Brand and Butter
The straight-talking branding podcast for leaders who refuse to settle.
Brand and Butter delivers no-BS advice on how psychology, strategy, and design create brands that work. Host Tara Ladd, founder of Your One & Only brand design studio, breaks down the real influence and power of branding – how understanding behaviour and cultural shifts can transform how people see, think, and choose.
Sometimes funny, always honest, never dull. This is the podcast that cuts through industry jargon to talk about what actually makes brands stick.
Tara Ladd is the founder of Your One and Only, who design brands that breathe with culture through psychology, strategy, and design.
Brand and Butter
Unmasking False Inclusivity in Brands
In this episode, I'm talking to something that's been grinding my gears lately – the well-intended but misguided attempts at inclusivity that exclude the very people they aim to include. I'm talking about the disconnect between stated values and actual actions that consumers today will immediately recognise.
The conversation about being an inclusive brand starts with acknowledging our biases and blind spots. When we only hear from people like ourselves, we create products and messaging that unintentionally exclude others. The question is, are you genuinely contributing positive change or just saying what you think people want to hear?
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you're listening to Brandon butter a straight-talking occasionally in your face. No BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners here for those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and how pairing associations, consumer behavior and design thinking can impact what people say, think and feel. I'm your host, tara Ladd, the sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable and often unapologetically blunt founder and creative director of brand and design agency your One and Only. Hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode. I want to talk about something today that I mean it grinds my gears a little bit, but sometimes I feel that the conversation is because people are just unaware and that is things that annoy me or bother me about forward thinking or progressive intentions that are not inclusive in the way that they're delivering their message. So, in other words, they're trying to be inclusive, but the way that they're doing it is actually excluding the very people that they're trying to include. So I know this sounds really weird. You're probably thinking what is she getting at here, but I guess a really good way of saying this would be, like the fuel companies that we're talking about being all about the environment, and then there's like an oil spill in the ocean and it's like okay, you were just grandstanding. There was no genuine action being taken in your words, and people are really calling out this bullshit now, like there is a really interesting conversation that's happening and in actual fact, this happened.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, we were reading an article that was posted on LinkedIn and it was speaking to the LaVisa. I'm clicking through to find this article so that I'm referencing it, but it was speaking to LaVisa and how that business owner had grew the company and how it was a great business model. But if you actually look closely at that story, they've got a class action of over 200 ex-employees from 2018 to 2024 who are underpaid for their work, taken through you know crazy working conditions and asked to do things for them for the business, and it was just it's basically, like you know, exploiting their work staff who were, might I say, predominantly young women. The guy at the head is now a $3 billion jewelry empire with 82% gross profit margins and you're like, okay, are we praising this now, because this is not where it's at. I actually jumped in and I was like I'm in two minds about this. Yes, these brands have been something that we have grown up with, but when you actually look deeper into it now, how can we and I said, and I quote, how can we praise a business that has just had a class action filed against it for exploiting the young women who worked there, to which I obviously got some replies of? In agreement, odette, obviously my PR mate from Odette Co. She's very sustainable, very purpose-driven business owner and she's obviously always doing amazing things and working with similar clients to us. So obviously in alignment, she obviously said and whose business model is built on extractive, fast fashion products that pollute the world and have zero end of life plans. I completely agree with that, and to which another person, siobhan Joyce, had jumped in and said I agree with both here. And we're now in the era of socio-conscious business where impact matters and it's not just about profit margin anymore, and I completely agree with this. Now we've seen notoriously in the past that businesses that want to win I'm moving around in my chair. If you can hear things bashing around. I don't edit this, this is just full on out of my mouth. What I was thinking about right in that moment I needed to talk about. So, yeah, it was just basically just how people are thinking these days about doing business and what they're, what they're aligning with and and what they actually see as being genuine.
