I was a blatant DEI hire for my first big-time celebrity PR client. He was a very famous black QB in the NFL, and I got the job because I’m a white guy who wasn’t a total pain in the a** to work with. It wasn’t even my idea either.
Early in my PR career, my agency was selected to publicize a networking group of pro athletes and local executives. The concept ultimately failed as a nationwide model, but it was a cool idea: Business leaders love mingling (and having their photos taken) with athletes, and athletes have a limited shelf-life to build relationships for their “next career.” Why not put ‘em together? Why not build a national organization of athletes and executives?
One of the PR pros I met there was a black woman who was a decade or so older than me. She had superior credentials and better connections — if I remember right, even her college was better than mine. She worked with the networking organization, so we collaborated together. One day, she told me there was a top NFL superstar who was desperately looking for PR and marketing help. Without any hyperbole, at the time, he was one of the top five faces of American pro sports.
But the black athlete didn’t want to be represented by a black woman. He refused to sign with her.
So she asked if I’d partner with her. And I did: My agency worked out a compensation package with her, and we flew up together to pitch the athlete’s lawyer, sign them to a contract, and land one of the most famous athletes in America.
If I were a black guy — or an Asian dude or a Latina — she never would’ve asked me. There’d be no point.
That all happened 20-plus years ago. I’m still in touch with the athlete’s family. (Interestingly, some are now Republican!) Their actions and thought processes didn’t really make sense to me at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, I understand a little better where they were coming from.
For most of my life, I’ve lived in a meritocracy. An imperfect meritocracy, to be sure, but a meritocracy nonetheless. There were certainly exceptions: The legacy kid with lousy grades who got into a better college, for example. But more often than not, people got what they deserved. What matters most is how hard you work, how big you dream, and how much you pray.
Usually, you get out of life what you put into it.
This athlete’s family, however, was from the inner-city ghetto. Their day-to-day reality wasn’t merit-based: The guy who worked the hardest didn’t have the most toys! Instead, privilege, riches, and rewards were largely bestowed via personal connections.
In this vicious cycle of generational poverty, who you knew outweighed how hard you worked. And thus, the cycle of crime and poverty continued.
So naturally they wanted a white guy to talk to the other white guys! After all, the people running those big companies were all white people; they needed one as well. That was the “problem” they were hiring me to solve.
That’s the big marketing lesson: Whether you’re working in politics or working in retail, people make decisions to solve problems. Sometimes the problems are psychological; other times they’re financial or social. But if you don’t know what problem your audience wants you to solve, then YOU are the one with the problem!
The single most common marketing mistake is marketing to yourself, not to your audience. We just saw a classic example with the Harris-Walz campaign, where they stubbornly insisted that Trump was Hitler — because that’s what they thought!
Meanwhile, everyone else in America saw a guy cooking French fries, driving a garbage truck, and launching the next dance craze.
There was a disconnect.
I’ll give you a second example: My wife is white but was raised in French Polynesia and later moved to Hawaii, so she tends to view things through a “minority lens” as well. About a week after graduating from law school, I left the mainland and moved to Honolulu to be with her and had a job lined up at the Hawaiian attorney general’s office.
On my first day at the job, I was super nervous! I tried really hard to make a great impression — to look everyone in the eye, give them a firm handshake, be humble and unassuming, yada yada yada. Well, halfway through my first day, I was really proud of myself: Everyone was saying “Hi Scott!” to me whenever I walked around! I must’ve made a helluva first impression!
I was bragging to my (now-) wife about it, and she looked at me like I had six heads:
“Scott… of course everyone remembered your name! There’s only, like, two other white guys in the entire office!”
“Ohhhhh.”
I honestly, truly thought it was because I was so cool and witty. Because of my own life experiences, in my head, that was the only logical explanation. But my wife saw it differently. And (as sucky as it is to admit it) she was right.
The final example is courtesy of my all-time favorite law school professor, Bill Lash. (I’ve written about his tragic last days.) He told us a story about a group of men who launched a sporting company but had extra material and wanted to sell a line of women’s athletic clothes.
But what to call the new line?
“Aha!” exclaimed one of the men. “Let’s call it ‘Plus!’ After all, it’s normal women’s wear, plus so much more!”
All of the men thought it was a wonderful idea. Hey, “plus” is good! And they were gonna move forward with the concept too until the one lady on the board raised her hand:
“Do you know what ‘plus’ means with women’s attire? It signifies clothes for fat people!”
Everyone sees the world differently, and we’re all the byproduct of our own biases, (in)experiences, and assumptions. The words and phrases that represent very specific images in your head might trigger radically different images in someone else’s.
And if you’re in politics, then you’re in the business of winning hearts and minds. Meet the audience where they are — not where you are.
