EPISODE 8 - A YEAR OF MISINFORMATION - TRANSCRIPT

Host Sonoo Singh - Founder, Creative Salon

Debarshi Pandit – SVP International Business / Head of Multicultural Business, Sky Media

Dino Myers-Lamptey – Founder / CEO, The Barber Shop

Cindy Gallop – Founder / CEO, Make Love Not Porn / If We Ran The World

Sonoo:  Hello, and welcome to the Conscious Thinking podcast from the Conscious Advertising Network. This is next in the series of thought-provoking sessions where today we are discussing A Year of Misinformation, so obviously lots to talk about.  I'm your host Sonoo Singh, from Creative Salon and with me, I have Debarshi Pandit, Senior VP of International Business  and Head of Multicultural Business at Sky Media,  Dino Myers-Lamptey, the Founder and CEO of The Barber Shop and entrepreneur Cindy Gallop who needs very little introduction, she’s the CEO and Founder of Make Love Not Porn.  Thank you very much all of you for joining us.

Now lies, propaganda, fake news … big big challenge for our age, in fact for every fact there is a counter-fact, and all these counter-facts look so identical online and are so confusing to most of us, Cindy can I just start with you, especially sitting in the US, you’re joining us from New York thank you for that, what responsibility do you think our industry have, I’ll caveat it a little bit … you know when Trump first tweeted those premature claims of victory, I saw only a few brands that were bold enough to put their hands up and remind people to keep an eye out for misinformation and that the President’s lies are a threat to the country and they were Ryanair and a frozen steak company called Steak-umm.  And I’m just wondering as an industry what responsibility do we have on our shoulders?

Cindy: I absolutely believe that we have a responsibility, but I don’t mean ‘we’ as in the full collective ‘we’, I mean ‘we’ as in the people within our industry who have the most power to take a stand, which is the clients, the brands.  And they absolutely need to withdraw their support, by which I mean their advertising, their financial support from those platforms that deliberately perpetuate misinformation.  And that applies to not only the far right media platforms where ads often get served, not necessarily by the way with the brand, the marketer knowing that is going on, but also very perturbing platforms like Facebook.  Because it’s only when the brands in our industry make that stand and withdraw that support, that any change will happen.

Sonoo:  Yes, I always count the minutes and the seconds as to when we can use the ‘F’ word, Facebook obviously, and you’ve just literally launched into it.  But Dino I’ll come to you, as Cindy says, it’s not just the pandemic, it’s not just Trump, in the UK we also have Brexit, now all of that has created a whole new level of integrity, and you can always argue that news in itself, and I’m not just talking about Facebook but news itself, is almost implicit in telling stories without much balance at all, and you work around the whole diversity and inclusion piece, how do you think or what do you tell your brands on how you manage that kind of disinformation that Cindy just talked about?

Dino:   I mean it’s difficult because so many place are doing it and you have business models that are premised on clickbait, basically, fanning anger and resentment for certain stories, and you have social media that’s turbo-charging people’s likes and reactions, and you have a situation where, whether people agree or disagree, they are forwarding content on and that is counting as engagement that has a currency attached to it and that attracts advertising pounds.  So the whole thing is designed to encourage, short, very kind of truth less but potentially very entertaining content to many people, but it’s really quite destructive.   So really the brands that we work with, the purpose-led brands that are looking to connect to the right-minded people, you have to be incredibly careful about where you place your advertising.  Things like programmatic advertising have to be treated with massive caution, you have to set so many restrictions about where you are actually going to be seen and where you go, and I think in the wrong hands that kind of care and attention just doesn’t happen.  So we prefer to cherry pick the kind of sites, we look at quality news environments and reputable places that we can hold to account ultimately about what they have on their site, but also the context and surrounding environment that you’re going to be held within, I think that’s really important.  It’s about thinking about who is accountable for it.

Sonoo:  The flip side of that, I would argue is, that we are already living in a world where there is an erosion of trust and Debarshi can I bring you in, how do you then even start talking about being fair, free, trustworthy with information, because also if you were to add this to the human need to dooms grow, always wanting bad news, that’s obviously your fertile breeding ground for misinformation and fake news isn’t it, so where do you even start?

