RESTORING HUMANITY IN MARKETING
What it means and why it matters to us
If you’re familiar with the work of PJS Consultants, you might have heard that we’re committed to restoring humanity in marketing. As communications specialists, we dedicate lots of energy to reflecting on language and making sure we’re speaking clearly, transparently, and purposefully. We want to make sure that our audiences understand our messages—and that our work reflects and moves us toward our vision for a better world.
So... what do we mean by “restoring humanity in marketing”?
Let’s go back in time to when our founder, Precious J. Stroud, was a budding marketing professional. She would often see language and imagery supposedly representing people “like her”—Black people, women, or people from working class backgrounds—that felt so misrepresentative, inaccurate… disconnected. One specific example was a report on academic inequities that referred to children “falling through the cracks.” Precious had an immediate reaction to this language: We can’t say the children are falling through the cracks when, in fact, the people and institutions that are supposed to be supporting the children are instead perpetuating harmful systems, denying the children the resources and conditions they need to be successful.
At the time, Precious didn’t know how to share her insights in a way that could influence and impact the people who held organizational power. She wanted them to acknowledge that the words and phrases they were repurposing were problematic or rooted in bias. What Precious quickly learned was that those leading her organization were not connected to the full humanity of the people and communities they were serving.
Once the time came for Precious to dedicate her time and energy to building her own business, her focus was clear: she would commit to a communications practice that would prioritize honest representation of the often-misrepresented communities that she comes from. She would become the consultant she was seeking to hire.
And why does it matter to us?
This work matters to all of us at PJS Consultants because we’re familiar with how it feels when we can’t see ourselves in marketing and media materials that appear before us. We commit our time and energy to this work because we understand the power of reflection—of seeing ourselves honestly represented in media of all kinds.
In addition to our own personal stories of the power of representation, we have a professional track record that’s reinforced what we’ve come to believe through experience and observation. Our work in the arena of Black Male Achievement was field influencing. For example, communications materials for Oakland Unified School District’s Office of African American Male Achievement—materials that were developed in partnership with PJS Consultants—became a go-to across the country. President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative engaged these materials, allowing our work to impact a shift in the national conversation about Black boys and young men’s educational experiences. We believe deeply in the importance of crafting and distributing materials that honor the full humanity of populations who are too often represented through a distorted and dishonest lens.
We understand that there are so many simultaneous factors that contribute to large-scale change like the one mentioned above. We embrace that our sphere of influence is marketing communications, and we dedicate our work to restoring humanity in marketing as a way to bring us closer to a reality in which we recognize and celebrate one another’s humanity.