Lola Bakare

Author “Responsible Marketing” | Future Is Female Shortlist ‘25 | Adweek Creative 100 ‘23 | Anthem Award Winning Strategist | CMO Advisor | Exec Thought Partner/Co-Creator | Speaker | Moderator | Facilitator

***Anthem Award-winning CMO Advisor***

Author | Inclusive Marketing Strategist | Keynote Speaker

I provide marketing leaders and their teams with empathetic real talk, fluff-free guidance, actionable thought partnership, coaching, workshops, and training to accelerate career growth, and maximize business outcomes. 

Owner —> be/co (www.makeitbe.co)
Movement Leader —> #responsiblemarketing

Previously: 
* Daily Dot
* Dell
* Gatorade
* Ronzoni
* Smirnoff

Bylines: 
* Adweek 
* Business Insider
* Campaign
* Harvard Business Review
* Marketing Brew

Featured In: 
* AdAge
* Adweek 
* SHRM

Panels / Keynotes: 
* ANA Brand Purpose Committee
* Brandweek
* Equality Lounge (The Female Quotient)
* LIONs for Marketers Series
* Sustainable Brands
* SXSW
* Tory Burch Foundation

Juries: 
* Anthem Awards
* Dubai Lynx
* Shorty Awards

Boards:
* Sparks & Honey (Omnicom)
* Monument Lab

Books: 
* Responsible Marketing: How To Create An Authentic & Inclusive Marketing Strategy (December 2024, Kogan Page)

Work with me —> lola@makeitbe.co



Forbes CMO Network Contributor

Cheers to the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) for taking a stand. 

In #ResponsibleMarketing, I write about how statements from the sidelines aren’t always performative. 

With the right timing and level of substance, a statement alone can make a real impact. 

This is one such example.

Lola Bakare 

Alex Pretti
Renee Nicole Good
Keith Porter
Geraldo Lunas Campos
Victor Manuel Diaz
Parady La
Luis Beltran Yanez–Cruz
Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
Heber Sanchaz Domínguez
Victor Manuel Diaz 

🇺🇸Say their names

🇺🇸Don’t look away

🇺🇸We are all endowed with unalienable rights

🇺🇸Every violation of these rights violates us all

🇺🇸Neutrality is complicity

🇺🇸It’s time to stand together as true patriots. 

If history has taught us anything, divided we will fall.




*links to directly support the families of victims will be shared in the comments as they surface. All are welcome and encouraged to add additional fundraising info/relvant resources*

She lost us all at “loss of life”. 

Hootsuite please order your team copies of #ResponsibleMarketing and let’s do a workshop on the chapter “Getting it Wrong the Right Way”.

Rule #1 is to not put a cheerful spin on words like murder and killing. 

Lives have not been lost. 

Lives have been unlawfully extinguished. 

If you can’t even say the thing, why should anyone believe the thing you have to say?

Head of Marketing at Slate

Irina, this AI-generated letter is doing a staggering amount of wordwork to basically say sorry not sorry.

You claim you don’t “track individuals,” but you sell/license the capability that collects and analyzes public posts from real people, at scale. That is monitoring public expression and anyone with a social listening tool knows exactly what it does. 

The reality is that Hootsuite is perfectly okay with helping ICE surface and analyze conversation patterns tied to REAL people because you're offering raw public data and you’re enabling a form of MASS monitoring. All because they cut you a massive check.

Saying you don’t like the word “surveillance” doesn’t change what’s happening. What you’re defending here is the commercial use of technology that magnifies government visibility into public voices. And you can keep fluffing it up in whatever layered corporate bullshit language, but that’s the core of it.

I’ve partnered with Hootsuite on campaigns, and I’ve been a customer through two companies. I’m not coming at this from just a random linkedin user. I know your product and I know the implications.

This choice, and now this letter, are as disappointing as the tool tbh.

Human rights are not political. 

