Welcome to the last episode of the Collective Content podcast’s How to choose a content agency series. In the final episode, our hosts Daine Lindsay and Collective Content MD Tony Hallett are joined by Collective Content marketing and content executive Zoe McNeill and former senior content manager Emma Davies, to talk about the importance of understanding, identifying and championing diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in content marketing. For even more insights and advice covering everything discussed over the course of this series, check out the full Collective Content How to choose a content agency guide, available here.

 

Episode Transcript

[Opening music]

One, two, three. Oh.

Daine: Hello and welcome to the last episode of our How to choose a content agency series episode seven ‒ DEIB. I’m once again joined by two great guests to help companies choose the next agency wisely. We have both from Collective Content, Zoe McNeill marketing and content executive, and Emma Davies, Senior Content Manager, to dive into the more important matter of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in content marketing.

And if you want to get your hands on more expert advice on this subject, then please check out the full Collective Content How to choose a content agency guide, available on our website ‒ link in the description.

But right now, joining us once again is my co-host, Collective Content managing director Tony Hallett. Hi, Tony.

Tony: Hey there Daine.

Daine: So, Tony, why is DEIB such a big thing in agency land?

Tony: Yeah, good question. Well, it’s a big thing in all kinds of lands, I think, these days across all kinds of businesses all over the world. I think especially for agencies and their clients. For clients, it’s about integrity in their supply chain. Agencies are another supplier. So, you want an organisation that’s going to match up with the DEIB prerequisites that you have.

It’s also about having a good match between both organisations. So feeling that that your ethics and other elements are closely aligned. And then also in a creative field that most agencies are in, you want to feel that if you’ve got the right diversity of people in every sense, then ideally you’re going to have a diversity of thinking and therefore better output and better results.

So that’s my opening statement Daine.

Daine: Thanks Tony. Emma, anything to add to that? How do you see DEIB?

Emma: I think that it’s been something that we’ve seen a rise of in recent times because we had quite a few cultural moments that happened in lockdown where people realised that their employers weren’t doing enough to make people feel included in workplaces.

I think diversity on its own has been bandied around for quite a while, but not the equity, inclusion or belonging aspects which – with the influx of Gen Z into the workforce – has become very apparent that it’s top of everyone’s agendas. And with the competitive nature of agency businesses, employers really have to start looking at themselves and asking difficult questions.

How well has their track record been? You know, often agencies have a reputation for being quite difficult places to work, sometimes quite toxic and I think now is, I would say, a cultural moment where people have realised that something needs to change.

Daine: Thanks, Emma. So Zoe, what would be your viewpoint on DEIB?

Zoe: Oh, I’m in firm agreement with Tony there.

DEIB is important everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. And of course, with the introduction of Gen Z and the increased social consciousness that’s been developing, it is becoming more and more important. To build on something that Emma said as well, agency-land is very competitive, which means that whenever you are choosing an agency now, you can choose one that aligns with your values as well as one that is going to create the level of content that you want.

As such, being able to choose someone that mirrors your own thoughts and feelings on those topics is making it a lot more prevalent an issue for different agencies.

Daine: And when looking for that, what do agencies getting DEIB right look like? Tony?

Tony: My natural tendency is to say that is something that you know it when you see it and work with it, but you can’t always say in advance what it is.

And that I think that’s a bit more of a controversial opinion these days because this is an area that’s matured just in the last few years. You’ve got things like B-Corp status where a lot of organisations, especially smaller ones, are saying, “we have that badge. We’ve satisfied a number of things,” and it goes wider than DEIB. And there are before I say anything more, there are many, many great organisations, including agencies, and we know many of them who have been qualified and it’s a difficult route to go down and it, you know, it gets people to a good place.

