Ep 15: The Highs and Lows of Working Within Marketing with Azeem Ahmad
Shownotes
In this episode, Joyann and Azeem Ahmad discuss what it's like working within the marketing sector. They share past experiences, marketing conference examples, and thoughts on International Women's Day. They also analyse the Dove 'Show Us' campaign.
Azzem is a Digital Marketer with almost ten years of experience in multichannel marketing. He is also an international conference speaker and host of his own podcast, Azeem Digital Asks.
You can watch the episode on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvyXOHcAoBw&ab_channel=JoyannBoyce
Useful links:
https://www.dove.com/uk/stories/campaigns/showus.html
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1jup91eZXyCWguyB2QvWdE?si=c3da664b3ecb43c1
https://www.arimacompany.com/blog/what-is-inclusive-marketing
https://www.womenintechseo.com/
https://techspark.co/shift-speaker-database/
https://twitter.com/PayGapApp/status/1501247888319516675
https://twitter.com/flaminhaystacks/status/1633375741516627970
You can find Azeem at:
https://twitter.com/AzeemDigital
https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeema1/
https://open.spotify.com/show/0kG7pYN6SKOVUNyb1ZIvMB
You can find Joyann at: https://twitter.com/joyannboyce
Transcription
[00:00:00] Joyann: Welcome to the Marketing Made Inclusive Podcast. I am your host, Joyann Boyce. On this podcast, we're gonna discuss all things inclusive marketing, from persona creation, campaigns, and even some of the mishaps we see in the media. Tune in and let me know your thoughts on how we can make inclusive marketing the industry.
[00:00:23] Welcome and welcome back to the Marketing Made Inclusive Podcast. Today we are joined by one of my internet faves. I know you're my real-life fave, but I look forward to the SEO tweets and the, like I get all the banter. It's not even banter like it's serious, but anyways, I figure out what's going on in the SEO and that world on Twitter from you and two other people, and you're one of my faves.
[00:00:50] Hi Azeem, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:54] Azeem: Hello, uh, that is a wonderful introduction. Thank you very, very much, and uh, I'm certainly feeling the pressure now. .
[00:01:03] Joyann: Well tell the people a little about yourself and. Yeah. Why? You're probably my, I've given it away now, but yeah. What you do in marketing?
[00:01:13] Azeem: Um, so yeah, look, uh, I'm Azeem, I'm a better known, uh, online in some spaces as Azeem Digital, purely because people have difficulty spelling my last name, which is another podcast for another day.
[00:01:27] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:28] Azeem: Um, I work as a digital marketing lead in-house in the B2B and manufacturing, industrial manufacturing sector I should add. Uh, I do host my own podcast of which you were a wonderful guest, Joyann. It's called the Azeem Digital Asks podcast. Please check it out.
[00:01:47] Um, It's, important for me to mention that the, that my, my podcast, I prioritise, typically people from marginalised groups. So women, people of colour. I've had people in the past who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. I thought there's a big gap in the marketing podcast space for a podcast like that.
[00:02:05] So I created it. And then other than that, um, I also do, uh, conference speaking, fortunately, um, internationally now, uh, people don't shout about their own successes a lot. So I'm gonna very briefly say that I did a conference last year in Barcelona, uh, international people from over 30 countries were there. My talk was voted talk of the conference.
[00:02:26] Joyann: Love it.
[00:02:27] Azeem: For the listeners I just dabbed, which is like 10 years old, shows was my age there. Um, but yeah, I mean, I'm very, very pleased to have got myself into a position where wonderful people like yourself are looking up for, for things that I've gotta say in different opinions.
[00:02:42] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:02:43] Azeem: On, on marketing and, uh, I'm really, really looking forward to to being a part of your podcast. I know you mentioned, uh, when we got together, you were thinking about doing this. So on recording and I'm gonna say a massive, massive congratulations for getting it off the ground, and I will absolutely be shouting about this from every digital rooftop that I can think of.
[00:03:05] Joyann: Thank you so much. You're definitely a huge inspiration and I love that you say you prioritise individuals from marginalised background. Because I remember when you first started, I think I met you through Noisy Little Monkey, and we were talking about diversity in the marketing sector.
[00:03:22] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:03:23] Joyann: And I saw the podcast, I started to notice that you were doing it, but you didn't say it until I think like a few more episodes and I'm just, I like this.
[00:03:33] I like the, just the, the action first part, which I feel like so many brands do it the other way. They, they talk about doing it and then don't do anything.
[00:03:44] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:03:44] Joyann: Um, but yes, we're gonna dive into inclusive marketing, but first of all, I'd love to know what does inclusive marketing mean to you?
[00:03:51] Azeem: Uh, right. I'm gonna give you the answer that's not like seven hours long. Um, but for me, the obvious answer would be, you know, marketing that includes everybody, hence the first part of the word inclusive, right?
[00:04:05] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:06] Azeem: Um, and typically whenever I speak about things like this, it always comes down to the, the wider topic of like diversity and inclusion.
[00:04:13] So it's anything for me that would consider including people from all groups of society, including, but not limited to, uh, people with a disability, for example, or people of a certain age, people of a certain or no gender. Um, and even people from different, for example, economic backgrounds. Um, basically the, the short version is inclusive marketing is something, a form of marketing that is
[00:04:45] considerate and includes every potential group of people or speaks to, I should say, every potential group of people that there is.
[00:04:57] Joyann: Okay. My follow-up question to your definition, cause it's something I've been saying recently is: yes, but when you sprinkle the marketing on it, would you say sometimes exclusion is okay?
[00:05:14] In the marketing context.
[00:05:18] Azeem: Um, well, I would need some more, some more context on that. It's probably something that we can pick up later on in the episode cause it's definitely something that I want to discuss. But I think giving a more broader brush answer.
[00:05:32] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:33] Azeem: In some context, exclusion. potentially is absolutely fine. So let's go with something really obvious, for example, uh, tampons or period products, for example.
[00:05:45] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:46] Azeem: In that instance, it's absolutely fine to exclude men because that's something that they're never gonna need.
[00:05:53] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:53] Azeem: Absolutely fine. I'm not here saying, If you are advertising, uh, tampons or if you have a client advertised tampons immediately now start talking men.
[00:06:03] Absolutely not. But in, in that instance, and in certain instances like that, I would say yes, in some cases exclusion is fine. I think it's also important for, for me to very quickly say parts of this area. Obviously I've got an interest in this as you well know. Hopefully as your listeners and viewers will too.
