Channing Martin, IPG’s Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer and Bonnie Smith, SVP and head of ViVi, Jack Morton’s diversity-driven, inclusive marketing practice, join CI Conversations host Jennifer Sain to discuss using DE&I to transform organizational cultures, communities and societies, starting with challenging the way we work together.
For more marketing insights and ideas, please subscribe to this podcast or visit intelligence. interpublic.com.
For updates on CI’s podcasts and Thought Leadership, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram and subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
Channing Martin, IPG’s Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer and Bonnie Smith, SVP and head of ViVi, Jack Morton’s diversity-driven, inclusive marketing practice, join CI Conversations host Jennifer Sain to discuss using DE&I to transform organizational cultures, communities and societies, starting with challenging the way we work together.
For more marketing insights and ideas, please subscribe to this podcast or visit intelligence. interpublic.com.
For updates on CI’s podcasts and Thought Leadership, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram and subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
Intro [00:00:01] Welcome to the Collective Intelligence podcast from IPG. We deliver marketing insights that help modern brands thrive. In this episode, you'll hear about the latest perspectives featured at intelligence.interpublic.com. Listen, then log on to find new opportunities for your brand to stand out.
Jen (Host) [00:00:22]: Hello and welcome to the Collective Intelligence Podcast. I'm your host Jen Sain, and I am thrilled to welcome Channing Martin and Bonnie Smith as guests on the first episode of CI Conversations for the New Year. Um, it would be great if you could each introduce yourselves. Channing, why don't you start.
Channing Martin [00:00:41]: Hello everybody. I'm very happy to be here. I'm Channing Martin. I am IPGs Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer, and I just got here in June of 2022, so I'm excited to be here today.
Jen Sain Host [00:00:54]: Welcome. Bonnie. Would you introduce yourself?
Bonnie Smith[00:00:57]: Hi everyone. It's really nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having me on this. I'm very excited to be here with Channing and IPG. My name is Bonnie Smith. I am the SVP of and head of Vivi. Our diversity driven inclusive marketing practice at Jack Morton and uh, what we do here is we celebrate the intersectionality of women with an unsurpassed expertise on women of color.
Jen Sain Host [00:01:21]: Thank you both. Um, and actually before we dive into our discussion today, I do wanna let our listeners know that Channing will be a recurring guest on the Collective Intelligence Podcast to talk about the DEIB work at IPG as well as in our agencies and the industry at large. Um, she'll also cover social happenings and trends and the cultural shifts shaping that work. So do keep an eye out or an ear, as it were, um, for those episodes. I'm really excited for that. Yeah. All right. Let's get to it. Bonnie, I would love to start with you. Can you tell our listeners what's Vivi's origin story?
Bonnie Smith [00:01:57]: So this is actually really exciting for me personally, but I, but I'm hoping it's exciting for other people. It's a bit of a reunion story actually. So I left Jack Morton, I used to work here, and I left Jack Morton to start my own agency that focused on diverse experience work. And it was just time, as we all know, to really put the impact behind the words that we were saying and amplify it on a larger scale. So we had a long-standing relationship, you know, having worked here at the organization, relationship with leadership, but more importantly, it was a shared vision for what Vivi stands for to bring Vivi to life. And that's really about celebrating women of all identities and all the identities that they claim.
Jen Sain Host [00:02:41]: Fascinating. So the work that Vivi does, do you see that kind of filling any needs or, or gaps in the industry?
Bonnie Smith [00:02:50]: A lot. . Where do I start. Um, let's start with a question I actually posed to our clients, which I think [00:03:00] is very powerful and uh, I'll pose it to us here. Could you imagine or can you imagine ignoring a 5 trillion market whose needs have gone largely unmet? And the answer is no. The answer is no for a lot of us or any marketer, right? Can't ignore it. They shouldn't ignore it. So we fill the gap because we believe the representation has many layers right to it. It's not just looking at a group of people by race or country of origin or age. And so we combine our thinking. In a way to approach that in a brand experience. So fulfilling the gap for the most powerful consumer who support powerful buyers in in America.
