March 14 marked Equal Pay Day, the symbolic day on which the average woman earned what the average man did in the previous year. It’s a somber reminder that despite decades of progress, gender-based pay disparities continue to exist in the workplace.

At Struck, we’re committed to equal pay and opportunity across gender, race, sexuality, religion — basically we believe in treating all humans fairly. We understand how individuals, families, and societies can be affected for generations to come by this disparity.

The pay gap is not a myth — it’s a real and persistent problem. According to the National Women’s Law Center, women working full-time, year-round in the United States earn only 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. That gap is wider for women of color: it will take until July 27 for Black women to catch up, October 5 for Latina women, and until November 30 for Native/Indigenous women.

There are numerous contributors to the problem, including bias in hiring and promotion practices, differences in access to capital and business networks, and a disparity in cultural expectations between men and women. But one thing is clear — the pay gap has real and lasting impacts that are heavily felt.

First and foremost, the pay gap results in a loss of initial income for women, as well as anyone dependent on them. Over time, this can add up to significant financial disadvantages, including lower lifetime earnings, less savings and security, and a higher risk of poverty, especially in retirement. In fact, according to a report by the National Institute on Retirement Security, women are 80% more likely than men to be impoverished at age 65 or older.

Unfortunately, the impacts go beyond just the effect of lower take-home pay. Pay disparity also results in a loss opportunity for investments like stocks, real estate, or retirement accounts. Over time, this can compound into a significant disadvantage in terms of building wealth and financial stability for themselves and their families. Furthermore, lower income levels can impact access to quality education, childcare, healthcare, and even air quality.

Finally, the pay gap impacts women negatively in their retirement years. Because Social Security benefits are based on earnings throughout an individual’s career, lower pay results in lower Social Security benefits for women. This can be particularly damaging for women who rely on Social Security as their primary source of retirement income.

At Struck, we take responsibility to promote equitable pay practices, and foster equality for women. We’ve implemented fair and transparent pay policies and we conduct regular employee surveys and reviews to ensure everyone feels they are being treated equitably. We support women with equal opportunities for career development and advancement, flexible work from home opportunities, a motherhood first approach to maternity leave, and most importantly fair compensation.

We also recognize that there is more work to be done and that we can’t solve the problem alone. As a society, we must come together to address the systemic issues that contribute to the gender pay gap, including unconscious bias, lack of transparency, discriminatory hiring practices and unfair promotion protocols.

Working together we can create a truly equitable and just society for all.

Equal Pay Day: Struck’s Commitment to Pay Equality was originally published in Struck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Once upon a time, in a research lab far, far away, scientists discovered something — humans love stories. From nursery rhymes to the hero’s journey, we’re natural-born narrative junkies. Our love for storytelling is a tale as old as time. A tale of evolutionary history. A tale of brain science.

Let me tell it to you.

Long before the internet, the printing press, and even before paper and pencil, people told stories. They used them to help inform the next generation on a wide variety of topics — where to get water, how to hunt, which plants were poisonous, etc. Storytelling provided a way to make sense of the world, to understand complex ideas, and to teach important life lessons. Because these stories were so valuable for survival, human brains evolved to crave narrative structures and patterns.

Even now, our neural networks light up like a Christmas tree when we hear a good tale. That’s because stories activate multiple regions of our brains, including those responsible for sensory processing, emotions, and memories.

This is how stories develop feelings of empathy and connection between the storyteller and the audience. We do more than hear or read stories, we experience them. We put ourselves in the shoes of the protagonist, feeling their emotions and seeing their perspectives. We relate to the characters as if they were our friends. We find ourselves suffering through their struggles and rejoicing in their triumphs, emotionally engaged at every twist and turn.

As a brand, you hope to capture the hearts and minds of your audience. A story that speaks to their deepest desires and aspirations is a powerful solution to do so. Instead of touting product features and technical specs, try communicating that you understand and appreciate your audience. Magic happens when they feel that you get them, that you’re on their side, and that you’re looking out for their needs.

Narratives like this are compelling. They create impactful, lasting emotions and connections. To craft them, you need to tell your audience their story — the version of “happily ever after” they’re dreaming of. When you communicate with your audience this way, you create relationships that go beyond the transactional. At Struck, this is how we help brands build loyalty, inspire advocacy, and maybe even elicit some knee-slapping laughter or a sentimental tear.