[00:06:21] But I think it's a constant learning process, and I will make mistakes along the way. You might have noticed or you might not have, but now that I have mentioned it, you're definitely gonna go back and check what I talked about earlier and I mentioned. Uh, people with disabilities. That's something that I've literally just learned about this week, that using the phrase disabled people is not inclusive language, and you should say people with disabilities.
[00:06:49] That's something I've literally just learned. So there might be similar mistakes like that on the way, but just now it's called learning .
[00:06:56] Joyann: So this is one that I, I, there's a certain marketer I wanna get on here who runs an a, a agency focusing on, um, disabled disability representation in campaigns. However, on my own research, I am not a physical disabled individual, so this is my own opinion.
[00:07:13] It's divided on whether with disabilities or disabled person, and I think on a one-to-one basis, the individual would like to decide, like some people in any other aspects would prefer to be called their ethnicity or Black or Brown, or da da da da. But the debate that I've seen within the disabled community is that with disabilities in a persona creation aspect, in terms of marketing, separates the disability from the person.
[00:07:49] Azeem: Mhmm
[00:07:50] Joyann: And then you are thinking, oh, well we can just forget that because they are with it and we can think of them as this. But there are other people within the disabled community that are just very much, no, that is part of me and it cannot be removed. But it's so interesting cause when you're thinking about language and written copy and spoken word.
[00:08:12] There's, so like, I'm sure the person that told you that was talking in regards to, you know, talking to them and that conversation.
[00:08:18] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:08:19] Joyann: And then when I see it in written copy, I'm just like, ooh, but who are you actually talking? I, there's something to question there when they're describing someone.
[00:08:28] Azeem: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:08:29] It, it's a tough one. Um, but yeah, like you said, I think you've probably phrased it in, in the best way. It's probably better to let the individual make a decision on it.
[00:08:42] Joyann: But I do think you make a valid point. No, sorry, go ahead.
[00:08:44] Azeem: No, I was just gonna say it's very similar to one, I'm probably more comfortable talking about where we talk about BAME, or can you see, again, we can probably get into this later in the episode.
[00:08:56] Personally, many years ago I was BAME, BAME, BAME, all the time. But having seen the impacts and being told the impacts of just shoving everybody into this box.
[00:09:12] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:12] Azeem: And now obviously use PC or person of colour or marginalised groups separately. It, I've been doing some research for a conference talk actually, that I'm doing soon.
[00:09:22] Um, and even I think it was minorities is probably not terms that you should be using. It should be. I, I've always used marginalised groups. I've literally got a newsletter called the Marginalised Marketer, but there are some terms that I've been learning where I've just thought, well, I didn't realise, that this is not probably a term that people should reconsider.
[00:09:46] Mm-hmm.
[00:09:47] And I always think, this is me just waffling on now, so shut me up. I always think I am someone much like yourself who has an active interest in this area. So I'm interested in it and I didn't know about certain things that I probably should be reconsidering.
[00:10:04] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:05] Azeem: And I can find my mind wondering and thinking there are people who aren't interested, who are still using these terms quite freely.
[00:10:13] Um, and are completely none the wiser for it. So it's not easy, but with reason. It's a journey like this, like you said, it's a journey. Yeah.
[00:10:25] Joyann: It's a full journey because even with, and if anyone dives into my history, I literally founded a group called a BME Collective, which was a social group. And it's funny because.
[00:10:38] I always say with my past, I moved here with my mother and that's when I found out I was Black. I have a very different perspective on the Black British experience because in my head I go back to Trinidad and I'm just a Trinidadian. Like there's no, there's no hyphen, there's no other, um, so I've not fully wrapped my head around it, which in some ways has been beneficial to what I do now.
[00:11:00] But I remember when we created a group, we first call it, um, Black social, and then we were at a gathering and we saw some of our, one of our members who was Black themselves stumbles in saying it. They, they felt uncomfortable saying, the group was called a Black Social. So we renamed it to the BME Collective and everyone was just like, yeah, BME Collective, BME Collective.
[00:11:20] And now I'm no longer running the group, but I look back at the social group and I'm just like, ugh, I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of that name, but it's outside of my control now. But at the same time, I changed the name to make the people who were part of the group comfortable. So if they are comfortable, me not being comfortable as a market should is, is a separate thing.
[00:11:40] It's such a weird balancing act. And also you mentioned about, you know, marginalised group, underrepresented. I was questioned recently when I was talking to a client. I said, oh, your representation of Black and Brown individuals, and they were like, don't you mean people of colour? I'm like, no. For you as a client, cause I know if I say people of colour to this particular client, they're gonna think Latinx and really light skin and.
[00:12:08] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:12:08] Joyann: I'm specifically saying Black and Brown because of your physical representation of those individuals. If I say PoC, you're gonna find the like person with the slightest amount of seasoning.
[00:12:20] Azeem: Yeah. Seasoning.
[00:12:24] Joyann: You know, their great, great, great grandparent was like, I dunno, Spanish or something. And they're like, yes, we've done our bit. I'm like, ugh, no, no. This is a stock photo. People can't tell that person. They can't work it out like, oh gosh. How has it been cause you've been doing the podcast in this conversation, especially publicly, a lot longer than I have and I'm just curious to know when you are talking to people
[00:12:52] about the actual representation in workplaces. What is the kind of responses you're getting? What is the, the vibe in the world?
[00:13:01] Azeem: I've so got a great story to tell you for this one. It's probably one you've heard me say when we've been on a, on a webinar together in the past. But I think it'd be great for your listeners and viewers.
[00:13:11] By the way, if you're listening, you can also watch this, I'm told, so please go and check it out. Free promotion. Um, back to the point. Um, some years ago, uh, I went into an organisation externally just to have a nose around and give a, an external, uh, point of view. Uh, and I was, I vividly remember, walked into to meeting room various, uh, senior level executives and stuff there.
[00:13:40] I've got access to a lot of information from, from the company, and one of the very first questions was, uh, so Azeem, what do you notice about us? And my first response, was to the effect of, well, I've noticed that you are all of a certain age, an older age group, uh, and that you are all white. And they were quite taken aback like this, and they were literally just like, you know, as if it was an offensive thing to say, and I said, it's nothing to feel bad about.
[00:14:07] But the point of the matter is, you are marketing to an audience that is not all of an older age or of white, or who lives in a certain geographic or from a certain demographic. You don't appear as if you are speaking to the people who you are trying to represent. If I was your target audience, I would look at you and I would say, I don't see myself represented here.
[00:14:32] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:32] Azeem: I'm not going to engage with this business or this service, or buy this product from you. And they were like, oh, wow, that's, there was a minute or so. And they, they were quite taken aback. And then I, I genuinely thought something was gonna change, but they basically said, what you might not know is, I'm just gonna make up her name.