Debarshi:   Yes, I think this is where the whole trust issue comes into play from well-established media houses, and one of the things that we at Sky do take pride in for Sky News is the accuracy, the impartiality and the depth of analysis that we provide in terms of our news coverage.  And it was very heartening to note that in the recent US elections there was a huge surge in our Sky News viewership from across the pond, because people in the US didn’t actually trust their own media and they needed a third party, neutral news channel, to come to us, to access information as to whether the results that had been declared, the so called media declared results, were true or not.  And I think that’s where a big brand like Sky News plays a huge role in society in terms of weeding out all the false narratives that exist, and fair play I don’t know if you have ever visited any of our news on the app or the website but we’ve got a feature that actually highlights why you can trust Sky News, and there is a link to a thing called the Trust Project that we are a member of, because we believe in transparency and obviously you have been to Sky (and Cindy so have you) I don’t know how long back you have been but we have also got this glass box where the newsreaders broadcast their news and the reason why it’s the glass box is because we believe in transparency and no better way to show that where our newsreaders are there in a glass box for all to see.  So I think this is where established media houses need to step up the game and call it false when it is and I think credit is also due because yes, we’ve had innumerable comments being made by certain media personalities across the pond, and they got the coverage because the news were covering it, and this time around when it came to the elections I think there was a blanket ban, where all the news channels just blanked out and said whatever is being said by the current President is not true, with regards to election tampering and tampering of votes and so on and so forth.  That’s the kind of attitude that I wish all broadcasters had taken earlier on in 2015 or 2016 where certain comments were being made, I think we probably would have been in a better place.  But then I agree with Cindy, that it needs to be a level playing field, because you cannot have things like Ofcom regulating us as a broadcaster but then other forms of media continuing, not just existing but thriving, on the back of as Dino highlighted, fanning the extremist to their advantage.

Sonoo:  So that’s interesting.  So within this context Cindy, and especially sitting in the US, the misinformation we’ve seen so far this entire year, it almost paled in comparison to what happened after the election results started coming in, I mean that’s a really really difficult position for brands to even start wading into any of those debates as such, let alone social media platforms, who by the way are signalling some kind of intent to remove some of the falsehoods being perpetuated.

Cindy:    Well before I respond to that question specifically Sonoo, I just want to highlight something.  Which is that everything we are talking about in terms of the mishandling of appalling dissemination of misinformation on every single media and social platform, I guarantee would not be going on if the leadership of those platforms was gender equal or more female than male, ok I absolutely guarantee it.  And the depressing thing is that we’ve all seen that female state leaders have led their nations through Covid far more effectively than men, and by the way I make a point of ensuring that people know that the reason that is so has nothing to do with ‘oh women are more empathetic and touchy-feely’, the reason female leaders have led countries more effectively through Covid is because to even get to that position a woman has to go through so much shit.  The women who lead their nations have gone through sexism, bias, sexual harassment, prejudice in the way that none of the men at the top of their nations have ever had to deal with.  And at least, when you are a woman prepared to fight that battle, and you are so well qualified to fight it because of that battle, you are elected to that position.  Unfortunately that does not happen in the media world.  Over here in the US, the gigantic media brands, especially in the television industry, have been built by white male cultures, rife with sexual harassment that have managed women out of there.   That is a huge huge problem, because what we have is a very kind of one dimensional perspective of how you run a network, what makes money, how you get the numbers.  So I want to see that change and obviously this year more than ever before with all of the activism we see around us, there are many more people committed to making that change.   And apologies, because I know that I went off on a bit of a tangent to your original question, looping back to your question, I just wanted the audience to hear that point of view, I believe that brands need to take a stand for their own values, so I’m not suggesting any brand wade into the dialogue, but it is incredibly important both for consumers and employees of brands that they know that that brand stands for something.  And trust me, in 2020 you cannot afford to go ‘oh that’s politics, we have nothing to do with it’, everybody has something to do with it, because those politics affect the lives of your employees, and especially when we are not seeing the commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion that we should, a brand must take a stand to say that ‘we believe in being a part of creating a more equitable society that welcomes everybody, including the people who make up our consumer base and our employees’.  So no, you cannot afford to stay away from the fight, you know you absolutely need to identify your role within it, but at the very least you need to stand up for your values, what you believe in on behalf of your employees and your consumers.

Sonoo:  Yeah.  No I do want to go back to your first point actually, because I can always trust Cindy to come up with the most fascinating point of view on this.  And that’s quite interesting, and Debarshi could you come in here, because what we are really talking about is how the media industry has been curated and created by the few and obviously you sit within Sky Media looking at inclusion, that’s one of your roles, so it would be interesting to hear your point of view on this?