Speaker 1:And I think we've seen these recent documentaries come out on. You know, it was like Victoria's Secret, for instance, when jacks I don't know if you've heard that song she talks about how victoria's secret has become this empire based on making young women have body image issues, and it's actually a killer song. I would go and listen to that. And then we've got, you know, the expose of um, what was it? The? Which brand? I'm gonna say the wrong brand here. Uh, completely blanked me, but we'll find it in a minute. But yeah, like it was, it was just like you go through American outfitters I don't want to say that because it is Um, but yeah, it was like all American apparel. Yeah, that was recently a documentary If you got there's a couple of them on Netflix at the moment that really exposed the bad working environments that these people were in.
Speaker 1:And we're like can we really say that? And this is where we have the real dilemma in our society at the moment of billionaires and should billionaires be there, when really what we're looking at is them getting to that status based off the exploitation of the people that have helped them to get there. And so people will be like, oh, they got their fair and square. No, they didn't, you can't. No, sorry, there are good billionaires, don't get me wrong. Sometimes things just happen that way. But it's also what you intend to do with that money. I could not even, I don't even want a billion dollars, right.
Speaker 1:And if I did and was able to get a bit and this isn't saying this isn't one of those money blocks and people go on about oh, this is because you're not manifesting it, I actually just don't want it. One, because with money comes responsibility, for a start. Also, to get that type of money, there's also a big type of stress and also, I don't build my purpose based on a monetary value. Of course, that's a built in, but this is one of the reasons why I'm doing and moving into. What I'm doing with the business at the moment is because I genuinely give a shit about what it is that I do, and that is no word of a lie. I am working for free on two different pro bono jobs at the moment because I genuinely believe sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you then Ah, I genuinely believe that what they're doing is worth amplifying and if I can help in whatever way that may be, to help amplify that brand, to get presence, have at it. I am so down for that.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you know, I think that and I had this conversation the other day about living through some life experiences has enabled me to just see things from different perspectives. So I'm going to share a couple of things that I think are really important and I'm going to come back to, obviously, obviously, the premise of what the conversation was. I was starting in the first place, but it's all in alignment. When you speak to people outside of your own perspective, you gain insight that you will not have received before, insight that you will not have received before. When I say that I'm talking about following people that you otherwise wouldn't follow, and I'm talking about following people that you may not agree with, in fact, it may piss you off. Every single big thing that's happening at the moment. I try and follow someone from both sides. Obviously, you will definitely steer towards one way at one stage or another, but it's really important to weigh up the conversation as it happens, because we can be very much persuaded to think a certain way, which we're now seeing with media, and I think that this was evident with the Palestine march across Sydney Harbour Bridge last weekend I don't know if anyone saw that where the media and the police had estimated 90,000 people when in actual fact, it was somewhere closer to 250 to 300,000 people there. And regardless of what you think on that matter, it's important that we document truth, and whatever we're seeing, and whatever we're hearing also, is funneled through a bias. And so, coming back full circle, what I believe as a brand is that we need to be putting in intention or we need to have intention in what we put out to market as brands, and you will obviously have people that do not give a shit. It's that simple.
Speaker 1:When I was at uni studying behavioral insights which introduction to behavioral insights, which is an introduction to behavioral economics, which is how people make decisions based on emotion Loved that subject, by the way. What we had to do was a survey. It was like a multiple choice. What would you do if and I think I've spoken about this before, but, sorry, I said that really quickly but what we were asked were a series of questions and theories and ways that you would make choices. So, for instance, it was like pretending we were in our uni class and it was your uni friend comes in and give you have $10 and he gives you. I'm saying he, in his circumstances, sure he gives you $5 of that $10, but he doesn't know that you get three times that amount. So when he gives you that $5, you then get $15. So what do you give back to him? And I said, well, half of whatever I received. So what do you give back to him? And I said, well, half of whatever I received. And apparently that wasn't. That wasn't consistent across the board. So people were like we would just give him his $5 back. Or some were like I'm not going to give him anything.
