On March 11, a letter appeared as a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News calling on officials to reject Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive (which has been temporarily blocked since) to classify certain pediatric gender-affirming health care procedures as “child abuse” and investigate familes with transgender children who have undergone them.

Marketing Brew spoke to co-signees about why they took a stand to say that “discrimination is bad for business.”

Who’s in: The letter was composed by the Human Rights Campaign and signed by more than 60 companies, ranging from tech (like Google, Apple, and Meta), to retail (H&M and Gap), to media companies and agencies.

• Media company Bounteous was one of the signees. Its VP of learning and diversity Melinda Ramos told us the company is considering opening an office in Texas, but “if that is not an environment where [employees] can feel safe, then it is certainly something that we would have to pause on and decide whether or not it is something that we want to pursue.”
• Duff Stewart, CEO of agency and co-signer GSD&M, told us: “You’re not going to make yourself competitive and you’re not going to attract the kind of talent that we need in the 21st century when you treat people in a discriminatory fashion.”
• Graham Smith, global LGBTQ+ ERG chair at VMLY&R, another co-signer, said the agency decided to speak out publicly on the issue to show their ~200 Texas employees that they support them: “I feel like work is like so much of what we do that I don’t want to add on any pressure or anything else. We want work to just be such a caring, free environment for all of our staff.”

Smith said he “[hopes] that other states pay attention” to the “discrimination is bad for business” message as other anti-LGBTQ+ measures are proposed, like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which has companies like Disney in the spotlight.

Here’s how agencies and media organizations are speaking out in Texas.—KH

One of the greatest fears of our modern era became a reality for at least dozens of customer-support employees at Google Cloud’s Looker when, according to an Emerging Tech Brew report, they realized that they had unknowingly trained their replacements prior to being laid off.

Looker, a data-analytics company acquired by Google in 2020 for $2.6 billion, and Google Cloud execs asked members of its Department of Customer Love to create training programs for new contractors, unaware that their own roles were on the chopping block.

An excerpt:

“We always asked, ‘What’s the goal of this? Why are we bringing on these [contractor] teams? Are our jobs at stake?’” the employee, who requested anonymity, recalled. “They would always be like, ‘No, no, no, of course not, we just want to bring on the [contractors] so that you guys can get more time off [customer] chat to work on other projects that we have…”

Ad angle: Since its founding in 2012, Looker’s client roster has included companies like Kickstarter, Asana, TaskRabbit, Moderna, and Morning Brew. Marketers can use Looker to visualize and track KPIs like sales, revenue, and individual customer identifiers, in addition to campaign performance. It also has the capability to look at multiple platforms at once. The company’s “secret sauce” is its customer-service team, Atul Nanda, VP of Google Cloud support, said in an internal town hall a week after the layoffs. That team is now facing complaints from clients decrying a lack of attentiveness from Looker representatives.

“Google, your product is only as good as your people—and if the plan is to start shopping for staff at the dollar store, then I’m advising our company to keep an eye open for other analytics platforms,” a client wrote on a community board.

$$$: Just weeks before the layoffs, Google Cloud announced total losses of $3.1 billion for 2021, even as its revenue grew to $19.2 billion. Google Cloud, which had 37,000 employees as of last July, is spending heavily to compete with the likes of AWS and Azure, and in its bid for profitability, moving support operations to contractors could help cut costs.

Read the full story about Looker’s strategy gone sour.—RB

Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew’s readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Angie Yarbrough is the co-founder and principal of Stratistry, an advertising agency based in Dallas. With a passion for building enduring brands, Yarbrough shares how she navigates industry trends using her strategic experience.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I help my clients attract customers by telling their brand story in a compelling and differentiating way.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? I’m proud of all of our projects, but one of my favorite recent projects was the website redesign for ALY (alyvr.com). It is the only web-based 3D architectural visualization tool for sharing and collaborating on design options on any device with no app and no software. And we have lots more in the works for them, which is exciting.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? The Dove “Real Beauty” campaign is a favorite, because it’s rooted in a strategic insight that women don’t view themselves as favorably as others. It connected emotionally with women, and that positive brand association translated into sales. In 10 years, sales grew from $2.5 to $4 billion, making Dove the No. 1 preferred soap brand in the US.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? As a three-time graduate of Space Camp as a kid, I trained to operate the robotic arm in the Space Shuttle cargo bay. I’m still waiting for that skill to come in handy!

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I’m optimistic about the many potential applications for marketing automation. The scheduling applications I already use for social media and email marketing allow me to work so much more efficiently and effectively for my clients. I’m least optimistic about brands that produce content simply for the sake of having content. I believe there should be a strategy and a purpose to every piece of content that you share.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend?  I admire Simon Sinek and his emphasis on starting with WHY. He has a great podcast that shares a positive outlook called A Bit of Optimism.

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Go live: YouTube is rolling out new livestream features, including a collaborative tool and live Q&A functionality.

Schedule it: Instagram is testing out “scheduled” stickers for Stories to simplify in-app event promotion.

Hire ’em: More than 1.3 million marketing jobs were posted on LinkedIn in 2021, up 374%, according to research from LinkedIn about the “Great Reshuffle.”

A TV-app marketer’s go-to guide: Samsung Ads, a top provider of advanced TV advertising, created The Streaming Index white paper to provide an in-depth look into what motivates streamers based on 10B+ (!!) viewing decisions. Download it here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

McDonald’s said this week that it would once again bring back Szechuan Sauce for a limited time. The dipping sauce first showed up on menus of the quick-service restaurant as part of a promotion for which of the following?

1. The Disney animated film Mulan
2. The Nintendo game Donkey Kong ’94
3. The Adult Swim animated series Rick and Morty
4. The Columbia Pictures film The Karate Kid

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• As threats to abortion rights mount, companies face pressure to speak out and offer support
• The fallout from Disney’s response to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill continues
• Pickleball brands and organizations are using modern marketing to expand the sport