Marketing has more responsibility to address social injustice than ever before, according to Kilkenny woman and marketing expert Áine Connellan.

Connellan has built up a decade’s worth of knowledge in marketing and recruitment. Now as a marketing director for Marks Sattin, a recruitment firm in London, she says that the industry has evolved since she started out. The world of marketing has shifted from promoting corporate identity to focusing more on reaching a personal connection with audiences, she says.

“I remember years ago when I first got into marketing, people would have been into these kinds of corporate videos. You might get in a professional videographer who would follow you around the office. You know, the old-school adverts where everyone would be suited and booted. It used to be a lot more about the corporate life. And now I just think that’s just not how you connect on any level. Even if you’re a corporate company,” says Connellan.

“How can you have personality if you don’t have opinions on things as important as that?”

Áine Connellan

“I actually work for a relatively corporate company. I don’t work for a sexy brand or anything. But it is still all about the human aspect. Like everything that we do on social media, it is just about trying to get through some sort of a personality. Especially with this whole pandemic now, I’m sure you’ve seen it yourself, all of the television adverts now are trying to make it real with people holding their phones up and doing the videos on their phone,” she says.

Connellan gave the example of the L’Oreal advert with Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria. Longoria candidly shows her grey hairs before using a spray to get rid of them.

“It’s all about feeling like you’re in Eva’s kitchen. It’s all about being a human being and being personable and being reachable,” she says.

This personalised approach that aims to strike a human connection is being used for far more serious topics than grey hairs.

A brand has to make a stand

In recent years, companies have come out in support of various movements through marketing messages. For example, many organisations have sponsored floats in the Pride parade. In the last few weeks, companies and organisations came out in droves to support Black Lives Matter after George Floyd, a black man, died during an arrest by police – an all too common occurrence.

Some have scrutinised this as just a marketing play. However, Connellan believes that there is a responsibility now on companies to take a stand on these issues.

“I don’t think that you can talk about your brand without having a say on things like that [racism]. Because going back to that original point of giving your brand personality and making your brand more human, how can you have personality if you don’t have opinions on things as important as that? You have to make a stand,” says Connellan.

Connellan adds that although the responsibility rests with companies to make their views public on these matters, some businesses may have more influence than others. Yet this should not stop all organisations from addressing these issues in some way.

“Different brands have different weights and can be braver and can be more outspoken. For example, Ben and Jerry’s and Nike brought out strong statements against racism. But I do think that the racist conversation is very, very different in America than it would be in England and Ireland,” says Connellan.

“There are a lot more softer ways that brands can advocate for things like diversity and inclusion,” she adds.

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This softer side of marketing is how Connellan herself would address such social issues as inclusion and diversity while working in recruitment.

“I was speaking to this company that helps minority students and graduates and gets them into a professional work environment. There’s a lot that companies can do without being heavily political and controversial to support diversity and minority groups,” says Connellan.

That human touch she spoke about earlier is now also vital for internal marketing and employee engagement, according to Connellan.

“What does the brand say to you as an employee, how are they engaging with you, do they care about you, do they care about your mental health? All of that kind of internal marketing is just so, so important because if you don’t have that, you’re not going to get people to work for you and if you don’t have people working for you, you don’t have a company,” says Connellan.

“You’re in a different world now than you were in when I first started looking for a job. I’d be nearly begging someone to give me a job. Now, if you’re a very good marketing professional, you have choice,” she adds.

Although she says racism is rife in the US, where it dates back further to the days of slavery, Connellan finds that it does exist here as well and has seen it from a personal level.

Personal experience

Connellan is a quarter African through her grandfather. When her Irish grandmother gave birth to Connellan’s father, he was abandoned shortly afterwards due to the colour of his skin. He went on to spend 17 years in an orphanage in 1960’s Ireland and was forced to raise himself. He was never fostered or adopted and suffered abuse at the hands of his guardians as a child in an Irish institution, according to his daughter.

“While I love my country, we both have a few unpleasant memories of growing up in a country where our skin was a little different,” writes Connellan in a LinkedIn post.

Connellan adds that her white grandmother later married a white Irish man. They had seven children together and chose to never involve Connellan or her father in her family life.

“My grandmother wasn’t at her granddaughter’s wedding, she doesn’t know me. We have brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, cousins that live only a couple of hours away and still don’t know we exist,” writes Connellan.

“This world can be a messed up place sometimes, it can be overwhelming, but we should never stop fighting to make it a more inclusive and safer place for everyone, everywhere,” she adds.

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Connellan was prompted to share her story to the public after seeing an Instagram account called Black and Irish, which profiles Irish people of varying cultural descent and tells their stories. She says that many were surprised she has her own story to tell as often people, including her own co-workers, did not know she is a quarter African.