As I told Mitchell Parton for Modern Retail:

“Companies have a lot of opportunity to be the voice that energizes, inspires and comforts people in these moments of national pain and grief, and they’re just missing the opportunity…what should be feared most is the situation that they create when they don’t speak out.”

If the continued violations of our civil liberties aren’t a powerful enough motivator, the potential of what I referred to in the piece as a “Target-like effect” on performance should be.

🔗 to full article: https://lnkd.in/escXzwnV

#TakeAStand #MakeItCount #Freedom #ResponsibleMarketing

Name one thing more business critical than a human’s right to exist? 

I’ll wait…

Hats off to Prof G 🙌🏾📢🇺🇸

This is what it looks like to flex your influence 

Join up and flex yours 👉🏾 https://lnkd.in/eMKjrKx5



#ResistandUnsubscribe #ResistICE

Am I the last person on Earth to realize I can just ask gem to schedule meetings for me - directly from an email (🤯) 

Any other Millennial Aunties late to this productivity party?

“Meeting people where they are” is widely considered a great approach to managing change.

For those more interested in actually making change than facilitating its perpetual management, dont waste time meeting people in the past. 

Forge ahead.

Sooner or later, the people will descend from their ivory towers and meet YOU where you are - because you’ve shown them what good things await them there. 


Just ask Bad Bunny!

Myles Worthington thank you for this nuanced analysis. The people need to understand!

CEO | Marketing & Communications Leader | Entrepreneur | Champion of the Underestimated™️

Bad Bunny made history last night when his album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, won Album of the Year at the Grammys. It marks the first time in history an all-Spanish-language album has won the Recording Academy's top award.

This couldn't have come at a better time. With all of the ignorant and unfounded "controversy" regarding Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show, and of course the insane injustices with ICE happening around the country, seeing a Latino win this prestigious award for an album fully in Spanish says something...

It says the power of Latinos is huge, its mainstream, and its growing by the day.

Spanish is the second most common language in the U.S., with about 13% of the population speaking Spanish at home. And yes, Puerto Rico is part of America for those who continue to forget that fun act... 

But even for those who don't speak the language, and/or may not even understand the boricua or larger Latino cultural references -- there's clearly influence happening regardless given this award win, and other factors that showcase Bad Bunny's global impact (i.e. consistently earning the title of top Spotify artist globally year after year). 

So marketers, please wake up and stop thinking that this audience is insignificant or a one to be thought of annually around their given heritage month. That incorrect assumption is only doing your brand and your long term impact as a marketing leader a huge disservice. 

https://lnkd.in/gb5Tsf5c

👀👀👀

How thoughtful of you Lindiwe Davis.

It’s tea time and I take mine SCALDING. 

🫖

Award-Winning Leader | Founder & CEO| Host of They Tried It | Global Culture Strategist & Thought Leader | Keynote Speaker

They Tried It is a space for the stories that don’t usually make it into performance reviews, press releases, or exit memos.

When I started this journey to explore the stories of professionals whose livelihoods have been jeopardized, whose narratives have been falsified, whose progress has been blocked, and, of course, the everyday racism, systemic racism, and every other ism faced on a daily basis, I wanted to hear from women, with an additional focus on Black and Brown women. 

This is just one of a few projects, and now a full-on podcast, that I am exploring and currently launching (let me give myself a hand clap) because I don't have a full team. And I know so many of you are also in that same position with your purpose work life. I have people who believe in me, an excellent podcast editor, some wit, and 30 years of workplace testimony. I'm so grateful for this moment, which started last year. And I hope these upcoming interviews with guests will not only give you insight but also the courage to speak up for yourself and others in the workplace and in your life.

In our first episode, I sit with Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel. She is a cultural theorist, social critic, and an award-winning author. A widely regarded commentator on media, marketing, and social change, her insights into contemporary culture have appeared in publications like Forbes, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, and Teen Vogue, as well as on national and international broadcast media, including talk shows such as Piers Morgan Uncensored. Her debut book, Cultural Intelligence for Marketers (2024), explores how organizations can decode sociocultural forces at play to stay ahead of the curve and positively shape the future of business and society. Dr. Gabriel holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies from Duke University. 

