In 2020, AMA Triangle developed a little something we like to call, “The Whole Marketer Promise”. This promise is our commitment to always remembering that while we are marketers, we’re also children, parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, friends, neighbors, and partners. We love marketing, but we also love cooking, dancing, biking, hiking, running, swimming, music, sports, traveling, and so much more. We’re a community of PEOPLE first and foremost, and right now, more than ever, we’re striving to be the community our members deserve, a place where each and every person in the Triangle has the opportunity to feel that they truly belong because AMA Triangle believes that marketing is for everyone.
To align with our inherent belief that marketing is for everyone, in June 2020, AMA Triangle teamed up with AMA Sacramento Valley and AMA New York to establish a national Taskforce to design an official DEI Pledge for all professional AMA chapters. The Pledge would be designed to help all 70 chapters nationwide establish and implement DEI practices within their organizations. To aid in our efforts, we grew our Taskforce to include AMA PDX, AMA New Jersey, and AMA Austin. Once the Pledge was complete, we realized we’d need to consistently provide DEI support for every chapter that signed, so we subsequently established monthly DEI Townhalls, DEI Collateral, digital campaign materials, calendars, and holiday guidance before officially launching on September 21, 2020.
When AMA Triangle says that we believe in DEI, we mean that we believe so deeply that we’ve dedicated ourselves to leading the charge for nationwide change. As marketers, we have the ability to influence what our communities, customers, and clients see, think, feel, and believe. As an industry, we believe that it is our greatest responsibility to ensure that the copy we’re creating, the images we’re posting, the language we’re using, and the ads we’re producing are, at their core inclusive and free of personal, professional, or cultural bias. We’ve committed not only to educate ourselves but to ensure that every single aspect of our operations start and end with DEI in mind. That every volunteer is committed to upholding the principles of DEI, and that each team is held to their own internal DEI KPIs. We’ve dedicated ourselves to DEI not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because we’re striving to be the community you deserve, and we see a better, brighter, and more inclusive future for our industry.
We believe marketing has the power to make a difference. As innovators, strategizers, ambassadors, and storytellers, we shape narratives that communicate value, create meaning, and establish societal norms.
As chapter leaders in the AMA, we recognize there is inequity in our marketing community and organization and that we can do more to address these gaps. The catalyst of our actions stems from the unjust murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other lives lost due to police brutality. Our past inaction and silence have resulted in hurt, exclusion, and harm in ways that we cannot measure, but we are committed to rectifying this and ensuring that our efforts are sustainable and far-reaching.
Starting today, we will use our platform to better help individuals and companies support diversity, equity, and inclusion in the industry, beginning with centering and amplifying the voices of our black, brown, and indigenous communities (BIPOC). As a chapter of the American Marketing Association and as marketers representing a diverse set of industries and disciplines:
Together, we will use the power of our collective voices to outline the roles marketers can play in standing for and delivering on inclusion; the ideals, values, and principles that promote equality, respect, and unity.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is so much more than a single commitment – it's an ongoing journey of learning and growth. We invite you to share your thoughts, your feedback, your ideas, your suggestions, your feelings... YOUR VOICE.