Jen Sain Host [00:03:45]: Wow. That is a powerful answer to a powerful question. And kind of building off of that imperative to reach this huge audience, this diverse audience, what are some of the challenges or maybe even problems that Vivi addresses?
Bonnie Smith [00:04:00]: A lot of questions that we got when we first launched Vivi was why isn't this just a multicultural practice? And I think I answered part of that in the last question, but at the end of the day, it's, it's growth. So the way that we think, the way that we approach things through brand experience versus another medium is really to help our clients build that meaningful relationship. So problems that are being solved for are for the nuances that exist between women and women of color. So there's not one individual problem that we're solving for. At the end of the day, every brand and every business is trying to grow, and you need to grow internally and externally. So what we say is that if you don't have a diversity strategy, you don't have a growth strategy.
Jen Sain Host [00:04:50]: Channing, as someone who is fairly new to the IPG family, what did you think of when you first heard of Vivi? What stood out for you?
Channing Martin [00:05:00]: There were quite a few things. I mean, I think just listening to the origin story and as Bonnie is sharing, it's super exciting, right? Even that intersection [00:05:00] between women and women and women of color is just, you know, these are the consumers. Women drive decision making, right? And households. And so the idea or concept that we would segment people into different markets based on their race and ethnicity and identity, as if they aren't who the market is and, in totality. Just, it just doesn't make sense to me. And so, um, I think I'm excited by the, the myth busting and kind of nature of Vivi, which is super exciting, but also by, I think this incredible leader in the industry, right?A boomerang that obviously in itself means something really powerful about IPG and Jack Morton, which is always exciting when I hear about a boomerang, that is excited to take an area that's relatively unknown and, and make something out of it really powerful. So I think it speaks to, I think, Bonnie's experience in leadership and it also speaks to the culture of Jack Morton, and that's, that's exciting. As a new person to IPG, you wanna fully understand the employer brand that agencies have to offer. And this is part of that story.
Bonnie Smith [00:06:17]: Can I actually add something to that? Cuz I, I love what Channing said about the myth busting, right? It's, that is the what, what is the new general market? Why are we still even using that terminology? There are so many different identities and cross intersections of how people identify and what they look like and who they are and what's important to them. So that's the myth busting part. , but even more so, I think a lot of people within the agency or even our clients, we need to get them to understand it's not just a consumer. It's not just quote unquote mom going to the supermarket. Right? These are caregivers. So we're thinking about health. These are patients, we are entrepreneurs. We're driving business forward. So you think about our financial clients, like it's all of that myth busting to say, yes, we can look at Vivi as a way to solve business challenges for consumers. But it's more than that. It's, it is the, the caregivers, the entrepreneurs, the consumers, the trendsetters, et cetera. And when we say we focus on women of color, so going back to Channing was saying about that focus, is that because she's one in five Americans, we are focused in the US But that's a myth in itself to a lot of people. But that's the reality of where we are today.
Jen Sain Host [00:07:27]: So as we're looking to kind of. You know, myth bust. I, I love that terminology too, you know, on to, to really speak to the consumer, the person with a lens of, you know, intersectionality and the nuance of the individual in doing this work. We have talked in previous conversations, and I, you've both identified that to do that in our industry and in what, you know, we bring to the table that you need authentic and actionable DEIB practices within the organization. Channing, can you talk about what that looks like at IPG? Authentic, actionable work?