Speaker 1:It was just really interesting and we were asked a bunch of questions like that, in different ways and different circumstances, to get a genuinely accurate result on what you would have chosen in that circumstance. And then there was another one you know you give, how much of the tenders do you give away? Or it was a bunch of different ones. So there was like 72 people in this class and I scored the second from the highest by 0.5 in trust, trustworthiness, altruism, all of these things in terms of genuine authenticity in the way that I make choices. So I was like, well, yay, that's a tick of approval for me, sure, but also what that means is that I just genuinely believe that other people would do nice things like that too. I feel that that could probably be a neurodivergent trait is just genuinely believing that you know social justice and having and people should be doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:But there were people very, very low on that and in actual fact, it was like the scores went by how you would choose and risk. Obviously I was like seven. I didn't really take. I was like conservative, I guess, if you, I'm not really conservative, but you know what I mean. So it was a little lower in the risk element, but it was really interesting, because trust is obviously different to trustworthiness as well, cause, you know, I like trustworthy is how much someone trusts you. And yeah, it was. It's just a whole thing and I found that really interesting based on the replies. So me being a trusting person can also mean that I trust people, yes, to do the right thing, and so this is where our biases and our perceptions and all these things change. So I am very purpose-driven. I always have been.
Speaker 1:It's the premise of your one and only, and so, yeah, we kind of come back full circle to what the original reason was that I was talking about, and that's when businesses are saying that they're progressive when they're actually not being progressive, and that can come unconsciously or consciously. I'll give you a couple of reasons or examples. I should say is recently I went to a it was like a focus group, conversation, ideation group and absolutely beautiful people Like so don't get me wrong here but the conversations were about how do we do this and how can we get more people involved and what's involved in X, y and Z, and and a lot of the answers came back really well, like a lot of the things that I had X, y and Z and a lot of the answers came back really well, like a lot of the things that I had, you know, seen myself as well. One of the things that I had started to notice was there was a bit of a repeat answer in the way that people saw this specific product that they were looking at, right. So I was like we think it's like X, y, z, hugely positive, really good, everyone loved it. Repeated multiple times across the four groups. It was repeated three times.
Speaker 1:It was our group that didn't say it and I went up to the organizer at the end, beautiful woman. I said I just want to say something. And she was all ears, she was very progressive, wanted to know everything. And I'd already spoken to one of the girls in my group about this and I'll bring that up in a minute and I said can we take a look around the room? I said everyone here is white, like one or two people maybe not, but and even then they're questionable. And she was like I know. And I said I know. I said but this is really important when we're trying to do something around the behaviors and perceptions of a specific thing and we're only getting one group of people's opinion, we are missing a huge, huge area for any kind of you know, decision-making or how people are seeing this thing. We're only getting a really biased opinion.
Speaker 1:When I brought this up in our group, who were all in alignment with what I had to say, one of the girls there came from an ethnic background and she said oh my God, you're so right, she's only 18. Very, very switched on. Chick Loved that for her. I absolutely love the younger generation coming through. Everyone's bagging the shit out of them. But I'm like, yes, they are just so fiery and I think it's because they just think differently. Coming back to progression talking to that in a second but she said when my mum first moved to the area 10 years ago, someone said to her, and I quote you're a bit black for around here and I was like, are you joking? And she said no and I said so. That's an interesting conversation, because if we're talking about trying to sell something to certain people and we have a predominantly white group, we're missing these perspectives from people that otherwise may see this specific product as being well, essentially racist, because we're not getting the opinions of those people and so we're missing a large share of opinions based on that. She was all for that. Loved that.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people don't like to receive feedback like that because it can be confronting, but she was all over it. So we're going to talk about that later. But what was interesting is that so many people do that. I will ask how's your internal culture? And they'll go it's great. And I'll be like okay, who have we asked here? When was the last time you sent out feedback?
