뉴스 센터 > 다양성

다양성: 더 나은 비즈니스: 옳은 일을 하는 것만이 능사가 아닙니다.

6 minute read | April 2016

안젤라 탈튼
Angela Talton, chief diversity officer, Nielsen

닐슨은 다양성을 활용하여 고객에게 우수한 결과를 제공하기 위해 노력합니다.

When most people think of the word diversity, they think of visible differences—race, gender, disabilities, age and so on. This is a narrow definition of diversity that obscures much of it from view, just as the majority of an iceberg sits invisible below the waterline. At Nielsen, our definition of diversity takes a broader view, encompassing far more than what you see. It is our breadth of skills, experiences and cultural backgrounds that make each of us unique—and so make our contributions unique, too.

다양성이라는 비전을 실현하려면 단순히 테이블에 한 자리를 차지하는 것만으로는 부족하며, 여러분도 포함될 수 있습니다. 여러분이 테이블에서 목소리를 내고 영향력을 발휘할 수 있어야 합니다. 다양성의 힘을 활용하여 우수한 결과를 제공할 때 어떤 일이 일어날 수 있는지에 대한 몇 가지 사례를 공유하고자 합니다.

We recently invited P&G, GE, Cintas and other companies to join us in Cincinnati at one of Nielsen’s Diverse Intelligence Series events. With the goal of continuing and deepening the dialogue, P&G then invited us to their “Day of Sharing,” also attended by various retailers and brands. At the event, P&G described how it followed a recommendation from its African-American Employee Resource Group (ERG) that the company create hair products specifically to appeal to African-American women, who over-index in this category. Members of the group had examined the product category to identify exactly what African-American women were looking for in hair products and recognized a developing trend towards “natural” products. The ERG convinced P&G to engage the R&D department, and the company created successful new product lines, including Pantene Truly Natural and Truly Relaxed. For P&G, this was a clear case of an ERG driving business impact with a quantifiable ROI.

이러한 기회는 기업이 속한 다양한 커뮤니티의 요구와 욕구를 이해하는 사내 구성원들의 목소리에 더 귀를 기울여야만 가시화될 것입니다. 하지만 저는 여전히 다양성 1.0이라고 부르는 것은 특정 다양성 커뮤니티의 요구를 충족시킴으로써 이익을 얻는 것입니다.

What we might call Diversity 2.0 is represented by the Sriracha craze. Sriracha, the brand name for a condiment thought to have originated in Thailand,[1] sits in the consumer-packaged-goods hot-sauce category, which is significantly shaped by multicultural influences. The product’s maker, Huy Fong Foods, is private, so precise sales figures are hard to come by, but it is estimated that the company sold $80 million worth of the “rooster sauce” in 2014. In addition, Heinz makes Sriracha ketchup, as do Frito-Lay, Subway, Jack in the Box and others, thus expanding the market to more than $600 million in the same year—a 650% increase in revenue over Huy Fong’s numbers.

Consider this—75% of Millennials say they want more flavor in their foods, but only about 40% of Millennials are multicultural. And only a tiny portion of those are Thai. No large multinational corporation would have seen a serious profit opportunity in commercializing an obscure Thai sauce. And in fact, the Sriracha we know in America was created by Vietnamese-American, David Tran, who started Huy Fong Foods in 1980. It’s surely an “only in America” story that a Thai sauce became an enormous success because of the efforts of a Vietnamese man who immigrated to America by way of China. The American government had granted David Tran asylum after he reached Hong Kong when he fled Vietnam in 1978 on the Taiwanese freighter Huey Fong, for which his company was named.

스리라차는 다양성의 경제적 가치를 미국 경제 전반에 증명하고 있습니다. 하지만 문화 상품을 유형 상품을 넘어서는 것으로 생각한다면 마지막 사례는 다양성 3.0이 될 수 있습니다.

Currently, on Broadway, there is a musical that is sold out every night. Tickets are selling for between two and four times face value. The musical is Hamilton. In it, the story of Alexander Hamilton, the American Revolution, and the emergence of the U.S. economic system is told through songs featuring the genres of hip-hop, rap, R&B, and Tin Pan Alley—that is, music with a wide range of multicultural influences, as well as some more traditionally associated with Broadway musicals. The show is certainly an unlikely treatment of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the U.S., chief staff aide to General George Washington, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the U.S. Constitution, and the founder of the nation’s financial system, among many, many other distinctions. Hamilton himself was an extraordinarily unlikely candidate for these roles. He was born out of wedlock in the Caribbean to his mother and her second husband, a fact that led to his being denied education in a Church of England school and to his mother’s possessions being seized by her first husband upon her death—all of which would appear to have provided Hamilton with a very weak starting point for greatness.

For our purposes, however, the significant facts about the diversity of the musical Hamilton are that it was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, a Hispanic-American living in New York and that he chose to use hip-hop in the play because he saw that genre as the only musical form that could accommodate the fact that “Hamilton spoke in paragraphs.”[2] Rap, notes Miranda, “has more words per measure than any other musical genre.” Furthermore, Hamilton uses a majority African-American and Latino cast in order “to connect America then with America now.”

Hamilton is currently grossing $1.3 million weekly, just behind The Lion King. It was honored this Feb. 15, 2016, by becoming one of only eight Broadway musicals to perform at the GRAMMYs, where it won the award for Best Musical Theater Album. I saw the show on Dec. 16, 2015, and the audience that night was less ethnically diverse than the performers. Hamilton has indubitably crossed over, having become a financial and cultural phenomenon, precisely because its audience knows no boundaries.

Hamilton is an example of the kind of success available to companies everywhere whose managers understand that they need to listen to innovative ideas wherever they come from. After all, creativity is generally understood to come from the combination of ideas from different cultures or disciplines, so it is highly likely to come from members of diverse groups working in the American mainstream. All credit, of course, goes to the musical genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda who has provided a powerful demonstration of the fact that the more America can open itself up to the contributions of diversity, the more Hamiltons we will see in all walks of American life.

[1] Sriracha—made from a paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt—is apparently named after the coastal city of Si Racha, in Chonburi Province of eastern Thailand, where this type of condiment may have been first produced for dishes served at local seafood restaurants.

[2] Full disclosure: Lin-Manuel Miranda is the son of Luis Miranda, a leading member of Nielsen’s own Hispanic-Latino External Advisory Council.