[00:14:50] We had Deborah and Deborah left us last month and Deborah was a woman and she was 31. So she, what, what they didn't say was she ticked all the boxes, but they intimated that.
[00:15:03] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:04] Azeem: It was a woman. She was black, she was 31, but unfortunately we lost her, which affected the makeup of of the board there.
[00:15:12] May as well have said, you know, she was our quota. But it's, it's one of those, it's one of those things like, uh, well actually, in fact, it's not one of those things that's a lie. I shouldn't really say that. Um, and I'm glad that's in, that's on recording cause now I've completely just checked myself on document.
[00:15:32] I don't think it's one of those things, um, because it's a frustration. I mean, I was, I'm sidetracking here, but like I said, I was doing some research for a conference talk I was doing, and I was looking into things like, uh, for example, pay.
[00:15:50] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:50] Azeem: Pay, that's been quite big at the moment. Um, and literally it's almost as if having a different skin colour immediately means you're gonna be financially penalised.
[00:16:04] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:05] Azeem: Don't bleed the same blood effectively, don't we? And in some cases it's, it's a disadvantage. So back to that point where they were talking about, where I was talking about not being represented or whatever, I often and is often, and I'm not sure if you feel the same, right.
[00:16:20] I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, but sometimes, I mean, I've been fortunate enough to do like conference speaking for a while and I've been all over the place. I'm very fortunate to be, um, in Europe again twice over the next, uh, few weeks. I'm really looking forward to it, but sometimes I take a step back and I think, are they picking me because of the colour of my skin or the quality of my thoughts and research and feedback, and I have that doubt or imposter syndrome.
[00:16:51] I have that moment where I think. I'm not quite sure here. I'm definitely not the only person of colour, like on a lineup, for example. In some cases I have been, um, and I don't think, okay, maybe are they just ticking a box or do, have they seen me before? Do they like what, what they're saying? But the, the wider point that I'm making is I'm someone who has done this a lot over the past few years, and probably this is the first time I'm sharing this on a podcast.
[00:17:16] Sometimes I think either just picking me because I might tick a metaphorical box for them, or is there genuinely something that they've seen in the past that they think I will provide value to their audience? For you I know it's the latter. You've reached out to me and you've said, this is why I want you on on the podcast and, and hopefully we're having a really good discussion about this, which your audience will, will love.
[00:17:41] But like I said, yeah, sometimes I just think, and I dunno if you feel the same sometimes, but I just. It's what's motivation.
[00:17:48] Joyann: I have had the same challenge and I have struggled when telling people to venture into what I do, I feel obligated to warn them that sometimes it literally feels dirty. Like there has been rare occasions.
[00:18:07] I think the occasions where it hasn't felt like that is where I've had to like apply and I've had to. I don't know. The example I use is there was a conference in Bristol, I missed the application deadline, and I was like, let me chuck in a talk. And then they were like, yes, come. It was like a week before, and I'm just like, why?
[00:18:28] Why did they say? And then I saw the speaker lineup and I'm like, this is big for me to be on this conference. But at the same time, you didn't have any, any speakers of colour, like none.
[00:18:41] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:18:41] Joyann: And then I have the flip experience where I did, um, Digital Gaggle with Noisy Little Monkey, and they asked me to speak and I was like, oh my God, I'm so excited.
[00:18:51] But they also had like three conversations with me about, hey, this is how our conference is. This is our audience. What are you planning to say? What, what, what is your talk? Have you like, they vetted me for their audience and that felt genuine. Cause it felt like, hey, yes, you may need someone, but if I'm shit, you're not gonna have me.
[00:19:08] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:09] Joyann: Um, but whenever I'm talking to people about like, going in, especially Black women, I'm like, sometimes I have somewhat accepted and it feels weird saying this on the podcast, but I've accepted that sometimes I'm selling my Blackness or I'm selling my womanness. And there's a balance in acting that because through some of the work I do, I see my counterpart, a white male marketing person who, for example, I'm not downplaying or saying ADHD isn't a learning disorder, um learning difficulty, but they find out they have ADHD and all of a sudden they're applying for everything that has disability attached to it.
[00:19:47] They're going for every application, award. They're go, there's no shyness. And this is the one thing, and I'm just like, if they're milk, and they already have all the privileges in the world.
[00:20:00] Why am I beating myself up for milking it my, for myself? cause this is a disadvantage in other occasions. But it's a continuous, and it's almost a situation to situation thing where I'm just like, am I happy? If I find out in this scenario that I am the only person of colour, the only woman, will I be comfortable with that?
[00:20:23] And if it very rarely is a yes, but I try and see if I can bring someone else in to it is giving them an opportunity. This is a bit, where it sounds a bit weird, but it's making me feel better as well.
[00:20:33] Azeem: Yeah, no, it makes sense. It makes sense. And already from what you've been saying there, I already think that's several steps ahead of where someone in a privileged position would be.
[00:20:44] Cause I don't think they have that. I'm broad-brushed again, but a percentage of that group of people will not have that awareness of the privilege. The percentage that do very likely will be exactly as you mentioned, put, put their name forward for everything. So.
[00:21:02] Joyann: I have, I have seen some things.
[00:21:06] Azeem: Haven't we all?
[00:21:06] Joyann: I've seen some things, but, uh, the, in terms of the public speaking aspect of it, I remember I did a conference and someone came up to me afterwards and literally was just like, yeah, I tried to put coloured people on my website and it didn't work. And I was just like, be, it's because you know what? You see that everything you said did not go in and you're like, you are a bigger problem as a person.
[00:21:30] Azeem: Hmm.
[00:21:31] Joyann: And my friend's like, oh, did you correct her? Did you, I was just like, I wasn't in a position, I'm in front of like 400 people.
[00:21:40] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:41] Joyann: To, to try and fix this person, but at the same time, I'm just like, that's what she took away from my talk. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, but it, yeah, it's a balancing act.
[00:21:55] Azeem: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, it is a balancing act. I mean, I was literally just thinking, you mentioned, like about conference speaking, I think it was a couple of years ago. I was at, uh, Brighton SEO a very, very, if not the most popular conference in the uk. And literally it's a, it's a few days event. And over the course of the same event, like completely two contrasting things happened. I was in the, I was in the queue waiting for a coffee.
[00:22:22] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:22] Azeem: Um, I'd already done my talk at this time. So I'm in the queue waiting for a coffee in one of the breaks, and I just had a guy, uh, come up to me, Asian guy, a very strong accent, and he was just like, hello, I want a job. And I was like, okay, I am certainly not employing at the moment. And I was like, what do you mean?
