ANA Multicultural Excellence Award Winners – Catching up with Kimberly-Clark

By Janine Martella, director of committees and conferences at ANA

In September 2012, Lizette Williams (pictured), multicultural marketing leader, North America started her multicultural marketing journey at Kimberly-Clark Corporation and has been on quite the ride ever since. Not long after joining Kimberly-Clark, Lizette attended her first ANA Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference and then in 2015 co-hosted it! That year the Kimberly-Clark team was the ANA Multicultural Excellence Awards Grand Prize winner in the Radio and People with Disabilities categories. They were also recognized as the best of the best with the “Best in Show” award!  I recently caught up with Lizette who had this to say about being a Multicultural Excellence Award winner.

Describe how winning an ANA Multicultural Excellence Award has positively impacted your company’s performance and the way your company is perceived by customers.

Kimberly-Clark had the tremendous honor of winning three ANA Multicultural Excellence Awards in 2015 after having been on our multicultural marketing journey just three short years.  We were so humbled by the recognition and it has since allowed us to continue to lead and engage an industry-wide conversation on redefining the concept of “multicultural marketing.”  This is a conversation that is much more about aligning organizational and business strategies to “marketing in a multicultural America” and less so about taking a silo’ d, traditional approach to engaging diverse audiences.  Kimberly-Clark now has a platform to move this conversation forward and we have been invited to engage on the topic across several media channels and conferences.  The experience has been tremendously positive.  It is an amazing opportunity to be leading the change during a critical time in our industry’s history.

Describe the positive impact winning an ANA Multicultural Excellence Award has had on your company.

While we are still on our multicultural journey, our brands have made tremendous inroads over the last year on really continuing to drive and embed the concept of a “total market strategy” into our overall plans and strategies.  The recognition definitely had a great impact on motivating and engaging many of our already-amazing brand associates and agencies.

If you met someone who was on the fence about whether or not they should submit their company’s work for an ANA Multicultural Excellence award, what would you tell them?

Go for it!  There is a Wayne Gretsky quote I love that states, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  It’s worth initiating the action of submitting your work and at least taking a chance. 

Submit your top campaigns for these prestigious awards and join the ranks of Past winners like Kimberly-Clark, Allstate, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, P&G, and Verizon.

The deadline for submissions is July 8. This competition is open to all marketers, agencies, and media companies. Enter by July 1 and save $100!

Are you ready to showcase your work? Enter the 2016 awards now!