Channing Martin [00:08:05]: Yeah. And I love this question because I think oftentimes we talk a lot about this work and it's very theoretical, or it's so expansive in large that it's not pragmatic, right? And so I really like to, to take a pragmatic approach to what that looks. And as we've said, I just got here, but it's been exciting to see all of the work that IPG has done for the past decade. Right. Being a leader in this space, from everything from transparency to leadership accountability to groundbreaking programs, and then embedding this, you know, DEIB into, into the work, I think is the next frontier where we're headed. I'd say. You know, my approach to leading this work is really about operationalizing equity and really thinking beyond putting equity at the center of our talent practices, but really at the center of our business. I don't think it's, until we think about DEIB[00:09:00] as a part of the way we operate, that will really transform not only our organizational cultures, the way we work together, but the work we produce. Which ends up really transforming communities and societies because again, what we do is that we create connections with consumers and people around the world. We change behavior every day. And so the idea that we can do that by centering equity in our practices is really powerful. And I, and there are few ways to do that because they think hearing centering equity seems like a really large task. So I think there are a couple things. One. You know, we have the opportunity to use our creativity and out of the box thinking to redesign old systems. And so that's one way. And it doesn't have to be every system. It can be one system. It could be something like design your workforce for single parents, create your culture, your workplace, your hiring practices, your benefits packages for single parents, and you will transform the way your organization thinks about how it treats. Uh, its people. That's one small example about centering people that are either on the margins or the way we think about in the market as a segment, as the center. Another way is always asking the question who's being excluded and why. And I think that Vivi was created to answer that question, right, that it's been designed to do that. So we can do that, not just again, and who's being promoted or who's being hired or, but who's being brought into the pitch, who's reviewing the creative, but also who's leading accounts of a certain size, who's in the room when decisions are being made, and whose voice isn't being presented in this work, I think are some practical ways to think about approaching equity.
Jen Sain Host [00:10:58]: Yeah, and certainly, you know, that takes on, you know, that that's words of wisdom for any business and certainly really tackles the, the holding company level and with also tremendous implication for the agency level. Bonnie, do you have anything to add to that? You know, to kind of just add onto what Channing was saying in general or anything that agency specific that you'd like to mention?
Bonnie Smith [00:11:20]: Well, I think you said almost all of it, Channing. It's so, it's so great. I mean, these are, these are principles that need to be adopted everywhere. I guess where I would add is that, you know, Vivi, Vivi aside, what we see is a lot of this work being done in internally with people as it relates to. Talent acquisition or recruitment or retention, which are things, yes, we can help advise on, especially we have some of the best agencies and you know, in the world here to do that. But it's not just about that. We are creative agencies, we're agencies that do work that impact people's lives every single day, and that excites people. So if we are operationalizing DEI, it needs to go both. So people are getting, we've opened up new conversations and gotten people really excited just by Vivi being an opportunity to work on different type of work where someone can see themselves in the work. And imagine how powerful that is to be able to look and give a piece of work, a lens that someone else may not be able to because they've never even lived that experience before. So, you know, we're changing mindset with our colleagues, with our leaders. We're also changing the work for all the other people that we're trying to touch because we genuinely care about the communities that we serve.
Jen Sain Host [00:12:44]: You know, speaking of that, is there anything that you are telling your clients or that you know, Bonnie and then Channing that, you know, you would tell a client to kind of distill it down to real actionable work that they can do or, or advising them about what they should be doing to reach a diverse.
Channing Martin [00:13:01]: That's a really good question. You know, I find that a lot of our, our clients, we really are, are lucky that they're just as committed to this work as we are. You know, one thing I would say is that real partnership can exist between us and our clients around identifying what are a smaller set of, of shared goals. I think we can operate with more specificity and in. To really make an impact. We are aligned on so many areas, right, across so many different communities, and the needs can feel endless, but I think if we start to narrow the focus and really commit to kind of a, a set timeframe, right, over the next three to five years, what are we really trying to impact as we look at the market trends, as we look at communities, as we look at consumers for this type of service or product that we're supporting our clients’ market? What do we really wanna do? Is it economic empowerment around Hispanic women, particular in, particularly in the US. You know, is it thinking differently [00:14:00] about the global majority of people in the world? Right. You know, something that was really interesting, I learned that I suspected, but the largest underrepresented group of people globally are people living with disabilities. And part of the uniqueness of that group is that you can enter or join that group at any time in your life. Right? That is so powerful. I don't, I don't know that brands really understand the power of that consumer, of that person or of the family member, partner, daughter, son, friend of that person, right? And so I think if we really come together to talk about our priorities and commit to a smaller set of shared goals, we could move a lot faster.