[00:22:40] He was like, oh, I need a job. And I was like, okay, what have you done already? What are you doing? Like I was genuinely interested to help him and he was just like, I'm here and I was just automatically being at a conference doesn't mean that you're gonna get a job. I was like, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to put the work and you're gonna have to network and whatever.
[00:23:01] And I was like, look, things don't just automatically happen. And he is like, oh, I think he mentioned he was from India.
[00:23:09] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:09] Azeem: So automatically I knew there was gonna be some sort of language or like cultural barrier. I'm not India Indian, I don't have Indian, uh, family, but I know having family from the country next door, that sometimes there is that barrier there and there's a certain expectation of just being somewhere, we'll get you something.
[00:23:25] But that's not the case over here, for sure.
[00:23:27] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:28] Azeem: So I, I explained to him, I said, If you spoke to likely anybody else, they would like tell you to go on, you know, sling your hook. Do you want what you talking about? I explained to him in the whole coffee break, I was talking to this guy and I was like, look, you can't just expect for something to happen to you.
[00:23:43] Like you've, you're gonna have to put the work in. And I was quite frank and I said to him, I'll be honest, you're gonna have to put double three or four times the amount of working as other people in this very building right now. And he was like, well, what do you mean? And I told him and he was like, right, okay.
[00:23:58] I didn't think of it like that. So I put him in touch with a couple of people. I said, come on, put a bit of the work in and the reward will come to you after. So there's that there. There's that person who came. That expectation of just talking to me will, will make something happen. And by the way, during my talk, I never once intimated I'm hiring or I'm looking for people or whatever.
[00:24:17] Anything else. All he took away was the fact that he was looking for a job .
[00:24:21] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:21] Azeem: Anyway, separately, in that same event, uh, a guy comes over to me, another guy who, uh, lives from, in India, and he is quite well known in like the Indian SEO community. Came to me was like, oh, Azeem lovely to meet you. Uh, we've spoken on Twitter a few times and then I recognised he was from, from his image and that he was like, I came over here to see you, just to see you.
[00:24:44] And I was like, no. I was laughing at first cause I couldn't believe it. I was like, this is me you talking about. And he was telling me about how he went about saving or didn't say anything, just saving up his money, researching hotels and everything else, and built his itinerary for the event around when I was gonna be talking.
[00:25:01] And he was like, yeah, I came see you. He wanted to take a picture with me and everything. I was like, I'm literally just a, a normal guy. And he was like, no, this will mean a lot to me, blah, blah. It's like there's a big Indian SEO community who like sees what you're doing, really interested in it. And he was like, so many more of the community wanted to come over to the UK, but we're having, um, issues with visas and stuff.
[00:25:24] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:24] Azeem: And I was like, that's, that's like incredible. I can't, I couldn't believe that someone had come from India. I, I didn't even know he, he was even in the audience comes over and he is like, yeah, we've spoken a couple of times, but I made a point to come and see you. I was like, that's incredible. Something like that.
[00:25:39] It's like literally life-changing cause I still remember it now. It was a couple of years ago.
[00:25:42] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:43] Azeem: I remember having a conversation with that group of people or with the, the person who sort of looks after that group of people. I said, listen, we were talking about visa issues and that's another conversation for another day.
[00:25:53] But in short, when you're in a different country and you trying to get a visa for the UK to call here will cost you an arm and a leg unless you are already in the UK, in which case the call is free.
[00:26:01] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:02] Azeem: And most often than not, you'll get through to an automated line which tells you to wait. So you've paid for nothing.
[00:26:07] I said, just let me know, and as long as I'm free and not working, um, in my spare time, I'm happy to just call up, gimme an application number. I'm more than happy to to help you. I don't want anything in return from you, but me being able to, uh, help and enable other people to like physically come over here and experience marketing, networking conferences, absolutely. It, it's a win-win.
[00:26:35] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:35] Azeem: Back to the point about mindset. Earlier on, I think my mind says, I recognise I'm a person of colour and I'm in a good position now within the industry, but my immediate thought is, how can I create more people like.
[00:26:51] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:26:51] Azeem: Or who will do even better than me, or go even further than me.
[00:26:55] Cause they, ultimately we're only here for a certain amount of time.
[00:26:57] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:58] Azeem: Right? I'm more interested in seeing the next Azeem or I'm more interested in putting someone further ahead of me so I can look and think, right. That's an aspiration for me. But there are others. Who think I've got this, I've earned this.
[00:27:12] I have to be done. My, my box, my table, and nobody else is, is getting involved. This is me. I've built this all myself. I'm thinking I wanna share this with us many people as I can. That feeling that I got from that guy was incredible. I wanna share that feeling inside me with more people, because I, the more people have that feeling, I think the better the marketing industry will.
[00:27:38] Joyann: And a better, like even the people who wanna be the only one doesn't make sense. When you know what marketing is, it's like you're supposed to have exposure to your audience. You're supposed to be able to learn and engage. So if you are not letting other people in and you're answering all the questions, you're being a bad marketer.
[00:27:53] Just flat out, yeah. Because you are not investing in that. And I think that's so amazing you that like getting that direct role model feedback essentially. You hear like, I don't know if you have it. Sometimes people say, oh, you're a role model. I'm just like, Ugh. But when you see something, when you see the change, you're just like, okay, this is why. I don't, and I agree with you a hundred percent.
[00:28:17] I am fed up of being the only one.
[00:28:20] Azeem: Hmm.
[00:28:21] Joyann: And I don't want to. I'm, I'm, I'm good. I'm, I'm just like, okay. It does nothing for me to know. I was the, the only one in this room or whatever. I'm just like, okay. It just means I'm gonna have to take on twice the amount of work, such as a Black woman answering questions about my hair rather than my business.
[00:28:36] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:37] Joyann: I, I don't, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna educate y'all. I wanna talk about marketing. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. Um, so work-wise, I, I, I just love, like, literally I'm just imagining a bunch of Azeems in India right now, just.
[00:28:54] Azeem: With extremely shiny heads.
[00:28:57] Joyann: They're ready. They're creating their content.
[00:28:58] They're ready to come over here. Uh, that was the thing that came up to my mind and there's a conversation I have a lot with some of my American friends in regards to the first gentleman that spoke to you. It's so fascinating how England is marketed externally.
[00:29:13] Azeem: Hmm.
[00:29:16] Joyann: I still say it is terrible the history of England, but as a country, England and America are some of the best marketers.
[00:29:24] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:25] Joyann: And I'm just like, there's so many conversations I have with people. I'm like, it's not like that here, like our, a tangent, but our government partner report saying that it wasn't racist. Like that is, that report was not for the people in this country. It was for everyone else outside and then they.