Speaker 1:I have a really good product that I'll be launching soon called the Trust Blueprint, and it's going to ask questions. I might just launch it. It asks questions where you go through a test you know in different categories and asks you to step outside your own bias to ask someone else what they think about certain things about your business, your brand and you get a legitimate response so that you can actually counteract bias, because you could be putting something out there that you're not even sure of, because you think from your perspective everything seems fine, but really what's happening is that there's a whole bunch of stuff happening that you're so unaware of because you don't live that world, and this is what people need to be addressing now. We are no longer in a world where you can just forget about minorities, forget about people that are not like you. We have to be looking at whatever new change we're moving into.
Speaker 1:I sent an email out this morning about this exact thing, about how we've become compliant or complacent in just conformity, like this is just the way it's always been done, and even someone at that event said, oh, but that's just how people are and in you know that won't change for the next 10 years. I said, sure, but why can't we be part of that conversation that helps to change that narrative, to become the new area or whatever it is that product or perception that we're doing within the next 10 years? And then everyone went quiet. I'm like, because that's what we call the bystander effect, where everyone watches to just for someone else to do it first. We can be be that person.
Speaker 1:I choose to be that person. I choose to be very vocal, even if that means I lose work. Very vocal about the types of places that you know I want to work with, the types of people that I want to work with, the type of world that I want to live in, the type of world that I want my kids to live in. Why would we want to only make a world suitable for one type of person or people? And so that's kind of where I'm at, because, if we're talking about brands and, by the way, this has taken me a really long time to get to this point there was a massive disconnection with what I was doing. Is that right? Yep, that's a word. Yeah, yes, it is. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Talking about ADHD brain, yeah, there was a massive disconnect in what I was pushing out, and I stopped posting content for a little bit because I was like this isn't what I wanna be promoting and everyone's like, but you need to be visible and you need to be posting, and all I felt was so much anxiety because I was like, but this isn't the message I want to be sending right now. So for the past few months I've been going through this real like we've gone through a reposition, but I'm like this is not what I want to do, like, like and I mean, it's not that sorry, take that back. Everything that I have moved the business into now is exactly what I wanted to do, but the issue was I needed to be going even further, you know, even deeper into what it is that, into who and what we were targeting, and it's now into that systemic, progressive change. So we're talking to medical bias. We're talking to women's health. We're talking to mental health and disability. We're talking to systemic change across the board organizational culture which is also part of brand, by the way right down to execution, to how you execute narratives across any platform. People that you're using language, that you're using all the semiotics that are're using language, that you're using all the semiotics that are involved in creating narrative that people see, hear and understand. What we create today shapes the kids into who they become as adults. We can contribute to better conversations and better narratives that enable them to grow up and not be effed up by it like a lot of other people. And so, obviously, living in that disability space of neurodiversity, but also in that space of understanding my son's liver transplant that's what he's had. In case you didn't know, he's six, so he had it when he was nine months, eight, nine months, and going through those the medical system, being a woman and understanding how notorious gaslighting is in that space, and only now that we're being acknowledged in so many different areas that these conversations are now coming up, knowing how hard living and working in neurotypical environments were and how, after COVID, people realized how productive they were not going into an office for work that they didn't need to go in for, and so this is where we start to realize that a whole group of people, types of people, have to conform to fit under an umbrella that has been made for someone else.
Speaker 1:People of color deal with this all the time. People, the LGBTQIA, you know I think I was speaking to someone yesterday and they were shocked that. You know, in Adelaide they were rounding up people of color in Aboriginal people and doing heinous things to them. And Iide they were rounding up people of color in Aboriginal people and doing heinous things to them, and I said they were doing this to you know, gay people as well, like people that were different, anyone that was different. I'm like I don't think people realize how quickly our society has grown and what happens when we do that is that this narrative is built into everything that we do.