Bonnie Smith [00:14:48]: I have to say something cuz you brought up this, talking about ability is so important because you said this earlier, it thinking about who's being left out of the conversation. So one of the most important things to me in what caught me when you said that is one of the largest globally unrepresented groups, but now is this person, this, do they identify what pronoun do they use? What's their ethnic background? . You know, we have to think about what's their age, what are all the ways in which they identify, but what are also all the ways in which they are not being given equitable opportunities. So if we're gonna consult with our clients, we have to also look at those nuances, and it is a space that we, we don't talk about often yet it's impacting the lives of so many people.
Channing Martin [00:15:50]: You know what's so great about IPG is that we are doing this work, right? And, and I don't know, then I can say that we're doing it right every day, but we're putting in the investment and time to do something. And if we don't, you know, there are plenty other consultants that will, and so, I mean, I think as in as a network of, you know, agencies that can meet the need of any client. Or any brand having offerings like Vivi or the the many other types of offerings that we will, I'm sure over time, Jennifer, talk about on this podcast, I think it's really important to share. It's important for our existing clients to know, and it's important for new clients to know and understand as well that we are here with diverse talent that's at the table that wanna. They wanna work with clients that wanna commit to telling authentic stories that wanna reach people, um, where they are, wherever that is, and be honest and real about the experiences reflected in the work.
Bonnie Smith [00:16:57]: A absolutely. And, oh, sorry. I was just gonna say, just to, to build on what Channing was saying, we have to ask our clients why first.Why do you want to do work that is servicing or for why are you designing a brand or a product for a subset of people? Why? Is it transformational? Is it financial? What's your gain? What's their gain? What are those benefits? Because a lot of it is financial, and I mean, I did say it in the beginning, it's a 5 trillion dollar opportunity, but we talk about the needs that are going unmet. So the consultation really comes into the why. , and then how are you gonna do that? So then it's authentic and it's real, because if you're not interested in that, then there's no point in having continuing conversation. It has to make the positive impact. It has to actually meet the needs of the people that they, that they're trying to serve and build for.
Jen Sain Host [00:17:44]: Yeah. And one thing, you know, Channing that I I wanna circle back with is that, you know, you had said, you know, on the IPG level that we might not be doing the work perfectly every day. And I, I just wonder how much of a barrier that is that, you know, sometimes. People kind of get hamstrung on the fact that, you know, they need to do it perfectly or it remains like this, you know, philosophical goal, but then, you know, somehow can't get started to do actionable steps to get there. I mean, has that been more of a problem in the past? Did you feel that more, um, companies, more clients are getting past that, you know, desire to do it, but not knowing how, do you, or do you see that increasing? Or do you still think that's a barrier?
Channing Martin [00:18:29]: I still think it exists. I don't know if I'll call it a barrier, but I think sometimes it's an excuse.I think that sometimes it's, it's a fear, right? That's being, you know, fear that's being masked as you know, I don't wanna say or do the wrong thing. I think in a lot of instances it's coming from an authentic place because you don't wanna say or do the wrong thing. I don't wanna say or do the wrong. , but if we don't do anything, there's no movement, there's no momentum, and so I think we all have to open up a certain [00:19:00] level of grace and have a certain amount of patience with one another. I think part of the growing journey for anybody that is really committed to evolving their understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is making mistakes. I think that's how you learn. I could imagine that you know. Bonnie has seen this in the business time and time again. I'm sure some of the best marketers and CMOs have made really horrible mistakes in their career, and without doing that and learning from them, they wouldn't be the best of the best in the business. So I think it doesn't have to be an impediment, but we do need to create environments where people can make mistakes and learn from them. I counsel people all the time in private who wanna talk about something that's really difficult or something they said, or did that might be embarrassing for them. And you know, it's my job to create a space for them to work with them through that because it, it happens and it's going to happen. So what I see as an impediment currently is more of a fatigue than a fear around [00:20:00] not saying or doing the right thing. I think that we've just entered a season of diversity fatigue, not just DEI practitioners, but I think a lot of people every. Whether it's, they're tired of being the crusader at home or on the dinner table around why inclusion and equity is so important, or it's living in a world with constant news and information about really horrible things happening, or dealing with the pandemic still, you know, three years later. So I think that there is this fatigue to which I say, I think understanding the gravity of inequity and prejudice that exists globally is that massive. And I think the evidence of the fatigue kind of shows us like, wow, okay, this is, this is really this big, this challenge is that big. And it is. It is that big.