This conversation explores:
• How expertise can become a threat
• What happens when advocacy is labeled “disruption.”
• The quiet pressure to stay silent
• The power of choosing self-respect anyway

Dr. Anastasia is a voice, and I enjoyed speaking with her because her motivation to do the right thing is something to stand with. She brought up a great point that "there is a responsibility to challenge power and that we live in an imperfect world where we are not always afforded the opportunity to make those moral choices because of the systems that are in place" —and often, the system of dependency, considering your livelihood is also often tied to these decisions.

This episode is for anyone who has ever asked:
 Was it worth speaking up?
 And what do I do after they tried it?

🎧 Listen to the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eUaghBjJ and subscribe now on all podcast platforms
📺 Subscribe and watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eyeqH5dY 
The journey FutureState Collective 🦋 and stay tuned for new episodes!

#Leadership #Culture #SpeakingUpAtWork

I knew 2026 was going to be my Lombardi year 💪🏾 

Ipsos Super Bowl Ad Award Show here we come!  

Excited for this one!

I lead go-to-market strategy for Ipsos Creative Excellence US. We help clients make better advertising.

Could not be more excited to announce some of the guest speakers who will be joining us for our Ipsos Super Bowl Ad Awards Show!

Join us live from San Francisco as we discuss the best ads of the night and more importantly, why they worked with viewers.  We'll be gaining the unique perspectives of Mark Ritson, Lola Bakare, Fergus O'Carroll and Christine Guilfoyle about what it takes to be successful on advertising's biggest night.

Tune in Monday, February 9th at 4pm ET.  Sign up for the LinkedIn Live: https://lnkd.in/ePHqDQNg

CMO Advisor • Brand Consultant • Data-Backed Marketing & Comms Strategist • AdAge Marketing Trailblazer • 900K on IG and TikTok

Holding a company that we once respected and loved accountable for them making a profitability decision to partner with a totalitarian government to aid their domestic terror efforts? ✅ 

Cyberbullying employees of said company who had zero decision in the contract, may have found out about it the same way we did, and don’t have the option of leaving without finding a new job? ❌

I would say approx 99.9% of every successful collaboration is about making sure your superego successfully gets your id to stand down long enough to allow greatness in.

David Ogilvy famously said, “Coddle the goose who lays your golden eggs.”

It’s the BEST advice a lot of the time…

But what if the eggs aren’t golden yet?

Giving and receiving feedback well are two of the most important (and hardest to master!) skills we rely on as both leaders and collaborators. 

Our level of mastery is often what’s standing between the “good” and the breakthrough version of a thing. 

I’m constantly questioning whether I’ve done the feedback thing right.

Did I give enough?
Did I give too much?
Was it energizing enough?
Was it critical enough for the next round to be better?

One question I come back to over and over is:
Did I make it open-ended enough for the next version to become something I or anyone on the “giving” side couldn’t have possibly conceived of ourselves? 

(Because that’s the whole point of assigning the work in the first place.)

Since I know my natural style leans a little sharper, this is one where I’m always checking myself:

Am I saying the right thing, at the right level of detail?

Is this going to shut down the energy, or could this be what’s needed to fuel the flames? 

How do you think about feedback? 

What is it that actually makes it great enough for the work we’re involved in to become golden? 

#FridayFundamentals #ResponsibleMarketing

“What might inspire and assist decision-makers at Minneapolis based brands like Target who are leading through the mounting challenges of this societal moment?” 

☝🏾Andrew Winston’s post (below) sparked the idea of prompting my custom Gem* accordingly.

It contains my book, “Responsible Marketing”, in its entirety, including a chapter that could stand to become less relevant titled “Influencing Real Policies”. 

Focusing there, it’s superhuman speed reading and summarizing abilities generated the following response. 