Speaker 1:This is the conversation that I want to be having. It is so deep and it's a conversation that has started to unravel and people aren't ready for it. And it's happened because we've got access to social media and so we've got access to this information and we've watched mainstream traditional media start to dissolve. Mainstream traditional media start to dissolve. Make no mistake, the abolish, trying to abolish TikTok was intentional.
Speaker 1:I am no conspiracist, but when you see there are certain conversations that are having, we have to make a choice on the contributions that we're putting out, be that imagery that we're using, people that we're talking to, conversations that we're having with our customers about what they actually want from us, because I have found multiple times like even things like the way that we display information for interpretation every single thing that we put out is communication based. So study communication. Obviously I've had to study communication, but media communication in visuals is obviously something that I've studied Semiotics, knowing how to, you know, portray things and like you can say nothing at all and say so much with words, with visuals, and that's a really important thing to know. And that's why branding is important, because you could be giving off subconscious meaning without even realizing it. It's the same with words. So, for instance, using words like tribe, um, have cultural appropriation, like this cultural appropriation, all tied to that. You know what you, what you could, what does that mean? Um, and what other meanings is it from that? Because to a standard white person that means nothing, but to a culture it does mean something.
Speaker 1:And we have to be aware of what we're saying now and to be ignorant and saying like, no, we don't, that's actually just not woke, that's just progression. And what happens is now like anything, is that what used to happen? Is that the older we got, the more conservative we became, because we don't like change, we're coming towards the end of our life, we just can't, we just don't care as much. To be fair, it's like we don't want to change anything because things are good now and I've done a lot. And here I am and I just want to be comfortable. And then you have the young kids come through and they're like we want change. And that's where that friction has always and will always happen.
Speaker 1:Except, what did happen is the evolvement of technology and social media gave millennials and the back end of Gen X the ability to see and obviously Gen Z following has always had technology, but being able to see a much broader perspective of conversation, and they were able to shape different perspectives and opinions from the conversations that other people were having outside of traditional, you know, media and conversations in groups. So when you start to speak to people overseas, you start to gain insight, you start to watch different things, you start to gain insight and it's a really important thing to happen, and so that's the kind of area that we're in in society right now. So, yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say is like, if we're talking about being inclusive, genuinely see, if you're in, you're in inclusive environment, because there are so many places that I speak to and they're like, yeah, we do this, this, and that I'm like that's not, not, not even, not even a little bit sorry to tell you, but no, and some people can get really annoyed because they genuinely think that they've done a lot of work on it, and I can't tell you the amount of. I will be very blunt when I say things to people and I'll say it's just, I'm sorry, it's just not good enough, and I don't know whether people want to hear the truth. That's the thing. I would tell them the truth, and I'm usually met with, oh, we've done this or we've tried that, and I'm like that's not. What you're doing is deflecting. Now Just look, have a look at it, cause what could change? A lot could change.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, there's lots of brands that are really pushing boundaries. I think bonds are really pushing boundaries. We're watching brands like and the ones that are really doing well at the moment are disruptive brands. So we're looking at Tony's Chocolonely and they're calling out the cocoa industry with chocolate. And not only do they calling that cocoa industry, they're calling out the big wigs in that space and they do very clever marketing. I sent an email about that not long ago. And then we're also looking at, you know, brands like Patagonia, and they're all about sustainability. Oops, sorry about that. That's my timer to say hurry up. I'm going to leave that in there because that's just life.
Speaker 1:But it's yeah, it's that, it's that conversation of you know a circular economy like what they put out, they're bringing back in, which is exactly what Odette was referring to with putting things out into the world, making sure that we're not just contributing to shit, making sure that it's coming back in in a way that we're not just creating a dumpster fire of the earth that we're living in and it's just so. You know, it's not uncool to be sustainable, like that's another thing. It's actually cool to be sustainable. And do you know who does this really well? Liquid Death yes, one of my favorite brands. And they do this really well because they've wrapped up a really cool, irreverent personality where they've got this rock, grungy, punk vibe. That is very cool. And they've got values wrapped into the way that they do things. They are bringing sustainability into the way that they do things. They are bringing sustainability into the way that they do things through an aluminium can, which is better than plastic, and they also have like contribution into I think it's something into like the recycling there's. I here, I am just quoting stuff. Go and have a look, but it is very much. They do something in that space as well, so people are buying their product and they're they're genuinely, by default, reducing shit going out into the planet. And then we've got other brands, like who Gives a Crap with their toilet paper, and all of these brands are just cool everyday brands, but they've wrapped them up with personality and they're making and this is what I'm talking about with brand.