Debarshi:  Yes so I think what Cindy has highlighted is true and everybody knows that.  And I think there are efforts being made to address that right, and it’s no longer ‘brush it under the carpet and forget about it’.  So one of the things, I think this year especially post the unfortunate incidents that happened in the US over the summer with the Black Lives movement, that did actually shine a spotlight and we’ve had a lot of companies that would have kept quiet or silent in the past, take a bold stand, take a public stand and commit to investing money, resources, and energy in making sure that their own individual organisations, ie the media organisations, are being truly diverse and being reflective of the community that they are working in and representing.  Certainly that’s a huge change, I mean I didn’t see that happening so quickly but I’ve been on this for the past almost two decades more than anyone else, but hand on my heart the rapid pace at which the developments have happened over the past six months and the pace with which it has happened overshadows the problem we have had in the past nineteen years I think.  And that’s a huge standout point.  We’ve also got a new role created for the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Sky, who’s remit for the role that’s just been announced and the person taken on and we are very much looking forward to it, come the New Year I’m sure there’s going to be a huge change within our organisation and I guess other organisations will follow suit. 

Sonoo:  So staying on the same point, Dino can I come to you, you know the one thing that we did see with the Black Lives Matter protests this summer was also this sort of feeding frenzy for looking to distort reframe the narrative, whether it was about racial justice, police violence and all of that, and obviously through the lens of inclusion and diversity that you work through, do you think that we need to almost reframe the conversation of misinformation also through that lens, to try and get some kind of balances that are right?

Dino:   I’m not too sure that we’ve had complete success at reframing the conversation.  You know we’ve had a lot of awareness of the issue when it comes to the subject of diversity, there’s much more kind of openness to take the steps that are necessary to make things a little more transparent and open the door or behind the curtain about who is in those influential key decision making positions for example.  And what we are recognising is it’s incredibly unrepresentative of society and culture, but also more importantly the global world and the customers that we are striving to serve.  I think that any forward thinking company knows, and a lot of the City are now investing off the back of more diversity demands, it’s becoming a real thing where there is a cost attached to not doing it and I think that has probably motivating some people who have been reluctant to do it for quite some time.  In terms of the extent of the problem, we’ve talked about the media industry for example, well actually I think that you know the really big surprising step is we’re in the marketing industry, in terms of client and brand side, we don’t even know the statistics at the moment, let alone to be able to comment on how undiverse or not the brand side is.   So you know it shows just how far we have to go.  But when it comes to misinformation I think it’s a similar thing.  You know misinformation is such a big subject, it’s changing the whole way we communicate and connect to society, it’s changing politics, it’s changing business, it’s changing everything, so it’s a global, massive, political issue that needs collaboration, regulation, it needs everything coming together, it can’t be just brands alone sorting the problem, or the advertising agencies for example, everyone’s got to realise that society has been broken by this terrible crisis of misinformation. 

Sonoo:  Indeed.  But however I do want to understand that if, as Cindy you almost alluded to, that the Facebook’s of this world have become the megaphone of anarchy in some shape or form.  So for brands, for businesses, for the advertising industry, do we need to agree on kind of new rules of interaction with them for instance?

Cindy:  I believe we absolutely do, but quite honestly Sonoo the issue with everything that we’re talking about is that it’s not about what we say, it’s about what we do.  And I don’t see any change in behaviour until, quite frankly, there is more diverse representation at the top of those platforms and at the top of the companies engaging with them.  And I make that point because first of all Facebook talks again and again and it has done for years about its commitment to diversity, there is not one single black person on the executive leadership team at Facebook.  That is not a commitment to diversity.  And as long as there is not one single black person on its executive leadership team we do not have Facebook approaching tackling racism on its platform and the appropriate dissemination of information pertaining to that in the right kind of way.  I want to just highlight, how much Chief Diversity Officers are not solving this problem.  Because that brilliant black and brown talent being recruited to be the Chief Diversity Officer, they don’t want to be the bloody Chief Diversity Officer, they want to be the CEO and the COO.  They are not being given that opportunity.  It’s actually very simple to change all of this, but our clients and our agencies and our media companies are not doing it and I’ll give you one very practical example because I get subversionists call all the time and a very senior person in our industry, won’t name names but a globally known senior marketer, called me up and said ‘Cindy, I’ve got this really big global CMO role, I want to hire a black woman, who do you know?’  And as I take you through this conversation think about this as the giant news organisation saying we need to hire a black female news editor, we need to hire a black female newsreader.  So what I said was, it doesn’t work like that.  You have to do four things if you genuinely want to hire a black woman. 