[00:29:39] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:29:40] Joyann: Telling them not to come, and I'm just like, do you guys not understand your messaging?
[00:29:45] Azeem: Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, depending on when this goes out, like you, you'll see in the, in the news recently, the entire focus is all on immigration at the moment, as if there's some kind of horrendous immigration problem and horrific language being used, uh, to contrast with those reports, and it just makes you think.
[00:30:09] I often wonder, and I should do it more, I should talk to other people, uh, outside of the UK about non-marketing things and just say, what do you think it's like over in the UK? Like what's it like? There was a separate, to bring it back to marketing, there was a separate conversation that I was having recently online about.
[00:30:26] You mentioned about the UK and the US.
[00:30:28] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:28] Azeem: Both, they operate largely, not wholly, but largely very independently of one another.
[00:30:33] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:33] Azeem: If I think about events, networking events, for example, it's very rare that you will see or hear of people going from the UK. To the US for an event and less, obviously it's funded by the company or the event that they're going to, but you'll see and hear more of people from the US coming to the UK for events.
[00:30:54] And I think that's largely down to the fact that compensation salaries are much higher in in the US. I was doing a bit of digging, having a conversation about it. It was very professional, polite. The conversation was why are there not more marketing events in the US and then I had a look. One very recently happened, I think the ticket was 1500.
[00:31:13] I was gonna say pounds, but it's $1,500, which effectively is not the same thing. They're probably worth more, but let's say 1500 pounds. That is more often than not an entry-level person's salary. So that conference in America is saying, we want you to attend and pay your entire months.
[00:31:33] Joyann: Salary.
[00:31:33] Azeem: Salary.
[00:31:34] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:34] Azeem: To attend. You've gotta then justify that to your landlord, for example, um, or your company or your employer. And often we know this. I'm not about to say anything that neither of us or none of the listeners of yours will know. Junior-level roles have a very short lifespan. 18, 24 months tops, you are asking a company to invest what they would pay you for one month.
[00:31:56] So give you two months salary in one month to send you to a conference, knowing that you're very likely going to learn more, get more skills, and they eventually want to better yourself and move elsewhere for a different salary. You're basically saying, pay for me to become better and leave, which is not gonna happen.
[00:32:14] So I think there's a, there's a disconnect between the UK and the US and I think it needs addressing. I don't know why US events cost so, so much. Well, cost is subjective for me, it costs a lot.
[00:32:27] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:28] Azeem: But in the same way independently, they're operating very well. Together, and I'm not in the conference organising space, but having done a lot of conference to talks and been at a lot of conferences and speaking to a lot of organisers, I can see where the costs are involved.
[00:32:43] Uh, electricity in the US is the same electricity that we get in the UK. It just, we just pay more for it, for example.
[00:32:48] Joyann: Yeah.
[00:32:48] Azeem: But it's a straight, it's hard to sort of qualify.
[00:32:54] Joyann: In terms of the conferences, something I've noticed, especially with International Women's Day recently passed was conferences wanting to be more diverse, but not wanting to pay the speakers.
[00:33:07] And it baffles me, especially the ones based in London, where the ticket price is up there and I'm just like, I know I'm not an accountant, I know I'm not a conference planner, but I feel like you have some budget.
[00:33:21] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:21] Joyann: Especially when I see they have top-notch, not to name and shame, but I know Gary Vaynerchuk and Steve Bartlett aren't speaking for free.
[00:33:29] Azeem: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
[00:33:31] Joyann: So you, you planned their budget, but you want these people like. In regards to any aspiring public speakers in the marketing sector, is there anything you would say, tips to negotiate that, have you had to negotiate that not to get in your business? You can decline to answer. Yeah.
[00:33:48] Azeem: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:33:49] I think, uh, I'll very quickly say that I was asked to speak at an event where there was a very, uh, popular, uh, person speaking. Um, And then we were having a conversation about it. This was when I was very new to this. We were having a conversation about me speaking there, and then towards the end when we're about to seal the deal, they basically said, right, so your fee's gonna be, uh, seven and a half thousand pound.
[00:34:13] And I was like, whoa. But then that's what I would've had to pay them to speak. And I was like, absolutely not. Absolutely not. But to answer your question, the very, very first thing to do is simply ask, excuse me. Simply ask, what is your honorary, what is your speaker package? What package is available? I always, always, always make a point of asking two questions, whether it is what an event that I've pitched for, or whether it's an event that's gone outta their way to ask me to give a talk there, I always say, What's the, what's the speaker package and what does your lineup look like?
[00:34:58] It's a polite way of saying, are you choosing one person of colour to be at the event.
[00:35:04] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:04] Azeem: So there's an event that I'm doing later this year, for example, where I'm not being paid to do it. Um, but they're looking after all of the speakers, for example, by putting everybody up in a hotel, taking them out for dinner.
[00:35:17] And they've made a, a very huge point to say, look, we've hired out a, a huge venue. There's gonna be hundreds if not more than four-figure number of people there. This is what the tickets will cost and they've already said whatever money they make on top of their fees for the day, we'll go straight to a charity who are gonna be the main sponsor of the day.
[00:35:37] And I was like, I'm absolutely fine with that because they're not lining their own pockets.
[00:35:42] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:43] Azeem: But profit off the back of myself and however many of the speakers knowledge they've got. So they couldn't, they said, we don't pay our speakers as a rule. Cause anything we make on profit goes to a charity.
[00:35:53] Great. But I've digressed a bit there. Always ask what's your speaker package and if there isn't one that's got to be a trade off, for example, will they, if you live 300 miles, for example, from where, where the conference is, are you then expected to travel off your own back, organise your own travel train, bus, boat, fly, walk, whatever.
[00:36:13] And then if it's 300 miles or more away from it, in that case, you're probably not gonna go on the day. Cause most conferences start at nine o'clock, so you're gonna have to give up time and money. So it's always important to ask what's available, what's on offer, whether you've pitched for that conference or whether the conference has reached out to you.
[00:36:30] And secondly, I always ask, what's the, what's the lineup of the event? I always make sure that I ask, and I don't think not many people do it. Typically, organisers won't say, well, we've got Joel, Jane, Tim, Tommy, Sally, whatever. They won't name names, but they will say, we've got 30 speakers. Of that certain amount of percentage are people of color.
[00:36:53] We've got a male-female split of this amount. It makes me feel more comfortable knowing that I'm going, firstly into a space where that's considered. But secondly, and probably more importantly, I'm going into a space where I'm not gonna be feeling like the only person.
[00:37:08] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:08] Azeem: From a marginalised group there.
