That doesn’t mean creating a three- to five-year plan that puts pressure on new hires while nominally changing your company’s culture. It can start as small as changing the makeup of one homogenous group on a client’s account so it reflects the diversity of their consumers, while building to more diverse recruiting and hiring practices.

It’s small, daily steps out of the known and familiar toward a future that West and her Underdog colleagues have seen embodied in multiple partners.

“It looks like people feeling comfortable in their own skin in your organization. It looks like people feeling like they matter,” West said. “Not just their value as far as compensation and the things that should be table stakes, but that their culture and background and experience matter at the table—and that is something that is beyond valuable.”

From a marketing perspective, NewSpring and Underdog are betting heavily that brand partners, consumers and sports fans are going to want to see themselves in the companies the firm is helping. They’re going to want to see evidence that someone within the company knows and understands their culture and who they are as people beyond the core demographic.

As West and Underdog have discovered—and are about to share widely with NewSpring’s help—the best way to create an inclusive brand worth bragging about is to actually include as many voices as possible at its table.

“If you as a company are intentional about social impact, are intentional about diversity and equity and inclusion, and you are intentional on sustainability—all of the things that are important to the mindful consumer and fan today—then that should show up through your brand storytelling,” West said. “There shouldn’t be a disconnect.”