I currently work in two industries, technology and advertising, where I believe there is a strong appetite for diversity, but where there are also old habits that hold back progress. As Google's CMO, I know it's my job to help change this reality.
► Last year, I shared some of our learnings . Since then, we’ve made significant cash app database progress, but, like many in the industry, our journey is ongoing.
Let’s take our creative work as an example. Based on the creative reviews we’ve done over the past year, I’ve seen more diversity in our casts.
There was some truth to this. For a while, we audited our work through manual reviews and machine learning .
►The age of the people appearing in our ads increasingly reflects the general population.
►And 23% of our American ad consumers are black.
But I wasn’t looking at the bigger picture . It turns out we were mostly casting lighter-skinned people and a disproportionate number of interracial couples. Even as we began to include more skin tones, we were often doing so in stereotypical roles. One in three depictions of black people was limited to dance, music or sports.
We must look beyond the physical. Identity has nuances. There is diversity within diversity.
I realized that we had been looking at diversity only through the broadest categories : women, LGBTQ, black, Latinx, etc. But you have to look beyond the physical. Identity is nuanced. There is diversity within diversity.
To fix this, we need to change habits. But can this be achieved on a large scale? How do we change the habits of our teams and agencies? We still have a lot to learn, but there are nine practical tips that we find useful:
►1. Make sure everyone feels responsible
Too often, we relied on women and people of color to point out diversity issues they identified in our work. But this can’t be up to them alone. Now, our core diversity team is made up of senior leaders, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. And we made it their responsibility to correct their personal biases.