[00:37:10] I'm going into a space where I know my effort will be there. And, and like you said, that they've, that they've made an effort. So my advice there would be to always ask the, the absolute worst thing that can happen if you ask, is they say we don't have a budget. We can't pay a few, but it would be remiss of me not to end this answer by saying, um, very good friend of mine, Reja Worley.
[00:37:33] She's very, very well known in the SEO industry. She has set the absolute blueprint for events. She's created a space for women only, it's called Women in Tech SEO. You should check it out.
[00:37:44] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:44] Azeem: She runs it like once a year. She's literally just run one. She makes a point paying all of her speakers. She does it in London.
[00:37:53] I think the last one was at the Baran. So very well-known places in the capital city of the UK. The ticket prices. I'm not gonna misquote them, but they are very, very reasonable. You're not gonna pay seven, 800 pounds for this event. They are affordable for every level of seniority within a business. On top of that, she offers scholarship tickets.
[00:38:16] So she tells businesses you can pay for a ticket with someone from an underrepresented group to come and attend this event. But she looks after her speakers she'll, she'll pay them, take 'em out for dinner stuff. And I think more conferences should do that. She's charging an absolute fraction of what some of the bigger, more established events in the industry are doing, and I, I genuinely mean a fraction of what they're doing yet is still able to pay speakers.
[00:38:46] It doesn't matter if you are a speaker, for example, there might have been a woman speaking there who's probably got, I dunno. A year that's worth experience in, in marketing or, or has, I'm making a point. I'm not saying only or has 30 followers or 300. She genuinely doesn't care about the number of followers like your social school or index.
[00:39:07] All she cares about is, are you gonna provide value to the community that she's built? I think it's over 5,000 people now.
[00:39:13] Joyann: It's huge. And I absolutely, that was one of the, the three people I love when it comes to tech SEO.
[00:39:18] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:19] Joyann: Um, she inspired the speaker database that I built for the South West, like I saw her women in tech speech and I'm just like, I love this because a lot of the time, especially when there are groups that are creating spaces for marginalised individuals, women, people of colour, disabled people, a lot of the time, the only way they can get money from corporate is by charging corporates for access to those individuals.
[00:39:45] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:39:46] Joyann: And I, everything that she's done has made it sustainable as far as I know from the outside, but also allowing people to see the women that she's backing and highlighting and profiling them as well without having to, to do that bit. Um, not saying that that's a bad thing, it just tends to be the way the model is.
[00:40:05] Running communities and building communities is a lot of work. It's hard work and a lot of the times, depending on the communities, you can't always charge the individuals and you're charging corporates.
[00:40:15] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:40:16] Joyann: Been an inspiration. I need to go to one. I know, I know. I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna be like, what?
[00:40:22] Azeem: No, she's, she's absolutely brilliant. And I think, uh, on that point, like we depended on when this goes out. Excuse me. Depended on when this goes out. We've very recently had International Women's Day.
[00:40:37] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:37] Azeem: Um, and I deliberately, yes, well it was yesterday. I've said it now. Sorry. Um, I deliberately, um, didn't make a specific social post about it, like it's International Women's Day.
[00:40:52] Here are five women who I admire, et cetera. I, I just think a lot of it is, is for vanity because like literally today, the, the day after International Women's Day, I was talking, uh, to a friend of mine in the industry, female. Uh, runs an organisation, runs stuff is looking for sponsorship. The, the company that she was talking to for sponsorship basically said, well, um, we can't pay you, but we can give you like, we can put it, put your or your image, um, your logo on our website.
[00:41:27] And I'm thinking, I bet if I, she didn't tell me, but if, if I know who that organisation was and if I were to look on their, their website or, or their, their socials, there would probably be like an IWD post.
[00:41:41] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:42] Azeem: We wanna celebrate all the women today. And I'm gonna talk in the talk that I'm doing in a, in a few weeks.
[00:41:49] Uh, so for context to talk is about equality and how you can, uh, align that with, with digital, digital marketing part of it. I make a nod to the, the Gender Pay Gap app, the, the bot.
[00:42:00] Joyann: The bot, yeah, love the bot.
[00:42:01] Azeem: Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic because it literally puts everybody on blast whether you're doing really good things or whether you're doing really bad.
[00:42:08] It's at the point now where you will be on blast within seconds. And I just think you can't, it's just tokenism, tick a box, call it what you want, it.
[00:42:19] Joyann: So this is absolutely perfect cause this has coming out the week after I had my mini rant. So this year for International Women's Day, I went on a strike, a fake strike,
[00:42:29] I was just like, the theme is equity and me speaking for free is not equitable. Not saying anyone who asked me to speak, I assumed I just was just saying no and passing opportunities elsewhere. Um, but I was also just, something was rubbing me wrong this year. And I don't know, it's if it's because I'm feeling people fade away from the whole awareness they had in 2020 around Black Lives Matter.
[00:42:54] And I'm and I'm just starting to get really cynical. Um, but in that podcast episode we, I shared about my whole theory of spotlight saturation and normalisation. So I feel like when International Womens, they started the spotlight and I feel like people were putting intent into their content around the theme and we're relating it, and now we're getting to this saturation phase where everyone's just chopping stuff out.
[00:43:20] And even with the bot, the bot is one of the, I think, the best opportunities to be transparent with your brand values and people are just not responding to it. I'm just like, if I got tweeted by the bot, no matter what my gap is, if my gap was like a thousand percent, I'd be like, these are our initiatives we're working towards.
[00:43:39] We still wanna spotlight the people in our community. We think representation, like I would say, and they're just, they're letting the bot tweet them and some of them is deleting their tweets, which I think is a cop out as well.
[00:43:49] Um, yeah.
[00:43:50] Azeem: And they're getting, uh, well, let's call it what it is. They're getting absolutely peppered for it.
[00:43:54] The, the worst one that I saw yesterday was Wiz Air, the airline.
[00:43:58] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:00] Azeem: Standard stock image of a, a group of men and women stood in front of a, of an airline. But the gap was something like, I don't know. It was huge. The gap between men and women was huge. And the worst about it was the gap had got wider in the past year.
[00:44:13] There's a few of them, so they deleted the tweet, but I went onto Wiz Air's page on Twitter, everything they've put out since people are just throwing that tweet back in there. So no matter what you do, The internet doesn't forget.
[00:44:29] Joyann: The internet does not forget and.
[00:44:31] Azeem: It'll come. It will come for you.