I share it with sincere hopes it may be useful to anyone grappling with the kind of questions we all wish there was no need to ask.:

HUMAN RIGHTS ARE NOT “POLITICAL”
A primary hurdle for brands is the fear of appearing "political." However, the book argues that matters of equality and human rights should be viewed as fundamental moral imperatives rather than partisan debates.

Advocating for the safety of a community against indiscriminate raids is not a "political" act; it is a reflection of core brand values that resonate with today's conscientious consumers.

Target Specific: For a brand that markets "Joy for All," hosting fear—or remaining silent while its community experiences it—is a direct contradiction of its brand promise.

THE STRATEGIC COST OF SILENCE
81% of surveyed consumers believe brands have a role to play in addressing social issues that affect their consumers and communities. Thus, The "risk of inaction" is often greater than the risk of taking a stand.

Target Specific: Target has the platform to influence real policy by demanding that ICE agents only enter private property with a signed judicial warrant, setting a standard for other retailers to follow.

CORPORATE HUMILITY OVER FRAGILITY
"Corporate Fragility" (recoiling from criticism or deflecting blame), stems from a "brand ego" that recoils from criticism and deflects blame. Moving forward requires shifting to corporate humility—viewing feedback as an intimate opportunity to acknowledge shortcomings and build trust.

Target Specific: Target can practice "corporate humility," acknowledging the community's fear and using its influence to protect the people it serves, potentially winning back some of the costly brand loyalty lost in 2025.


*This summary was generated by using Google’s GeminiAI custom Gem tool*

more about custom Gems (highly recommend exploring)
🔗https://lnkd.in/gvTYRhCx

more on #ResponsibleMarketing, the book I wrote to be of service to those who lead in every capacity, (especially in moments like this one)
🔗https://a.co/d/4lHmw6P

more on #NetPositive, Andrew Winston and Paul Polman’s magnum opus (which you’ll find in more than one of my footnotes for good reason)
https://a.co/d/hVLW2Se

(and if you decide to share this with anyone who may need it, I suggest DMing privately vs tagging in public, for all the obvious reasons)

*Focused on sustainability, megatrends, courage *Writer, speaker, adviser to multinationals *Ranked #1 management thinker in world @Thinkers50. *LinkedInLearning class: bit.ly/Case4Action.

This morning I woke up with one question: What can I do to help the people of Minneapolis? 

The videos coming out of the city -- federal agents confronting citizens or pulling them out of their cars -- are increasingly horrifying. Tens of thousands peacefully protested the killing of Renée Nicole Good. 

So what can we do as fear and anger spread. There are many answers and other voices who know more about social resistance, but I’m thinking about business and its role in society. i.e., What are companies in MN doing to protect their employees and communities?! 

Reuters reported this morning that the answer, for large MN-based multinationals, is nothing. Nada. Silence.

Some 17 Fortune 500 companies (and other giant private companies) are based in MN, including 3M, Target, UnitedHealth Group, General Mills, Best Buy, Hormel Foods, Land O'Lakes, Inc., Medtronic, and Cargill. None have publicly discussed what they're doing, if anything, to protect employees, customers, and communities as the crisis unfolds.  

These companies have millions of employees, billions in revenue, and serious influence locally and nationally. They spoke up loudly in 2020 after George Floyd's murder. But now, silence. 

I don't have all the answers, but here's what I'd urge:  

***1. If you work for one of these companies: 
Speak up. Ask your leadership: what are you doing to protect your people and communities in Minneapolis and beyond? Encourage them to seek out peers -these companies could join together. Collective courage works.

***2. If you're based in Minneapolis:
Please share what you're seeing, even on LinkedIn. Many outside of MN won't believe how intense and scary this is without firsthand voices. 

Reuters quotes Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic and a major guru on leadership and ethics (co-author of the important True North). 

Silence, he says, is a mistake. 
It's also a choice.

[PS, my two suggestions are not remotely a complete list of what we can do. Please share other thoughts you have on business-related actions.]

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