There Should Be More Diversity In Public Relations & Litigation
Remember when Pepsi had that tone-deaf ad with Kendall Jenner? I remember seeing that commercial and wondered if more diversity could have prevented that from happening. That being said, I think that there is still so much diversity lacking in public relations and litigation fields, especially when it comes to crisis communications. Even the PRSA has admitted that the industry lacks in diversity.
Why do we need diversity?
Whenever I think about public relations, there is a type of person in public relations that is very rarely seen. So, whenever I am tasked to do a strategic communications plan for a client, I always try to add my diverse voice so that it matches with what the client wants. For example, I did a strategic communications plan for CVS for a class project. My main goal was to reach all the audiences that CVS tries to cater to. My vision for the creative materials included adding diverse voices. What I'm trying to say is that we need diversity in order to have a clear picture of what the world or at least what our client's world is like.
My favorite brand is Coca-Cola because of their diverse strategies. In fact, I don't really drink soda that much but I love seeing a Coca-Cola ad. I think they do a great job in appealing to diversity because their audiences are actually diverse. Almost everyone has had a soda before, right? However, when we see ourselves in PR campaigns, I think we're much more likely to gravitate to that brand. When Coca-Cola realized this and started doing it, I gravitated more towards them than Pepsi.
Diversity Is The Future
Long gone are the days where we could package up our PR into pretty little boxes for mass consumption. No, we need diverse voices for diverse viewpoints. Going back to the Pepsi example, I think it could have been avoided if there were more diverse voices at the table to give their opinion. In times of crisis, it is so important to have diversity, especially when it comes down to a lawsuit. Having diverse voices gives brands the opportunity to come up with even better responses.
Many brands are global brands these days, which means even more voices. I remember when I was working at NBCUniversal (Bravo and Oxygen sector) and I sat in on a programming meeting that was meant for African American audiences. The thing is that even though that big conference room was packed with people, there were perhaps three or four employees in the meeting who were African American. I can only guess that many programming meetings are similar when it comes to channels such as BET or VH1, which have heavily skewed AA programming. However, taping into these audiences could be a lot easier if there was more diversity in the people who make the decisions.
At the end of the day, I believe diversity really adds to a company. However, in my opinion, some of these PR environments don't lend themselves to welcoming diversity. The truth is that diversity is a very good thing for companies because it provides them with more creativity in the decision-making process. It's such a shame that two powerful fields such as PR and litigation can't garner the inclusivity that it needs to become even more powerful. Clients are starting to realize that their audiences are diverse, so maybe we should start working on including more voices as well.
Read more of what Harvard Business Review had to say: PR Agencies Need To Be More Diverse
Visit the Walden PR Blog for more public relations and crisis communications content.