“I would have worked with people for years and they probably never would have known that about me because a lot of people just think I’m tanned,” she adds.

“From a personal perspective growing up in Ireland, I would have experienced a little bit [of racism] but I was also afforded every opportunity. I wouldn’t have ever said that I didn’t get an opportunity,” she says. Yet, the same cannot be said of her father.

“My father did not get the same opportunities from birth as most other children get and that was purely down to the colour of his skin,” says Connellan.

“Racism exists everywhere and myself and my father have experienced, to different degrees, evidence it still exists,” says Connellan.

Connellan says that she would actually experience casual racism as an Irish person over in London. She jokingly tells the story of how she embarrassed a colleague for referring to her as “potato” and replied by saying that they can’t do that anymore “with everything that’s going on in the world”.

“I think some of it is, and I’m not trying to justify it, but some of it is just human nature. Somebody will pick out why you are different from them. I’m not saying it’s right, but some people do it nearly in jest,” she says.

Is Ireland more racist now?

Connellan believes that there is currently not a lot of racism in Ireland compared to when she was growing up. However, she did say that “you would be very hard pushed to even see another black person on the street.” With a lack of diversity, racism probably wasn’t as evident.

“My father would have been one of a very, very select few of maybe literally less than five black people in Kilkenny,” says Connellan.

She does believe that there is a problem with integrating people of different backgrounds and cultures into society.

“I think sometimes in Ireland we’re quite guilty of taking in refugees but putting them in Direct Provision or segregating them from society, or we might make them feel different. That’s completely defeating the purpose, because once you start treating people differently in society then they won’t integrate, they won’t mix and they won’t learn from each other. I know for a fact that there’s a lot of black people in Kilkenny but you would never see them in the pub having a drink, you just don’t see them integrate,” says Connellan.

“I remember in the Celtic Tiger years when nobody wanted to do the sorts of jobs like cleaning hotel rooms, for example, and then there was a lot of Polish or Romanians in Kilkenny. But they very, very seldom mixed, and that’s down to us and society to set it up in a better way so that people do integrate better,” she adds.

Moving to London

Connellan did not move to London due to feelings of exclusion or racism. Her boyfriend, now husband, was made redundant during the first downturn. He was looking for a job as an engineer and couldn’t find one, so decided to go across to London. At the time, Connellan was working in Dublin for recruitment firm Morgan McKinley, founded by Co Cork native Pat Fitzgerald. As it’s a global firm, she was able to carry her job with them across to the UK. She worked for the company for six years.

“I actually think there’s quite a lot of opportunity in Ireland, to be honest with you. Maybe that will all change now. Obviously, the economy is going to go into a bit of a downturn. So, I think things will get very challenging now. But, I actually found it relatively easy to secure my position in marketing in Dublin. I never would have found a marketing role in Kilkenny. So, I did have to move to Dublin,” says Connellan.

Although there may be marketing jobs in Ireland, Connellan does not believe she would be in the position she is in now had she not branched out.

“I can tell you right now that there’s absolutely no way, maybe I’m doing myself a disservice by saying this but I don’t think I’d be a marketing director if I stayed in Dublin. I just don’t know if I would have been afforded all those same opportunities. And I could be wrong, but I feel like I climbed a bit of a ladder and got a leadership role and got promoted to director a year and a half ago. I just don’t know if that would have ever happened to me had I not pushed myself out of Ireland,” she says.

Connellan says that there are many ways to get into marketing in Dublin but life in London has more to offer than Ireland in general.

“It’s just the way it is bigger and more multicultural. There’s just more going on. And even from a personal perspective, like when I go back to Kilkenny, even though I love it – I’m a total home bird, even though I can’t get back there at the moment – but when I do go back, I just find it all so very samey and very small,” says Connellan.

“And London is not like that. Even though I think Ireland is very good with the fact that they are quite progressive, I do feel that I learned a lot more about diversity and different cultures in London. My friends over here now are Hindus and Muslims. I just don’t feel like you get the same exposure. Maybe in Dublin you do, but not so much in Ireland when I was growing up,” she adds.

“I was uncomfortable when it felt the BLM movement sometimes felt a bit ‘us and them’, which it never should.”

Áine Connellan

Like Connellan, many have been sharing their stories of witnessing and/or experiencing racism in recent weeks. Connellan says though she did not post her story on LinkedIn as part of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

“I do not identify with BLM or with white privilege. A lot of people have mixed heritage and I was uncomfortable when it felt the BLM movement sometimes felt a bit ‘us and them’, which it never should,” she says.

Connellan believes her father’s journey and experience with racism sends a positive message “as he survived and made a success of himself despite his upbringing, or lack of, because he was afforded opportunities which all businesses should be thinking of doing for minority or underprivileged groups,” says Connellan.