[00:44:33] But like you said, to own it in that way is much, much better. It's something that I've spoke about huge amount of time. I literally said, what did I say? Uh, this is what I said. Executive bonus's leadership bonuses should be tied to your DEI in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
[00:44:52] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:53] Azeem: We say on day one of year one that by 365, we're gonna achieve this, and in year two, we're gonna achieve this. If you don't, you shouldn't get a bonus.
[00:45:01] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:02] Azeem: They might, people get a bonus for profit growth or whatever, reducing certain loans on your p and l. That should be potentially one of those things that you think, right, well, I'm not gonna get a bonus because I'm not, I'm not doing that.
[00:45:14] Literally, I could talk head up about some of this stuff. I was just like.
[00:45:19] Joyann: There's so many things.
[00:45:21] Azeem: It's a frustration. The biggest thing I wanna mention, I'm not gonna end this recording without saying this. The biggest thing I wanna mention, you've heard me talk about this before, we do not talk about the fact that we don't link up certain characteristics together.
[00:45:36] We talk about the gender pay gap. We talk about, okay, women are paid less than men. We talk about the fact separately. Like for example, I know in London there's a 20% well-adjusted ethnicity pay gap. So, We do not talk about those two facts together. I always say, right, women are paid less. And as an example, Black people are paid less than their white counterparts.
[00:46:03] Nobody ever puts those two together. I've certainly seen and says, well, what if you are a Black woman?
[00:46:08] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:09] Azeem: You're gonna be penalised for, for being black financially, and you're also gonna be penalised for your gender. So somebody who identifies as a Black woman will be almost double penalised for absolutely no logical reason, and we don't talk about that.
[00:46:25] I would love to see like a future version of the, of the Gender Pay Gap app as a race pay gap.
[00:46:32] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:33] Azeem: Um, I love to see that.
[00:46:34] Joyann: There was talks of it reporting obviously this is not political podcast, so don't take any of this. Um, there was talks of them implementing one, but the companies apparently didn't have the data.
[00:46:47] To even know what the gap is, which is a whole other thing. Um, but the intersectionality and, and, I, again, I'm cynical to all of this. I've been in this world too long since. I'm just saying that to be like, I'm about to say a terrible thing, but sometimes when I talk to some clients that I'm training, when I talk about, hey, you can represent the dark-skinned Black women, they're like, huh?
[00:47:11] The, and when I show them examples, like within stock photography, when they're searching women, I'm like, you, you realise all the women that come up are white. They're like, oh, I never noticed that.
[00:47:22] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:23] Joyann: And I'm like, so what do you do when you wanna represent black and brown people? Um, and they, they, they either go to a specific stock photos, data set, like the black UK Black Tech, which is amazing, stock photos, data set, but they will still pick the man.
[00:47:38] And I'm just like, so you just skip past, you don't even continue. Your target audience is women. You have an opportunity to make it intersectional, but it was too hard, so you skip past it altogether and tick one of the boxes rather than, it's just, it's interesting, however, We can talk about so many things. Um, I wanna know, we're just talking about International Women Days campaign.
[00:48:02] Doesn't have to be a campaign around that, but do you have a campaign that you've seen either recently or in the past that was inclusive good or inclusive bad? Um, hops to mind. We will link it. If there's a video or anything, we'll link it in the description.
[00:48:17] Azeem: Okay. Apologies if this one has been used, uh, before in a, in a previous episode, but when I was doing some research for a, for a campaign, uh, for this talk that I'm giving, I came across the, the Dove hashtag Show Us campaign, which you've probably seen or heard about.
[00:48:35] Literally. I was like, this is exactly the sort of campaign that I want. And I dunno if it's ever been, uh, dug into or sort of dived into any depth, but it's like literally, For those who don't know, it's a women-led campaign. Um, it focuses on, on proper diversity in, in all, all formats. Um, and with this campaign, the images there was not, or there were not any, any digital assets.
[00:49:02] So the images from this campaign that I've seen sort of blew up all over social media over the past few years. The images that I've seen as I've seen, for example, women who were, uh, slightly larger and not like a very slim young blonde woman. Um, people who, I'm sorry, I can't think of the right language to say.
[00:49:23] So for example, there were, there were Muslim women in head scarfs. Um, there were women who suffered with dwarfism. Um, I'm not sure if that's the right term. I'm very sorry if that's the wrong one. Um, people of different colours, um, models with, I think it was vitiligo, literally everything. Immediately I thought, I'm gonna look at this campaign and I'm gonna look at it in the eyes of someone who is, or try to look at it through the eyes of someone who doesn't care about this stuff.
[00:49:50] And I, what would they say upon looking at this? And I put it in, in, in my slide deck. Great. Wonderful look to see it. Did it work? What's the point of it? Did it work? Looking to brand value of Dove. Uh, shout out to Statista for, for having some of this information since that project has come out. Um, the brand value, I don't have the exact numbers, but it's skyrocketed now.
[00:50:19] It might not be as a direct result of that campaign, but the facts that Dove are reaching out to and including. The audience that they are speaking to, they don't think that's a coincidence at all. If the brand value had completely nose-dived, the first thing that everybody, including Dove would probably blame is that campaign.
[00:50:40] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:40] Azeem: But the fact that it's skyrocketed or people are knot, like putting two and two together, Dove on it's own is a very strong brand. I could give you a soap bar in a certain shape and you wouldn't know what to do for one.
[00:50:50] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:50] Azeem: Because how strong the brand is, but the fact they're considering this and they're doing this, shows that is incredibly inclusive marketing.
[00:50:57] It is probably one of the most, um, popular ones. Uh, but yeah, I was looking at this and I, I thought I'll dive into the numbers and I was like, that's incredible. I made a point of looking down at some of the images and I was like, if I didn't know, this is me from my own lens now.
[00:51:16] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:16] Azeem: If I didn't know that this was a campaign specifically targeted like for women and being diverse and focusing on every different group of society, I would simply think this is a great ad, uh, for Dove.
[00:51:28] I wouldn't put two and two together and think, right. This is a focus on diversity in all sorts of aspects. Body shape, cultural backgrounds, religion. I've just seeing women advertising product, I'm thinking great, but the wider point, did it work? Absolutely. Brand value through the roof.
[00:51:47] Joyann: Dove is one of our faves.
[00:51:49] I wanna do a case study on them. They have a good recovery.
[00:51:53] Azeem: Hmm.
[00:51:53] Joyann: Like in terms of. When we look at examples of Fuckups, dove is one of the ones that started a bit shaky. The reason it was on our radar is because they had some campaigns that weren't great, that weren very bad, but their recovery has been consistent.
[00:52:10] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:52:10] Joyann: This one was on our list, but more so because I think they made the images public as stock photos.
