to expand our ever-growing community, make the BRIDGE movement aligned against our mission to accelerate the change in our industry, and lay the foundation of how companies can operationalize inclusion.

We are also excited as it’s our first year after our launch, so we have committed to creating something thought-provoking, actionable, and unforgettable! Everyone is welcome!

The post Bridging the Inequality Gap in Marketing With BRIDGE: Q&A With Founder Sheryl Daija appeared first on AdMonsters.

But from the outside, looking in, it seems she was always destined to end up right where she is today.

Ironically, her first job was interning at her uncle’s advertising business, learning the ropes, which made becoming a CBO what she calls “a natural fit.” During our discussion, she reminisced about messing around with nonexistent desktop publishing applications like PageMaker and Quark when she was a young girl.

In college, Bracegirdle experimented with various mass media majors. She eventually married, moved abroad, and changed her major to teaching, receiving a degree in Social Sciences. While this may seem far-fetched from where she is in her career today, Mediavine prides itself on teaching its publisher customers how to achieve their business goals, earn more from every session and page view, and keep their audiences engaged.

Along her career journey, influential female bosses believed in her and encouraged her in moments of self-doubt. Amber takes great pride in her empathetic leadership approach, which she greatly attributes to those strong female leaders who molded her into an executive who uplifts her employees.

Early Days

Yakira Young: After college, what was your career experience like?

Amber Bracegirdle: Shortly after college, I worked in customer service at Travelocity, which was a great lesson for how we wanted to do customer service at Mediavine. 

I got into fraud analysis and loved it. Many people would ask if fraud at Travelocity was just people getting free vacations when it was actually fighting child trafficking, drug trafficking, and human trafficking in general. It was such a fascinating, analytical job, and I adored it, and it allowed me to see the world. I got to work at our UK offices, German offices, and the San Antonio office. But the most impactful thing about working at Travelocity was my boss.

Becoming an Empathetic Leader

YY: How did this boss impact you? Was she also a woman?

AB: Her name is Sheila Korte, and she taught me how to be an empathetic leader and turn mistakes into learning opportunities. She taught me that the people who don’t make mistakes are those who don’t make any moves. Everything she taught me about management along the way boiled down to first, we must always be kind.

She is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and every day I continue to try and make her proud with how I manage my people and how we work with our customers. I grew tremendously under her leadership. Whenever I felt unsure of myself, she pushed me forward and said, “you can do this.” And that’s how I manage my people, and it’s how we talk to our customers.

Halfway through my time at Travelocity, we changed CEOs, and our CEO became a woman named Michelle Peluso. Today, she’s in the C-suite at CVS, and Michelle is a genius who, with friends, created a website called Site59 that would make deals with hotels in New York City for the inventory they hadn’t sold. She made contracts with hotels so she could sell their unsold daily inventory for less than the walk-in rate.

When Travelocity purchased Site59, Michelle was made CEO of Travelocity simultaneously. Despite dealing with thousands of employees, she was approachable and always kind. I could email her, and I’d have a response in 30 minutes full of ideas and action items for how to solve the problem at hand. That’s the kind of leader you want to be. You want to ensure you’re lifting up the people who work for you because all ships rise when you do that.

Managing Work-life Balance

YY: What is your experience managing work-life balance as a C-suite executive and mother of two? How do you prioritize your time and responsibilities, and what strategies have you found most effective for maintaining a healthy balance between work and family life?

AB: My work-life balance has gotten better over the years. We started Food Fanatic, the site I founded with Eric Hochberger, Stephen Marsi, and Matt Richenthal when I was seven months pregnant with my first son, Evan when I came to work for them full-time. Mediavine hiring me at seven months pregnant says a lot about the three of them and their willingness to buck trends. 

I was pregnant with Will when the ad management part started to take off. My work-life balance was rough for the first few months of my kids’ lives; outside of bathing and eating, I worked all day with childcare in hand. But now that we’ve got such great people and so many on the team, I’m better able to balance things. I can take a vacation and know I have nothing to worry about back at “the office” – otherwise known as Slack. My family just returned from a week-long vacation in Florida, and I didn’t stress once about the lack of internet access. I can also volunteer at my kids’ school, which I just did this morning. I have much more time for things like that. 

Over the summer, I took Fridays off completely. It’s important to claim your time. Work-life balance comes down to boundaries, and you’re the person that sets them. And it took me a long time to realize that. 

It’s hard when it’s exciting, and it’s your startup. My advice to anyone considering starting a company is to be intentional about setting boundaries for your personal life because you don’t think about it when you’re excited about what you’re doing.

It can lead you to burnout and lead to your family not feeling like they’re as important as the company. I had to step back on that because my kids thought work was more important than they were at one point, and I had to fix it. So that’s why I show up for things like field day or their field trips. They each have one a year, and I show up for those because they must know how important they are to me.

YY: The Pandemic has helped shift the work-life balance amongst many people and helped people realize that family is more important than work.

AB: I agree. At Mediavine, it got harder because we’ve always been remote. So for us, it was business as usual, and then everyone in the world was online, so our application volume went through the roof because we had sites that were only three months old suddenly reaching out to join because their traffic was at our threshold. We realized we were spending more time on applications that would never be approved than on the customers needing our help moving the needle on their own businesses. The quickest way to shift that focus back to the people that need us most was to raise our threshold. It was a hard decision, but ultimately one that served the people that already trust us with their livelihood the best.