However, my feeling on this is that sometimes you can say all the right things. You can have all the right policies, all the right badges, all the right accreditation, and you still don’t walk the walk. So, to me, it’s about getting to know an organisation. And in previous episodes we’ve talked about the work you do up front to choose an agency – the initial meetings, the chemistry sessions, onboarding, where a lot of this is actually now in writing and things like a Master Services agreement, so you have to adhere to certain standards and you get asked about things like being a minority owned business or certain other criteria. So this is flagged all the way through and you get some sense of that. But until you see how an agency works with you, you don’t really know for sure if they are really living up to high DEIB standards.

Daine: And how do you suppose companies find this? Emma?

Emma: So I think it’s a mixture of, for example, who you meet when you initially either put a pitch out for an agency or have the initial chemistry meeting. Who are the people who are you talking to originally and then who is working on your account? I think that often produces some interesting insights.

And, you know, there’s obviously aspects like the agency’s social media, not just how do they want to be seen, but what are they saying? You know, what’s on their website? As Tony mentioned or alluded to, sometimes it’s hard to decipher what people say and what people do. So really having a good look at not only what they say from a sort of marketing point of view themselves, but the work that they’re doing.

Are they doing anything interesting in this space with their clients? From a content point of view, it’s very important for a business to be authentic about this stuff. So having a good idea of the kind of clients they work with and the work that’s currently going on and if there’s any sort of crossover with these issues is also another way that you could potentially find out how clued up they are on the issues.

Tony: And I feel like we’re in a lucky space because we’re in the content space. Some agencies, for example, are very backend oriented. So, if you’re a WordPress specialist, you approach DEIB in a certain different way where the output of your work doesn’t necessarily show anything. We’ve talked, and this is something we’re going to be implementing very soon, is that whenever for example, we work on video with our clients, always offering a signed version of that video, which if we think about it, I think is just makes complete sense and we know it’s an extra cost and there’s some overhead.

But the kind of clients we have who have very mature and sophisticated positions on areas like DEIB, I think it’s a no brainer in this day and age. Why wouldn’t we allow for the hard of hearing by offering something so simple and obvious when it comes to one format of content?

Daine: Zoe, anything to add?

Zoe: So obviously socials are a great way of getting in touch which that personality of the agency. Who is in charge of their socials, what are they posting about? Are they celebrating Eid? Are they celebrating just Judeo-Christian holidays? Are they clued-up on different social movements that are happening at the minute? Another great way of research is looking to see if they have an equality policy somewhere on their website and how they’re embracing different ideas of diversity because that particular term is growing each and every month.

So originally, of course those people with different ethnic backgrounds, but now is also including those that are not neurotypical, those who have disabilities, those who have different economic backgrounds. It’s a widening term and are they doing anything to address that – or is this just a ticking box exercise for them? I think judging how close they are to the cutting edge on that shows, how important it is to them as a topic.

Daine: Excellent. And Tony, what other elements specific to the content team reveal its stance on DEIB?

Tony: So I think I already mentioned the idea of in the type of content you’re putting out yourself and for your clients – does it in any way represent diverse voices, diverse imagery? I mean, it is content, right? So there are things more important than imagery, but is there still absolutely a necessary variable in everything that we produce.

It’s also to do with who else we’re working with. So we’re really open. A big value of ours is being transparent about the in-house team and any freelancers or other suppliers we work with on any given project and piece of work. So when we’re bringing in other people, who are we bringing in and why, and we get the best results by having really good people to turn to.

So this is a quite big shout out to all our freelancers and all the small businesses we work with. And it’s in – we did an audit the other day – and it’s in about a dozen different areas. It’s not just writers or designers, it’s lots of different types of people. So we can value and really call on that diversity from people all around the world with different backgrounds.

And that’s something which again, when you’re hiring an agency, ask about it. It’s no reason not to ask about that, but for some reason most people don’t. So we’re saying, please do check that out.

Daine: Zoe, anything from you?

Zoe: Yeah. So there are certain accessibility elements as well that have really helped promote the DEIB status of the company, at least in my mind.

Things like alternative text on images. Things like colour contrast, so the content can be enjoyed by those that are colourblind. Even the simplification of certain phrases so that those who have English as a second language can also enjoy it, or particular fonts that help dyslexic folks to access. There’s a whole range of tools and techniques out there that can really extend the audience for your content, but also make it easier for folks to access it.