[00:52:16] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:52:16] Joyann: And what I love about it is practical, like. Yes, it's a campaign. Yes, it's, it's promoting their brand values, but at the same time it's giving their marketing team stock vote resource.
[00:52:28] Azeem: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:29] Joyann: And it's just like, okay, here, this, this is what we have. It's engaging with their audience. And then all the women who, they've included models or so forth and now advocates for Dove, um, and they've now got another campaign where they're talking about what does professional hair look like in relation to Black women?
[00:52:46] And the fact that they've continued. They're still practical. I think sometimes, and this is what I asked you about the whole inclusive marketing and and exclusion earlier on. Sometimes when people focus on inclusive marketing, they focus solely on doing it for the good and forget the marketing and the practicality of it.
[00:53:06] I love when I see stuff like this one that the project show us because there's so much practicality aligned with everything.
[00:53:14] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:53:14] Joyann: And the longevity in that is beautiful because people will, there, there'll be a point where people will just, like you said, use these photos and not know where the camp it ordinated from.
[00:53:23] Azeem: Yeah.
[00:53:24] Joyann: And it's stamping within history. I love it. I love that one.
[00:53:27] Azeem: It's for the wider good, right? And just, I mean, just to add onto what you said, you made a perfect point earlier about intent. You can tell from the outside that the intent of that campaign, was genuine, wasn't forced, not being, not doing it to tick a box or whatever genuine intent to, to serve the audience that it wants to speak to.
[00:53:47] And I think that's important. I've made a very similar point in the past, we talked about International Women's Day. The intention behind of a huge amount of those posts was not to recognize and uplift women. Purely for social media engagement. In my opinion, feel free if you listen or watching to disagree, but I will challenge you to find any one of those brands with a large gender pay gap.
[00:54:10] And tell me that on the, let's pick a random date, I don't know, August the fourth, last year, what they did to uplift women.
[00:54:19] Joyann: Because August the fourth was hashtag cookie month. They can't, they can't hashtag it on another day. Come on.
[00:54:29] Azeem: Point remains, I think intent is, is absolutely, uh, Is absolutely key. And I'll, I'll, I'll round off by saying this, I very briefly mentioned that, that Dove has got a very, very strong brand. I could give you a bar of soap in a certain shape you wouldn't know it was Dove or.
[00:54:44] Joyann: Mm-hmm
[00:54:44] Azeem: Or a shampoo bottle. Something that I'm not familiar with by the way, but, um, I give you a certain product, you would know it Dove.
[00:54:50] You do not have to have a strong brand to do inclusive marketing. For me, that's a misconception which I think this podcast and hopefully other episodes that you do, will, will, will shatter that misconception. You could sell something like industrial tank parts.
[00:55:09] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:10] Azeem: And do inclusive marketing. Simple as.
[00:55:13] Joyann: I was challenged on that recently.
[00:55:15] I was just like, so we have a, a scenario we play when building the platform, the software, whereas like what's the worst case scenario? Worst case scenario, some bad person can make a really inclusive campaign. And at the end of the day, inclusion comes in various way. When you think of marketing, it's the language, it's the representation, it's the strategies, all those things.
[00:55:37] But if they still wanted to do something bad, inclusive, marketing's not gonna stop that. Like with International Women's Day, they could have had amazing copy, they could have had the most representative pictures and all that stuff, but the company did jack shit, right. They don't always, ideally in that Dove case, it aligns and you want it to align and the marketing should always align with the company values and the company's mission and all so forth.
[00:55:58] Sometimes it doesn't. Not saying that anyone listening has a bad company, but.
[00:56:03] Azeem: No. But there are there, like yesterday, for example, International Women's Day, there's a huge opportunity there for people with genuine intent to turn something around, I would, I would scour that hashtag, I wish I could remember the woman's name, but I can't, I dunno if you saw this, but there was a post, uh, from a woman, not a brand, a woman, she was a firefighter in her firefighters gear holding her two, two children.
[00:56:23] I dunno if you saw this, but she basically said words to the effect of, uh, of being a firefighter for, for 12 years now. Uh, when I told my partner at the time, on the day that I got accepted, he had me in a chokehold. Uh, do we need international women's? Yes, we do. And I'm pretty sure that one of her two children was a young girl.
[00:56:45] I saw that and I was incredibly moved by it. I was like, that is incredible. Because firefighting traditionally is seen as a male-dominated industry.
[00:56:53] Joyann: Mm-hmm.
[00:56:54] Azeem: If I have anybody who works in that industry who does marketing in any form, I would reach out to that woman. I would say this is absolutely fantastic.
[00:57:02] It's genuine. The intention is great. I would love to do a campaign with you and give. Spotlight, not because we want social engagement, because we think posts like yours in that authentic tone could potentially lead to more women thinking that there's a career in firefighting for them in a heavily male-dominated industry.
[00:57:21] Stuff like that. There are opportunities there which don't think people look for. It's more how many like shares, what impressions are we getting? And I think that's probably a problem with the, with the marketing industry.
[00:57:33] Joyann: There's many problems. We're working to things. There's many problems. Um, I wanna have you back on a podcast to chat AI cause we haven't had that chat.
[00:57:44] As soon as you said problems, I'm just like, Ooh. There's a, there's a mini storm brewing. There's a mini storm brewing and I would love your SEO perspective on it as well, uh, because.
[00:57:54] Azeem: Yeah, I've got thoughts on that. I saw literally one today from a woman in India who's harmed herself massively journalist. I would never do it.
[00:58:02] She'd used AI to write an article about something, which clearly she hasn't got an expert opinion on, nor is an expert herself, but quite clearly left a prompt from chat GBT in the article, and I'm like, you, no.
[00:58:19] Joyann: Okay. another time. Whole other journey. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Let the listeners and viewers know where they can find you..
[00:58:33] Azeem: Oh, well it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. I am on, uh, Twitter at Azeem Digital. I'm on LinkedIn, uh, forward slash Azeen A1. If you can find me that way, if my SEO is any good, you should be able to type in, how can I contact Azeem? And I should have the featured snippet there. I'm in an ongoing battle with a small jewelers in London who share the same name as me for that top spot.
[00:58:58] But ask Google how can you contact me, and if I'm not number one, I should be number two. If you click it, it will help me to get his number one.
[00:59:07] Joyann: Top two, top number two. Love it. Um, quoting Beyonce. I love the way, perfect way to end the podcast. And we'll also put all those links in the description, in the transcription.
[00:59:18] Um, thank you so much for joining me on the Marketing Made Inclusive Podcast. Please, if you are listening, you can watch us on YouTube and see Azeem's beautiful face and follow us. anywhere on the internet. Have a lovely day.