I had to homeschool my kids on top of everything for longer than most people because I have a kiddo with a heart condition. So I homeschooled for two-and-a-half years and juggled everything at Mediavine. The marketing and communications team, led by Jenny Guy, started putting out roughly four times as much content, and we had, I think, four people on the team at that time. Growing that team has been a huge priority because moving everything online became a huge lift. We were used to meeting our customers at events and conferences worldwide, and suddenly that went away.

It brought home some hard truths for many of us at Mediavine about making those boundaries around work and family because suddenly, there was more work than we knew what to do with, and we couldn’t hire fast enough. It made us realize that we had to draw those boundaries, or it would never be a balance.

Mediavine’s Launch Into Ad Management

YY: Can you tell me more about how Mediavine was created by accident? I’m curious to know how a chance occurrence led to the development of your company and what steps you took to turn that accident into a successful business venture.

AB: I jokingly say accident because this all started with a single friend asking for our help with the new tech Eric had built for our four sites. Then more friends asked, and suddenly we had more friends than we knew what to do with! Once we decided that we were going to open the floodgates and work with people we didn’t know personally, we made some very intentional decisions. 

Stephen Marsi, Matt Richenthal, and Eric Hochberger founded Mediavine as an SEO shop for hire. Then he moved into making their content websites, which led them to need advertising to support those websites and the company. Creating the ad tech was purposeful because we needed it for our own four sites. So that was very purposeful, and my coming to work for them was very intentional. 

We were working on creating a food site because their ad company had told them they needed a lifestyle site. In working with me, I think I was really their first direct and continuous experience with content creators that also had their own web presence, social media, and personal websites. We hired food bloggers to create content for the site we were building together, Food Fanatic, and I introduced Eric to many food bloggers as part of that. 

I was simply consulting until I decided I wanted to leave my fraud analysis work (and work travel) behind to focus on my first baby. I asked the guys if they would consider hiring me full-time, and I’m very grateful they did. As I said before, I came on full-time when I was seven months pregnant. The guys never even questioned that as part of our conversation, something that I think is very special and unique, especially in the tech field. After I came on full-time, our ad company fell apart, and our ad income sort of cut in half overnight. And here we were, supporting four families and an army of contributors.

Great ideas are born out of desperation. Eric was researching programmatic advertising then and thought he could build something beneficial to recoup some of the ad dollars we didn’t see from our ad management company. He started making the first version of our script wrapper, but it was only for our four websites. 

He built the script wrapper focusing on SEO since that’s how we have always focused on growing traffic. Our most prominent site was founded on SEO. If you Google celebrity gossip, one of our sites is the one that owns that top search result and has for years. And it’s one of the main ways that the site got traffic. 

He started out thinking his wrapper would provide a backfill for our main ad company’s inventory, but we quickly started earning more with his header bidding auctions than we were making with them. We decided to sever ties with them and continue to do our own thing. And luckily, The Hollywood Gossip was big enough for us to have seats at the exchanges. In an offhand conversation, I told my best friend, also a food blogger, what we were doing, and she said, well, you know, my ad company sucks too. “Could you guys help me?” That question led to us recently surpassing over 10,000 active sites using Mediavine’s ad management. 

Bloggers always talk to each other, and they always talk in Facebook groups. So, five other people that wrote for Food Fanatic said, “I’d really like you to help me too.” And so, we launched six websites in June 2015. Initially, the idea was that this would be a bonus for people who write for Food Fanatic because we couldn’t pay them a ton for their content but making a little mini ad network made us stronger together. 

We looked at all our experience with different ad companies and said, what’s the 180 of that? And that drove many of our purposeful decisions after we accidentally started an ad company. 

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging at Mediavine

YY: What specific diversity and inclusion initiatives is your company implementing, and how does your role as Chief Brand Officer contribute to these efforts?

AB: From our first efforts at influencer marketing and programmatic advertising, one of the primary directives that we decided on was to make sure that we put diverse voices in front of brands whenever we were doing an influencer campaign. We also work hard to make sure that everyone in a campaign is making an equitable amount of money for their rate of engagement, including increasing their rate when it makes sense for industry trends within the budget. 

In the last few years, SSPS and DSPs came to us looking for the ability to take earmarked budgets and apply them to Black-owned, women-owned, or LGBTQIA+- owned publishers. We moved very quickly to ensure our publishers could self-identify in their dashboards if they wanted to. It provided us with key values we can pass in the ad string and grab those budgets for the publishers that can benefit from them. A huge percentage of those budgets are run through Mediavine pipes, and that’s incredibly important to us. 

You will see us talk about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEI&B) a lot more soon under the banner of our corporate responsibility arm, which we call Shine. Shine was launched in 2021, but started as an idea from a travel publisher in 2020, during the height of the pandemic. From a publisher and an ad partner perspective, we have some new initiatives you will hear about shortly. On the People Operations side of our company, we have always focused on making inclusive and diverse hires. Still, it’s been an especially large focus for our Chief People and Culture Officer, Yolanda Evans, to ensure that we are hiring in a way that provides equity to diverse communities. We post our jobs in places where someone might not normally expect us to.

We also have an employee resource group called PRISM, which our People Operations team also runs. PRISM is currently working on bringing in speakers for Women’s History Month. We had several speakers and an employee-led panel about the Black experience in the tech industry and at Mediavine in general, with even a little bit of constructive criticism, which was awesome because there’s always stuff we can do better. So are we behind some diversity efforts? The answer is a resounding yes. 

The post Leading With Empathy, Women’s History Month Q&A With Mediavine Co-founder Amber Bracegirdle appeared first on AdMonsters.