Daine: Emma, any other points for that?

Emma: I would say ask about turnover of staff, and I think that’s a really good indication of how a lot of factors around that would crossover with DEIB.

Tony: So what you mean by that is if you’re not doing what you should be doing, you’re going to have a higher turnover. People aren’t going to feel at home and comfortable to operate how they should be operating.

Emma: Yes, that’s yeah, that’s exactly right.

Tony: I’m glad I clarified. Thank you.

[Sound break]

Daine: What could a team’s workforce really say about them, Zoe?

Zoe: Very obviously, the idea of transparency comes forward quite a bit, knowing exactly who’s writing for you. I think it’s a very good sign that the company has nothing to hide. They are happy for you to have direct contact with your writer, with your editor – with your content creator. Another thing that I would look for is age of the various different folks in the agency.

Obviously, those that are of an older generation certainly for more experience to the table, but typically those that are in a younger generation have higher expectations when it comes to DEIB and are more willing to voice that. They’re not so used to the way things have been, so to speak.

Tony: There’s another, there’s a really good one Daine, that we’ve talked about internally, but not externally as much as we should have over the past few years. Zoe touched on age and most people who have had kids tend to be I mean, obviously, obviously people in their twenties have kids, but people in their thirties and forties.

The biggest, biggest kind of screw up the industry’s ever made is not hiring returning mums to work. And so this is normally women in their thirties and forties who have maybe been out of the workforce for 5 to 10 years and were absolutely brilliant before they left to have kids. And yeah, why does anyone think they’re not brilliant now?

And the thing that we’ve found the magic formula is that the, the way that you go about valuing those returning mums is actually brilliant too if you’re a dad or if you don’t have kids. The way that you set that up works for everyone. The kind of flexibility around work, etc.

So definitely look at the gender balances within companies and, and look at not just in aggregate but at the top level as well. It’s quite common these days to find that agency for example, that’s majority non-male, but the top team is still a bunch of middle aged men.

Daine: So Tony, what does the agency’s DEIB mean for the job that the client is hiring them for?

Tony: That’s all about aligning where a client is, and how the client sees the world with the way an agency does as well.

So if you are entrusting an agency with things like your tone of voice and your values, you want to feel like it’s a real proper sort of meeting of similar thinking organisations. So, you absolutely want an agency that has a diversity of thinking and will get better results, but you want to feel like you’re properly matched.

That’s probably how I best describe that. That meeting of DEIB.

Emma: I think it depends on the maturity of the client’s knowledge around the area. For example, through some of our clients, we have access to pioneers in senior parts of global organisations that are at the very forefront of doing right by the people basically.

But another client may not know exactly what good looks like, or what the innovators are doing. And we are a sort of intermediary in that sense in that, obviously without revealing anything from client to client, but we have a pooled knowledge of what the best people are doing and maybe conversely, who is lagging behind.

So in that way, we can act as consultants and advisors to help influence policy as well as how it’s communicated.

Daine: Zoe, do you have anything to add to that?

Zoe: Tiny little note specifically in the idea of reaching across different regions with your content, having someone who is local to that region to look over your content and ensure that it’s going to hit the right points with the audiences that you want, not only brings that quality level up, but it’s also a very key marker of the DEIB topics that we’re talking about here. Specifically the idea of translation versus transcreation and whether or not something still scans.

So it’s not just a social and just generally good thing to be doing. It is going to increase quality of the content.

[Sound break]

Daine: So, Emma, most clients have their own DEIB policies and views on ESG. How should things line up with an agency’s position?

Emma: I think that how a company rolls out its DEIB policy varies from business to business. For example, it might be the responsibility of an ESG leader who hasn’t got joint communication with, say, the communications department. So you could get a situation where two businesses, two departments are working, siloed between the two. And you wouldn’t necessarily know how to deal with that if you didn’t have an intermediary that had witnessed that sort of thing before and could spot the gaps. So I think that maybe that’s the advantage of involving a sort of non-partisan external agency to at least run things by.

