How NBCU and Walton Isaacson are opening doors for diverse small businesses
In the latest from ‘Convene. Challenge. Change.’, a series in partnership with the 4A’s, its president and chief exec Marla Kaplowitz hears how NBCU and Walton Isaacson are working together to put DE&I principles into practice – and giving a boost to small businesses in the process.
It is a year on since the launch of ‘Open Doors’, a partnership between NBCU, agency Walton Isaacson and State Farm designed to support and elevate diverse-owned small businesses across the US, and two of the architects of the program have opened up about its learnings.
Peter Blacker, NBCU’s lead on streaming and data products, and head of diversity, equity & inclusion for its ad sales business, and Aaron Walton, founder and chief exec of Walton Isaacson, joined forces to tackle the problem of small businesses in the US often being “unrecognized, underserved and sometimes under-resourced”.
“So, what we wanted to do was create a program that was multicultural from the start, bilingual from the start,” says Blacker, in conversation with the 4A’s chief exec Marla Kaplowitz.
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The program provides resources for small businesses that might need access to dedicated social media or business planning resources, for example. The things that, as Blacker puts it, “help a business get to the next level beyond one or two employees”.
And as Walton explains, it’s important for the participating businesses to be diverse because that is the true reflection of America today.
“The reality is our country is going to be a majority minority and we have to reflect that,” he says.
“Brands, if they want to win, have to reflect that in who they are in order to make sure they are able to compete. So our goals are to help clients understand the value of that – bringing them the data, making sure that they understand that this isn’t a nice to do, this is a requirement to survive in the future.”
Walton shares the story of a small retail store in Louisiana, Fleurty Girl, which was given a major platform to shine through this partnership during National Women’s Small Business Month.
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“The opportunity for her to see her company featured on The Today Show, because of the resources that, you know, Peter and his team [have] was unbelievable. And it trickled down. So it's not just about that one company, it's about the ecosystem that engages with those companies – that was really special.”
Watch the full interview above to learn more about Open Doors, how Blacker and Isaacson measure the success of their DE&I efforts, and the advice they’d give to brands to ensure they engage with diverse communities in a sincere, and not superficial manner.