Bonnie Smith [00:21:00]: Which is why it's so important to operationalize it . So it is a natural part of our everyday business. And it doesn't feel like it has to be hard work for somebody or if it doesn't impact you directly, that you shouldn't be a part of it.
Channing Martin [00:21:12]: Exactly.
Jen Sain Host [00:21:15]: Is measurement a big part of operationalizing it? And if so, um, how does an agency or company go about doing that?
Bonnie Smith [00:21:21]: I have some ideas and thoughts. You know, I can't, I, that is not, uh, the discipline that I am managing and leading, but I, I surely am a part of consulting in that. One big area for me is around holding everyone accountable at every level. We always talk about leadership, but we don't talk about the managers who are actually managing people.So, we need to work on how we are going to measure that in a fair and equitable way, but holding managers accountable for the development and championing their direct reports because those are the folks who are on a day-to-day creating the environments and the cultures that we're, that we're working on, right? Creating the teams.And so how can we do better as managers as well? That would be one way in my.
Channing Martin [00:22:10]: And I think on the agency side, right, because I think Vivi is, you know, the start of something, you know, even bigger where there'll, there will be practices, I think across IPG and other landscapes. I think we have to figure out what, what are the measurement tools to measure communities and consumers that maybe we typically haven't been measuring. right? What's the real return on investment? And so I don't know what that is, but I think we'll find out. And I'm sure over time Bonnie and her team will develop what that, what that looks like. But it's a question I hear quite often is how do we measure, right, consumer behavior or the impact of this campaign, or bringing these people to the table compared to the way we've traditionally done business. This is the redesigning and rethinking old. Is we need to create new systems which require new systems of measurement to measure effectiveness. So I'm, I don't have all the answers to that. I'm excited about what that could look like in the future. We can talk about measuring the effectiveness of DEI programs and, and our agencies all day. But I think the work that we put out, you know, there are some spaces across IPG that are putting together really interesting tools to measure that and so maybe we'll get to talk about that in the future.
Bonnie Smith [00:23:25]: I think we have to remember. This is the long game. So this is the result of systemic issues. This is the result of a very long, long journey that we've been on. So we can't expect that the measure is going to be something that we see tomorrow in a couple of months. It's gonna be a journey, and that's why we need to make it a part of our every day because it is the long game.
Jen Sain Host [00:23:50]: So we've been talking a lot about how to operationalize this work and how to really weave it into the, the knitting of an organization and then how, um, to advise clients.I'm just wondering, kind of forward facing if there are any brands or companies, specifically ones that you're working with that you really see exemplifying these principles and are doing it well. Bonnie, do you have anything to share from the Vivi side?
Bonnie Smith [00:24:18]: Yes, actually. I mean this is, this is the fun stuff, right? This is being able to work on, the programs that we work on are, go way beyond the, the product themselves. One of them that comes to mind is our work with My Black is Beautiful and P&G through Olay. So, obviously Olay is a skincare brand, but the work that we did with them, Essence Festival this past summer was all about breaking down barriers to formulate, quote unquote the power to face anything, right? So that's about, so that is Olay’s mission to help double the number of women in STEM and then triple the number of women of color in STEM by 2030. So that's one. Another, another point of Jack Morton's. You can say, you know, J&J for example, they have [00:25:00] been at the forefront of the race to health equity, of driving equitable practices in healthcare and really instilling power of what it means to look at communities that have been underserved in healthcare, it's very humbling, And so we're just super proud to have the opportunity to work with organizations that really care about the people that they serve.