Number one, you have to re-engineer your job description, because I read that job description when you posted it on LinkedIn, you wrote that job description to appeal to a white man.  And the demonstration is that on the comment thread below it on LinkedIn, is a long stream of white men recommending either themselves or other white men.  And to give you an example of what I mean, because I won’t get brand specific, in this job description this white man had written ‘you will have a creative track record that makes us all jealous’ and I went no they won’t, because if you want a black woman she has never been promoted into the position where she can do that.  You have to re-write it to say … this is where you bring all your creativity and you can finally let it rip the way you’ve always wanted.  Number one, ok, re-engineer the job description.

Number two, I said re-brief your recruiters, because I know that you’ve briefed them to find somebody currently operating at the same level of the job.  Don’t do that, brief them to recruit black talent one, two, three levels down, because I guarantee that black talent will do a far better job because of all the barriers they’ve had to battle to even get to two levels down, versus the white men who’ve never had to contend with any of that to get there.

Number three, re-engineer the interview process.  White men interviewing other white men are actively looking for reasons to hire those white men, they start with positivity.  White men interviewing the rest of us start from negativity.  They are actively looking for reasons not to hire us, they look for red flags.  Re-engineer your interview process.

And number four, last point, re-engineer your working environment.  Because if you invite a black female candidate in and she sees, as she will, that your company’s full of white men, she’s going to go ‘why the hell would I put myself in there, I know what’s going to happen?’  And it’s very easy to re-engineer a work environment, just promote all that brilliant black talent that’s been held down for years, promote them to their rightful positions, low and behold black talent friendly environment.  And I’m making those very practical points very specifically because this is what is not happening in every brand marketing company, in every big media company, in every company period.  And until we have that diverse leadership who then brings their lens to bear on the distribution of information of news, none of this will change.

Sonoo:  Indeed.  And that you say once those sort of structures are in place, that is what will help build that kind of public resilience against misinformation ….

Cindy: … because they will bring a completely difference lens to the white male one that is currently not doing the job it should.

Sonoo:  Indeed.  So the last question for both you Dino and Debarshi, is as Cindy says, if the future of marketing, bringing it back to the future of marketing, is the trust economy, within the context of what Cindy has just said, and when brands are thinking about ‘what is our relationship with consumers, how much do we care, what kind of relationship do we want to have and privacy being part of it and we need to think where we are spending our money?’, how do you then go about building that resilience against misinformation?  Debarshi you go first.

Debarshi:  Well I think first and foremost you’ve got to be confident and fearless, because only when you have those factors working in your favour and knowing what you are doing is for the greater good.  Because come what may, and there are examples, in fact a beautiful example of an ad that was recently done in India that’s celebrating different religious festivals and it was done by a big conglomerate.  But unfortunately because of the social media uproar that happened, they had to pull that ad off.

Cindy: … they should never have pulled it, they should not have pulled it.

Debarshi:  You know the ad I am talking about.  This is exactly where I am coming from.  So what does that demonstrate?  That demonstrates that yes, as a marketeer you were confident, you were sure, but you know what you got nervous at the end so this is like doing the best stage rehearsal and dress rehearsal but failing at the actual show.  You know, that shouldn’t be the case.  So if you’ve got faith and conviction and belief that your idea is powerful, that will make a true difference to society, go with it.  Don’t back away because they will be people who will be trying to knock your confidence or knock that campaign off, but you’ve got to have the belief and conviction.  So as far as I’m concerned, two words, fearless and conviction.

Sonoo:  Yeah hold your nerve.  Dino you get the last word …

Dino:   I think the first thing is that you’ve got to start looking internally at what your culture and what your team are and how diverse your company is.  It’s starts from the values from within and then you’ve got to let them shine out and your purpose and let that be the driving force behind what you do.  Who you work with, so your suppliers, your agencies, but also that kind of triple A accountability, circular accountability, the recruiters as Cindy mentioned and your other partners, the research agencies you work with, everyone has a role to play.  And you’ve got to make sure that you’re almost B corp about it, in terms of making sure that every part of your relationships, every part of what you do as a business, are living by the same values that you do.  And then you can extend that to your customers and I think that when you do advertising and media, we’ve got to get more sophisticated and think beyond just chasing audiences and numbers and start to think about contextual placements as well, the value of contextual placements.  Think about more than just grabbing attention and think about actual intent based targeting.  So as an advertiser you’ve got to support those new models that don’t just chase the least amount of money, and start supporting different models to fund better journalism that can be held to account ultimately.

Sonoo:  Brilliant.  When you do have guests like Cindy Gallop, Debarshi Pandit and Dino Myers-Lamptey, you have to expect some kind of fireworks.  So thank you so much to all three of you for joining on this podcast.  And a huge thank you to our friends at Marshall Street Editors and The Nerve as well.

Thank you listeners and keep listening, bye bye everyone.