Science has shown us that our brains are already wired to respond to stories. The brands that understand and embrace this power are the brands that tap into our primal human need for narrative. They are the brands that may even find themselves and their customers living happily ever after.

Our Brains Crave Narrative—How Brands Can Use Storytelling was originally published in Struck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How many times have you had a conversation with someone, but your idea just isn’t getting through to them? You say “minimal,” and they think “sterile.” But, you really mean “simple” and “stunning.”

Sometimes, words can fall short. And when they do, the most efficient way to communicate can be visually. But even then, interpretations of visual communication can lead to shortfalls and disagreements further down the road.

Such is the case for mood boards. In one sense, mood boards can help kick-off the creative process and bring alignment to a project. In another, they can create rigidity and limitations.

We sat down with Tosh Brown, one of Struck’s creative directors, to talk about when mood boards are most beneficial and when differences in interpretation lead to limitations in creativity.

Struck: How would you describe a mood board to someone who has no idea what it is?

Tosh Brown: A mood board is a curated arrangement of images, color, typography, etc. intended to evoke or project a particular tone, style, or concept.

S: Why do you think mood boards are so popular?

TB: Mood boards tend to be the standard because it allows the creative team and client to align before the exploration really gets going. It’s a checkpoint that sets the creative team and client on the same path. Mood boards can also help with budgeting: It reduces time exploring from the outset and acts as a rigid check-in to set the framework for the rest of creative ideas.

S: So, what makes them restricting?

TB: The same reason why they’re helpful from a budgeting perspective — mood boards can also feel a bit restrictive to the creative process.

Mood boards are meant to elicit feelings or a tone, not show exact designs that may be created down the line. When a client isn’t later presented with work that exactly mirrors what was initially in the mood board, they can start to question the entire process and capability of the creative. Mood boards often put creatives in a corner of mimicking what’s on the board, rather than its purpose that is supposed to be a starting point for creative inspiration.

S: It sounds like the confusion between clients and creatives is literal vs metaphorical interpretations of mood boards?

TB: Exactly. Creatives are limited when mood boards are taken too literally.

I try to have an open discussion with clients when sharing mood boards to review this philosophy: Mood boards are not meant to be taken literally, but rather to share an overall tone. I like to explain that our creative team takes the elements of a mood board and blends them up, so that we pull the feelings from the mood board into the designs we create, rather than copy exactly what was on the mood board. That concept can understandably be difficult for clients to comprehend.

I’m definitely not anti-mood board. I just believe there is a time and place for them. If not created and communicated correctly, they can restrict creativity.

S: Tell us about a successful project that didn’t use a mood board.
TB: It does take time to completely get rid of a mood board, especially for a client that’s paying top dollar. But, not using a mood board is most effective when the client is very open-minded, or we have a solid foundation and relationship with the client already, or both.

For example, when we first started working with Nickelodeon, we would lean more heavily into mood boards to discuss creative inspiration and ideas. But over time, as our relationship deepened, Nickelodeon would just tell us their problem, we’d verbally communicate our idea, and they would respond with, “That sounds great, go make it!” But those relationships and trust aren’t built overnight.

S: Are there industries that could benefit more with a mood board?

TB: In Struck’s experience, it seems like the most success with mood boards is with clients who are newer to the creative process.

A lot of the biotechs we work with come to Struck at a point in their business process when they realize they need to look more mature, polished and professional. They’re usually in a round of raising money and need to be taken seriously, from a visual perspective.

People who work in biotechs are usually extremely smart, scientifically- and analytically-minded people. They’re creative, but in a different way than we are. So, when we’re working with an industry that’s so completely different from our own, that’s when mood boards can be most beneficial, because it makes communicating creative ideas a bit easier.

S: What role does strategy play in informing the creative discussion with clients?

TB: The best creative flows have a solid, underlying understanding of what the problem is we are solving.

Struck’s goals are to problem solve and to better a client’s business. Putting strategy at the forefront of creative helps identify gaps in a client’s current ideology, so they have to question themselves a little, and helps them to understand different perspectives than what they’re used to.

Strategy helps find underlying themes in a client’s audience and brand, and then informs a creative brief to kick-off that creative process.