Channing Martin [00:25:32]: And I'd say from my vantage point, right, being at the center, it's, it's really wonderful when you see clients that. Are consistent in their behavior. And I think J&J is another example. When you look across our agencies and practices, I'd echo the same thing that Bonnie's sharing right around commitment. Um, and our, you know, whether it's IPG Health as a client for J&J on the, you know, you know, marketing side with the specific products in pharma. I think I've seen that commitment internally. I've seen it in their communities [00:26:00] and the way that we show up with our clients. , you know, there is a pact and an understanding that equity and inclusion should be at the center and it's important. And so I think, you know, it's great to see the overlap and consistency across all of our verticals. You know, we'll continue to see.
Bonnie Smith [00:26:15]: Yeah. And you know, when we think about the strength of IPG, just imagine what we can do as partners because we do have different specialty practices. We do have these different expertise. Individuals with expertise that sit in these different, um, regions and just being able to come together and cross collaborate on some of these business, you know, business solving opportunities.
Channing Martin [00:26:47]: I'm sure, Jennifer, you all, I mean at some point in some podcasts have talked about open architecture and why. That approach is so important, right? To providing the best value to our clients is bridging the gaps across our agencies and our verticals to make sure we're bringing the [00:27:00] best of the best in our areas of expertise to the table.Just serve and meet clients, um, to meet their needs. And I think this is another example is making sure that we are bringing our expertise to the table as DEI practitioners, but also as people that. Center equity, remembering to do that, embedding that into the way we operate is, is how you, is how you make a bigger impact.
Jen Sain Host [00:27:31]: So Bonnie, earlier you had said that this is, you know, this work is a long game and then, you know, looking at what IPG’s doing, um, again, in terms of what you just said, Channing, about open architecture and then, you know, hopefully increased, you know, synergy amongst the ex, you know, the different expertise of the different operating companies as we go forward.Of course, being encouraged. By clients like J&J and Olay that you had talked about. Bonnie, what would you like the future of this work to look like maybe in the so distant future, maybe three to five years? Like where, what would you like to see agencies doing, maybe as a matter of course, or, you know, clients, you know, having just baked into their strategy that's not there now?
Bonnie Smith [00:28:17]: I will say, I have a lot of thoughts on this, but the, the one that comes to mind first. Is transparency. And, um, so we do something at Jack Morton called Brave Spaces. And I, I wish I could remember the piece that I read that we're introducible, but well, speaking with a, a friend of mine who works at the University of California, she is a speech pathologist and they're, they are doing a lot of DEI work too.And she introduced this idea of brave spaces versus safe spaces. , and you always want to foster safe spaces, but there's something unique about these brave spaces because they allow you to have dialogue that's respectful, but honest. Because one thing I think that we could all do a better job of is being able to have respectful conversations around the realities that people are facing in the work place or outside of the workplace that impact our ability to just show up and be successful when we are at work.So the concept of having a brave space is to be brave enough to articulate that and share that, but also to be brave enough to receive it and no judgment. So I say all that to say is transparency and being able to have real dialogue about what's happening in someone's life is, is very real and personally and professionally. That is what we're talking about when we are having DEI conversations internally and that's what we advise our clients on when we talk about how we're helping them with their talent acquisition strategies.
Jen Sain Host [00:30:05]: Channing. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Channing Martin[00:30:08]: Yes,I do. You know, when I think about the future, there are two things I hope that. Not just we, the IPG, I think the collective global we starts to pay attention to keeping up with the Joneses. I think that we've seen over the past couple of years, there's this desire to do something about the massive challenges we are experiencing in our communities, in the world, and we’re responding to so much trying to do everything.I think what you know, we can learn from Vivi is that. You can be very specific about your area of expertise or identify the needs that need to be met by your clients. And it's okay to do that and that we won't always be able to tackle every challenge at the same time. And so it's that comfort that I always engage and advise our agencies on is that you don't have to do every single thing that this agency does or that agency does.Make sure it's relative to the needs of your [00:31:00] people, to the needs of your client, the needs of your communities first, and focus on that. Do a really good job at that before branching out and doing something else that seems really punchy or really exciting or makes a headline. I think that makes a bigger impact. It’s more authentic and it will attract the best and brightest talent because. People are attracted to, you know, a genuine, authentic workplace and culture that produces the best work.