And an independent agency that can look at how you’re doing things and crucially how you’re communicating that can spot the gaps. And can show you how you can easily tweak it to improve how it’s received by target personas and really sense check what you’re saying with a nonpolitical hat on. You know, we’re not investors, we’re not employees, we’re not other interested parties. We’re just people that want you to communicate what you’re doing authentically and to challenge you where it falls short. And I think really that is the strength of involving an external agency in something like your DEIB comms on an ongoing basis. It’s not a set and forget thing. It’s not something you can do once and come around again to the annual review. It constantly needs iteration and refining and really that’s something that if you had an agency on retainer looking at that, that would ensure that things didn’t fall through the net or you didn’t put yourself at some sort of risk later on.

Daine: Zoe?

Zoe: Yeah! So obviously DEIB is a legal requirement for many big companies, but the policies that they follow and the terms that they have set in place aren’t a catch-all. They’re not going to even apply most of the time to smaller agencies and that freelancers and folks that they bring on for the likes of flexibility.

We very recently went to a cyber security meet where there was a very interesting talk on neurodivergence in cyber security and why that was helpful. But something that I picked up from that was the idea of financial background as a DEIB concern. It’s something that I never twigged before, but it struck me that that was something that agencies and companies could do a lot more of – is simply looking out for what is great in other people’s policies and how that can be adapted into your own.

Surely to increase that sort of flexibility, that diversity, that breadth of knowledge and experience, just in ways that you might not have considered before?

Tony: Yeah, I love that. I love what Zoe said and what we’ve heard from Emma there, and the idea of working out from other people’s policies and other people’s experience, all the ways that we should think about this. This is just about people, right? And that there are all kinds of people, and this is not about slicing and dicing things and thinking about people in four or five different ways. There are dozens of ways. But this shouldn’t be scary or new to any of us. This is just people that we encounter and work with everyday, hopefully in our lives in some way and in the world. So just bringing all of that into an organisation is so powerful and will lead to a better agency and better results for clients, I’m absolutely convinced.

And then Emma’s point about essentially agency being a trusted advisor because we work with multiple clients and we get to see very closely what different people are doing. We can bring some of the best of that to our other clients.

So do ask agencies for what they see, what they think works.

The last separate thing I’d say about this is, I think for the first time we mentioned ESG and the idea that when it comes to environmental, social and governance issues, there’s a lot of mandating that especially large companies have and a lot of the way the policies are set up, it’s large companies doing paperwork with other large companies.
So again, I think we touched on this session around how smaller businesses, and a lot of agencies are smaller, aren’t going to be able to satisfy every single criteria, but do make a communication and see what can be done.

We as a rule, don’t go out and audit all our suppliers because it’s slightly ridiculous for us to go to some of the biggest companies in the world and say “we’re going to audit you.” We wouldn’t have the capability, we don’t have the knowhow, but those companies generally are very well – they’re a bit more of an open book on a lot of the things they do. So it’s there’s a lot there to consider, but there’s equally some really practical things I think Zoe and Emma have touched on. And that’s what encourages me.

Multiple voices: This is the Collective Content podcast

Daine: So, as we wrap up, I’d like to thank both our guests today, Emma and Zoe, it’s been wonderful. And thank you to you too, Tony.

Tony: Thanks everyone.

Zoe: Thanks for having us.

Emma: Thank you.

Daine: Thanks. Is it’s been great chatting with all of you and defining the role DEIB plays in the company’s choice of content agency.

And a huge thanks to everyone that’s joined us for this podcast series – every guest and every listener. We’ve really enjoyed making these and look forward to bringing you more in the future. So join us in 2024 for more CC podcasts. But in the meantime, you can also get such quality insight of Collective Content How to choose a content agency guide on our website. Link’s in the description. Check it out and let us know your thoughts on Twitter/X and LinkedIn.

So until next time, take care.