S: Tell us about your ideal creative process.
TB: Ideally, it’s an organic process that usually differs from client to client. The first thing we need to do is assess who we’re explaining creative concepts to, and the best way to communicate. Then, pull information from a creative brief or overall strategy, and intuitively compile references that aren’t literal, but more so spawn an emotional trigger to excite the client.

An important part of this process is to really listen to the client and move forward with constructive feedback. An ideal creative process is not one where the client or creative is talking down toward one another. It’s a partnership.

Do Mood Boards Limit Design Creativity? was originally published in Struck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In our case, the resort was known for its storied terrain and its legendary skier history, both acting as host for the 1960 Olympic Winter Games and being recognized the world over as the birthplace of the freeskiing movement.

Unfortunately, it carried a name that for many years had been hurtful and derogatory to the Indigenous people who first inhabited the area. When Struck got involved, we made it a requirement to meet with the Washo tribe, especially any women who were willing to talk to us. And we began to draw inspiration from them as well as many other connections to the resort.

Our audience was complicated: corporate stakeholders, old timers and local residents, customers, the Native American population, employees and athlete teams and the broader global audience of skiers and boarders and people paying attention to the name change. We did our best to give each of them a chance to voice their perspectives, and then we made decisions based on what we learned.

Key takeaways from this presentation include:

1. Don’t wait until the tide turns against you.
2. A name is not as important as you think.
3. Take the good forward.
4. You can’t please everyone, but you can make everyone feel heard.
5. You can’t eradicate the past.
6. Ask: What is the most important thing to say?
7. But remember: The name can’t do it all.
8. Look ahead.

A PDF version of the slides from the presentation is available at struck.com

Watch the full presentation, with audio, from the Utah DMC event below.

Palisades Tahoe: The strategy to remove a brand’s racist and offensive name was originally published in Struck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I was a child my parents moved to Algeria, North Africa. This was roughly 10 years after the bloody wars the country fought for independence from Imperialist France. I was only four so my first memories are of life in Algiers. I remember distinctly the beauty of the land and the people. I also remember the palpable anger and wounds left by those years of colonialism and war. My parents had protested the violence and called for an end to imperialism, just like their US counterparts had done with the Vietnam war. They marched, donated, volunteered, educated, and more importantly practiced what they preached.

And yet, 20 years later, when my grandmother heard I had been dating a black man, she counseled me not to marry him because of the color of his skin. I was devastated and crestfallen. It seemed behind her liberal veneer, racism lived within her.

A few years ago I attended a session at SXSW lead by Ken Burns and Henry Louis Gates. Ken Burns had just released a documentary on Jackie Robinson, which was essentially an expose of racism in America, while Henry Louis Gates had released a documentary on African Americans, and the institutionalized racism they face. What Henry Louis Gates said then profoundly struck me and is relevant today:

“ If America was a house, all you’d have to do is remove a floor board and you’d find racism right there, running through the foundation.”

This perfectly describes my own experience with my grandmother and many other experiences I’ve had since. Racism is often hidden, but it always only a floor board away.

We find ourselves in a moment now where the floor boards are being ripped, exposing the ugly underbelly below. As it comes into view, so does the tragic enormity of its toll — the lives of young black men and women interrupted, the dreams and hopes of generations of African Americans consistently dashed, the reality that being black in America is not safe.

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Says the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The question of course is what do we do about it? What is our role as small business owners and leaders?

As a creative agency we thrive on diversity and inclusion. The juice of creative ideation, the fertile ground of new ideas appears when each unique individual can express themselves fully as their whole self.

The challenge with unconscious biases and institutionalized racism is that we are not aware of the many ways we make it feel unsafe for a person to be and to express themselves. Subconsciously influenced by our bias, we copy and paste (quite literally actually) our previous ideas about gender, race, religion, politics onto individual people. This process is deftly described in the book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow. He explains that as humans, we make up our mind about a person’s credibility, intention and personality based on their appearance and our history or misconceptions.

To overcome these biases, the first step is to understand that we all have them.

They have been handed down from generation to generation. But, we can break the cycle by taking a second step. By education ourselves about it, we can challenge our prejudices, leading us to the third step, where we put them aside altogether, replacing them with open-mindedness and acceptance.

Ghandi famously said “Be the change that you want to see in the world”. If we want to see an end to racism and biases, we each have to start with ourselves.

As business leaders we can also offer these tools to our teams by bringing awareness and fostering dialogue.