Jen Sain Host [00:31:37]: Yeah. Oh, please Bonnie, take it
Bonnie Smith [00:31:42]: that, no, this is so rich and it's so good. And let's just continue to be bold. Let's shake up leadership. In the future.I want to see leadership do a 180 and everybody's represented in leadership and on boards, and that is doable.
Channing Martin [00:32:00]: I'm here for that. I agree. You know, we need to start looking at things differently and we'll talk a lot about, you know, how we are gonna evolve our data, but we're often looking at, you could take gender and race and ethnicity, for example, and we talk about the collective and we, you know, over 50% who identify as women and this is so wonderful and 30% are people of color.Like where, where are those people of color working and, and where are the women working? and where, where are non our non-binary folks and when, so when you remove traditional roles and really think about people in positions of power and influence, that's I think what Bonnie and I are talking about. That is how we start to transform what organizations look like, feel like how they make decisions.Cause when people in positions of power and influence are representing the global majority, right, um, so that I could get fired up about all day, and I'm sure we could talk about some more.
Bonnie Smith [00:33:01]: how they make people feel. Right. Maya, Angela has a great quote on that. What do, how do we wanna be remembered? Yeah. So I love that. Absolutely.
Jen Sain Host [00:33:10]: All right. So as we are coming to the end of our time together. Um, is there any just last thoughts that you want to make sure. Our listeners hear about this topic that you would just, be remiss at not mentioning before we end our conversation?
Channing Martin [00:33:25]: Yeah, I'd, I'd love to jump in here. Well, I think our, our time flew, so thank you for inviting me. This has been a lot of fun and I think I would leave it with this, something that was really powerful for me. Often as a person who is one of the only in a space, whether that's the only woman or only black woman or only person of color. Or transparently. The only person who's not coming from the marketing and advertising background or industry is that I was really excited to kind of literally run into Bonnie, like physically and learn about the origin story of Vivi and, [00:34:00] and hear from a woman who looks like me that's leading this business out of one of our agencies. I think is incredibly exciting and if it's exciting for me as a senior leader at IPG, I've gotta be exciting to so many women who are in our industry and wanna be in our industry. And that really fuels me, and it also makes me incredibly proud to be a part of this bigger kind of ecosystem at IPG, where again, I said we're not perfect, but we're really trying our hardest. Walk the walk and not just talk the talk. So my hat's off to, to Bonnie and her leadership, to Vivi, to Jack Morton and this, this community that we're, that we're all a part of, that we're trying to improve, kinda just one step at a time.
Bonnie Smith [00:34:59]: Sorry, j i I keep on interrupting. Just cause I'm so excited. Everything. I mean, first of all, Channing Yes. I, you know, once we, we saw that you were there, we said, well, we need to meet her and we need to talk to you and just to be able to see you in this position as well. I mean, I feel the same way. Right? We talked about it and the fact that you, you know, even someone at your level can say you've been the only one. You know, how would that feels like? And you know that just by being who you are intentionally and showing up in this space there, there are so many people who that is going to move whether we know it or not. And then, and that's okay. It's the fact that it's being done. So everything Channing said and more, and I'm just so grateful to be on this podcast with you, and I hope that this is not the last time.
Jen Sain Host [00:35:55]: Same. This has been wonderful. Truly. Thank you both so much. This has been such a great conversation and yeah, I absolutely hope we can have another one soon because obviously this topic is so important and we'll see an evolution undoubtedly. [00:36:00] So looking forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you so much to our listeners. Uh, of course, if you're not subscribed, please do subscribe to the podcast in all the usual places. You can also find the podcast as well as the leadership from around the IPG family on intelligence.interpublic.com. Bye for now.
Outro [00:36:27] Thank you for listening to the Collective Intelligence podcast. For more marketing insights and ideas, please subscribe to this podcast or visit intelligence.interpublic.com.