Speaker 1:So many people don't understand that just because you do something in a certain space doesn't mean that you need to fit into the box that you go into, and for that I mean toilet paper. Exactly with who gives a crap, they made toilet paper, cool toilet paper. Every single industry has the ability to push a boundary, sit within the space. You don't go too far out of the box because people don't then recognize it. Heuristics matter, which is like your brain shortcut. An example of that being it's like blah, blah, blah, but better. So a lot of people. You see it all the time. It's like Duolingo, but blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you know, it's like Ryan Reynolds, but with that it's like you.
Speaker 1:When you know that first part, you're able to then stitch together what they're talking about, or the metaphor in your head. Or it's environmental and you use color green. So it's, it's things like that. So it's yeah. It basically is like what are you doing? What's your contribution? Are you actually contributing or do you genuinely? And it's okay to want to make money from your business.
Speaker 1:I agree with that wholeheartedly, but, in my perspective, just do a better job of reshaping what business means, and we all have a part to play here. And when I say business, it's not necessarily just business, it's organizations, it's charities, it's movements, it's conversations with friends and it's the way that we carry ourselves moving forward. Now, that also doesn't mean that you have to go out and be, you know, a hardcore advocate. I had this conversation with my friends on the weekend and I was talking about an issue and she said I just don't have time to think about this right now. And I'm like I get it, but we're having a conversation now about it, and that's all it needs is a conversation.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's what we just need to be considering when we're when we're promoting our brands is to potentially have a checklist that we go through Is this serving the community? Is this done well, or am I just producing something to make money and not really giving a shit about the other end of the side, like the other side, because let me tell you right now, that is fine, but your people will read through the bullshit. They will know when you're doing something for the sake of money and when they don't feel valued. And what will happen is a very progressional state for you becoming, I guess, not popular with them or you know, they will just steer away from using your service or your product. And it's really important that you assess that before you get to that stage. And yeah, and it won't happen quickly, it will happen over time until eventually you'll be like, how did we get here? And the problem will be too far gone.
Speaker 1:So I say this to everyone it's just being socially aware. It's always asking for feedback because we see things through a biased lens, but it's about doing things with intention. So if you are going to say that you're progressive or you are challenging systems or and I mean that's even like a really glorified way of saying but if you feel like you're contributing in any way, whether that's a minor, minor change, then just be truthful about it, take action on it, and I guess, at the end of the day, it's really just about how do you intend to do it, what are the actionable things that you're trying to do to spot the blind spots and just having a system in place to be able to make change, because brand is ongoing. Brand should always be ongoing, and I mean because brand and marketing is tied. What we consider when we're talking about brand in marketing is brand marketing. So you're continuously changing the conversation to align with culture and align with the changes happening, and that's your brand values and your brand, how you're positioned in the market and then what you sell is tactical right, but it always has a purpose.
Speaker 1:So it's always important for you to go back and check that list to make sure that you're doing the things that are aligned, because it's so often that people will steer off track to what they started their business for and then they're halfway down the track. They've lost passion for their business and they don't know why, and it's because they're not doing anything remotely close to what they said that they were going to do in the first place. So that's it for today. It was a bit of a blur, but if you have any questions, as always, slip into my DMs. I will happily have that conversation, but until then, I will chat to you next week. Did you like that episode? I hope so, Because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and rate and review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at yourwantandly underscore au on Instagram.