We at Struck began our journey towards Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in 2016. We accomplished a lot in 4 years. Our big focus was on recruitment and training. We implemented EEOC Compliance on all job applications and developed new language for job posts, social media and RFP responses. Our new agency process was focused on Diversity and Inclusion through empathy methodologies, and building diverse teams. Our new values focused on D&I and we underwent a powerful D&I training, followed by Struck Ed emails and sessions. These things paid off in increased diversity of our talent pool, diversity numbers and overall employee satisfaction.

But, while we made progress, we know that it’s not enough. That’s why we’ve renewed our focus. In July of 2020 we expanded our EDI efforts, taking the pledge to report our numbers and improve them. We have ramped up ongoing internal training with our first session addressing inherent bias.

Here are our numbers in 2020:

While I am glad to see our female representation grow, we have some work to do at the leadership level. We are also looking at ways to improve our recruitment and retention efforts of minorities as we have either plateaued or lost some of the ground gained.

One thing that we have learned from our past efforts is that consistency and transparency are key.

We are committing ourselves to both and I look forward to reporting our progress in 6 months along with additional insights. I’d love to make this a dialogue so please don’t hesitate to contribute your own findings.

As we work toward our goals, I find inspiration in the words of psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler Ross:

“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it’s more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They’re opposites. If we’re in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we’re in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”

And so that is our challenge today, as we face the reality of institutionalized racism, widening gender inequity and ongoing biases in the workplace, will we choose love or fear?

Fighting biases and racism, part 1. was originally published in Struck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This week is the 19th anniversary of the Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games’ opening ceremony and I am feeling a bit nostalgic. Watching the snow fall from my home office window in Salt Lake City reminds me of the moment during the opening ceremony when light crystalline flurries fell over the stadium. The snow began falling at the end of the ceremony, right after the flag from 9/11 was carried in. Together, all of us, the organizers and spectators, breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was a moment of hope.

Of course, we’d been hoping for snow. The sky had been dry for more than three weeks and while snowmaking was underway, we needed more. But mostly we’d been hoping for healing. Our Games would be the first global event to be carried out after 9/11 on US soil. As organizers we all sensed the weight of the responsibility. And there, in the magic of the Salt Lake winter night, snow brought us a clear sign that these Games would indeed help us all “Light the Fire Within.” Our Olympic motto suddenly came to life as the cauldron, burning brightly with the same flame that had started the modern Olympics in 1896, wavered cheerily.

This is not just a story about the power of the human spirit to live through darkness. It’s also about the power of rituals and design, and how they can ignite us towards hope and peace. It’s a story about stepping into the moment with clarity of your purpose as an organization. It’s essentially a story about the power of branding in times of crisis.

I was a young woman in the creative industry then. Although I had extensive experience in the world of print and broadcast journalism, my work on the Olympics global brand would transform my understanding entirely.

It all started with the Branding Style Guide that our branding agency Landor, had created. I had not seen a style guide before. It was presented in a custom binder with a gorgeous custom case featuring our color palette, logo typography and secondary patterns. It not only presented our brand but also set the stage for it to grow beyond the logomark. In the next four years we would continue to build upon it with: pictograms, uniforms, branded photography, Olympic motto, large scale environmental graphics, campaigns, branded videos, the Olympic medals, the Olympic Torch, website (yes even in 2002!), countless guides, legacy books, merchandise, Olympic posters, Olympic Ceremonies…

Our little team of four grew to 150 (including translators) and began partnering with creative agencies. Axiom (later to be known as Struck, and my employer since 2003) was hired to design the Olympic Medals in collaboration with OC Tanner. We were so pleased with the results that we then asked Struck to design the Olympic Torch, Olympic Medals and Olympic Poster. We also had partners in video production, an entire internal Environmental Design team dedicated to the large scale and venue graphics with another internal team dedicated to Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and a team of photographers dedicated to our legacy photo book. Adding to the work of these professionals, 36,000 volunteers proudly embodied our brand. I’m sure I‘m forgetting some… but you get the point. It was a group effort to say the least.

As I look back I am obviously proud of the work we accomplished together, but what is most interesting to me is the fact that the brand carried us all. The Olympic brand was the foundation that every effort was built upon. It also provided the raw material from which the uniqueness of the Salt Lake Games could be chiseled (as perfectly illustrated by the Olympic poster and medals that Struck designed).

The raw material for a brand can vary from years of history to just a spark, an idea. In our case, we were contending with a legacy thousands of years in the making. The resulting archive of graphic design and architecture, grew to include influences from our own state, city, and community, and of course, our history, culture and stunning landscapes. We also drew from the power of the athletes and the spirit of competition, perseverance, unity and sportsmanship — So much energy, so much history, so much power. And to boot, this brand would live only in the public eye for two weeks — and in those short two weeks change the face of Utah and Salt Lake City.

Imagine us all, heads down, augmenting the brand style guide, continuously crafting the brand. And then 9/11 happened. I distinctly remember the fear and shock of that day, but our sense of purpose, of heightened and renewed responsibility to the world and our community quickly overshadowed that fear. Our brand took on another layer perfectly encapsulated in our motto “Light The Fire Within”. This was the path forward for all of us then inspiring the selection of this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson as a prelude to our tagline:

“What lies behind you, and what lies in front of you, pales before what lies inside of you”

It is often said that a brand is so much more than a logo. In the end, it is the space that you occupy in your customers’ hearts and minds. How do you carve that space? Well, you start with the raw matter and chisel it down to its essence. And from that essence everything springs. The brand essence is the foundation that allows you to meet the challenge of the unexpected.

As we at Struck are turning a quarter of a century I realize that this is what we’ve been doing for 25 years. Chiseling to uncover the core essence, and then building upon that foundation in a way that helps our clients’ brand occupy the right space in their customers’ hearts and minds. So, when the un-expected inevitably happens, these brands are not lost, but guided by their north star.

I will always cherish my incredible experience at the Olympics and the 20-year love affair with branding it ignited. In so many ways, I still return again and again, to the fire within.

Lessons from the Olympics: The power of branding in times of crisis. was originally published in Struck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In an industry where buzzwords like “customer journey,” “persona,” “pain-points” and “influencer” dominate, it’s ironic that 91% of women feel advertisers don’t understand them. This is especially troubling considering they account for 85% of all purchases. It seems that in our efforts to craft clever creative, we lost site of something really important—reality. After all, advertising can’t be effective if it doesn’t resonate with its audience.

At Struck, we’re helping our clients connect with women in meaningful ways. In July of 2020, at the direction of our president, Pauline Ploquin, we strengthened our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team, providing them with new resources and added support. Among other issues, Pauline asked the team to challenge gender stereotypes and open doors for female advancement. As a result, we have established mentoring partnerships, created new leadership opportunities and welcomed our women not only to sit at the table, but to conduct meetings around it.

The women at Struck are of diverse ages, cultures and backgrounds. Each brings her unique perspective to our various projects and teams. Welcoming these insights has helped us better meet the needs of our clients. It’s also challenged us to address faulty assumptions within ourselves and the work we create. We no longer believe in “male” projects or that stereotypically male industries can’t benefit from female contribution, or vice versa. In fact, we know that the more diverse our teams become, the more creative and effective our work can be. We also know that we all have personal bias. We recognize that it’s not unusual for our preconceived ideas to be wrong, especially about gender’s relationship to products, industries and brands.

For example, many of us were surprised to learn that women own 39% of all privately held businesses in the United States. With this information in hand, we featured several diverse, female business owners in a recent campaign. Not only was the approach unusual, it was meaningful. Our female audience was longing to be seen as the entrepreneurs they are and to have someone speak to their needs. At the same time, the campaign expanded our client’s reach and set them apart from the sea of sameness—a sea that was predominately white and male. Their brand instantly became more visible, modern, sophisticated and inclusive.

With diversity as a renewed priority, we are now featuring female voice talent more than ever before. In fact, a woman is now the voice for the state of Utah’s tourism efforts. It makes strategic sense considering women influence 80% of all travel decisions. We also recently used female talent to motivate an entire organization via an emotional, mantra video. The warm, optimistic timbre of her voice left viewers of both genders feeling inspired.

Our remarkable female employees have helped bio-tech companies address emotionally difficult topics with honesty and compassion. They have empathized with the difficulties of motherhood and brought understanding to the stigma of mental health. Besides these more expected impacts, our women have also contributed to kick-ass strategies, production, partnerships and creative, even in stereotypically male-dominated industries. We’re so excited to elevate them and their diverse talents, and we’re grateful for the benefits they bring to our agency and clients.

What Women Want was originally published in Struck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.