Mar­keters cap­i­tal­ized on some known moments in Feb­ru­ary (e.g., the Super Bowl, Valen­tine’s Day, the Oscars, the pre­miere of “Fifty Shades of Grey”) and even some unex­pect­ed moments in real-time (think lla­mas and a rag­ing debate over #The­Dress). But last month also marked Black His­to­ry Month, a long estab­lished ini­tia­tive that seeks to raise aware­ness and encour­age pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tions about black Amer­i­can his­to­ry. 2015 has been her­ald­ed by some com­men­ta­tors to be the year brands take a pub­lic stance on social issues such as racial jus­tice, gen­der equal­i­ty, and eco­nom­ic equal­i­ty. So are brands doing enough to engage such top­ics, and build pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships with eth­nic and minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties?

Black His­to­ry Month has been estab­lished for sev­er­al decades, and seeks to encour­age ben­e­fi­cial con­ver­sa­tions about his­to­ry and race in the U.S. How­ev­er, the annu­al obser­vance is not with­out its crit­ics. Mor­gan Free­man famous­ly argued that he did­n’t want Black His­to­ry rel­e­gat­ed to just one month, say­ing “I don’t want a black his­to­ry month. Black his­to­ry is Amer­i­can his­to­ry.”

While the intent is clear­ly pro­gres­sive, there can be a ten­den­cy amongst every­one from news and media pub­lish­ers, to com­mer­cial brands and busi­ness­es, to steer clear of the top­ic.

At least among brands and mar­keters, it’s the Super Bowl and The Acad­e­my Awards that grab Feb­ru­ary head­lines.

These events cer­tain­ly have the “feel-good” fac­tor, but it’s still sur­pris­ing that Black His­to­ry Month war­rants such lit­tle atten­tion. Ini­tia­tives that raise aware­ness about his­to­ry and race serve a valu­able pur­pose in soci­ety, spark­ing con­ver­sa­tions and debate, as well as address­ing cul­tur­al hege­mo­ny that can often per­vade around sen­si­tive sub­jects, such as race in Amer­i­can his­to­ry.

If brands seek to forge a sim­i­lar kind of affin­i­ty, at least in the­o­ry, Black His­to­ry Month should offer them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage in mean­ing­ful, inspir­ing con­ver­sa­tions with their audi­ences.

After all, the film indus­try has man­aged to approach the sub­ject of black his­to­ry to great acclaim and suc­cess for many years. The award win­ning, and Acad­e­my Award nom­i­nat­ed film, “Sel­ma”, is one of many films that has engaged an inspir­ing moment in black his­to­ry, revis­it­ing the Civ­il Rights Move­ment to cel­e­brate a moment of his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance that helped define the iden­ti­ty of the mod­ern Unit­ed States.

Many U.S. brands have a rich his­to­ry sup­port­ing and employ­ing black com­mu­ni­ties, and do so to this day. So why does is the cor­po­rate voice often sub­dued on the issue?

The Year Of Corporate Social Responsibility?

2015 has been tout­ed by some com­men­ta­tors as the year of cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty, a year for brands to stand up for “social issues like gay mar­riage, gen­der equal­i­ty and racial jus­tice.”

Brands can expe­ri­ence sus­tain­able ben­e­fits as a result of mak­ing a stand on social issues. Writ­ing for the Guardian, Jon­ah Sachs, author and CEO of brand­ing agency Free Range Stu­dios, said “a con­tro­ver­sial pro-social stand becomes a pub­lic com­mit­ment to bet­ter behav­ior. Thus, a pro-social brand is a sus­tain­able brand.”

Black History Month: How Brands Participated

You don’t need to invent a com­pli­cat­ed mes­sage, or inge­nious slo­gans or cam­paigns to join the con­ver­sa­tion about Black His­to­ry Month.

The best cam­paigns weren’t cre­at­ed sole­ly for black audi­ences – but for every­one. They encour­aged con­ver­sa­tions about race rela­tions, cul­ture, and Amer­i­can his­to­ry.

Con­sumers expect brands to par­tic­i­pate in the con­ver­sa­tion, to show that their out­put isn’t a one-way flow of con­tent with the pur­pose of sell­ing prod­ucts, but an orga­ni­za­tion that fields respon­si­ble val­ues, and is will­ing to stand up as a cham­pi­on of social jus­tice.

Where was the bold social com­men­tary, brave con­ver­sa­tion, or inspir­ing con­tent, dur­ing black his­to­ry month? Feb­ru­ary was­n’t entire­ly absent of brands tak­ing part in Black His­to­ry Month.

Here are three exam­ples of brands that launched prod­ucts and con­tent last month, all of which high­light how con­sumer-fac­ing brands from any indus­try can engage with Black His­to­ry Month in a way that cel­e­brates the com­pa­ny’s own her­itage, cul­ture, and prod­uct.

1. McDonald’s Spread Lovin’

As part of the fast-food cor­po­ra­tion’s 365Black com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives, McDon­ald’s pro­mot­ed a grass­roots ini­tia­tive that spread aware­ness about Black His­to­ry Month via cre­ative street art.

While the cam­paign did­n’t explore much in the way of “his­to­ry,” it did aim to raise aware­ness about Black His­to­ry Month among young audi­ences.

2. Nike’s 2015 Black History Month Collection

Frankly, any lim­it­ed edi­tion design­er sports­wear release is invari­ably met with praise. Nike’s Black His­to­ry Month Col­lec­tion effort­less­ly engaged with the sub­ject mat­ter, cel­e­brat­ing their endorse­ments with black ath­letes and their own inspi­ra­tional brand phi­los­o­phy.

Nike pro­vides a great exam­ple of sus­tained engage­ment with black com­mu­ni­ties via sport – a role they take to with aplomb. As soc­cer play­er and Nike’s Black His­to­ry Month star Kevin Prince Boateng says:

“We can­not afford to be indif­fer­ent or pas­sive. Ath­letes, musi­cians and busi­ness peo­ple have a spe­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty. We speak to parts of soci­ety and pierce the hearts of those peo­ple that polit­i­cal dis­cus­sions will nev­er reach.”

3. Nickelodeon – Because Of Them, We Can

Nick­elodeon com­bined the cute­ness of their tar­get audi­ence with inspi­ra­tional quotes from promi­nent black authors, poets, and pub­lic fig­ure from African-Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Sim­ple and effec­tive.

Nick­elodeon’s con­tent (per­haps the best of all three) relies on sim­ple ingre­di­ents: com­bin­ing their core audi­ence, chil­dren, with inspi­ra­tional his­tor­i­cal quotes from.

Why Year-Round Corporate Social Responsibility Matters

The great­est val­ue, one that must remain a long-term objec­tive for all con­sumer-cen­tric brands, is for orga­ni­za­tions to mod­el them­selves as respon­si­ble cor­po­ra­tions who pro­mote social jus­tice, whether it’s on the issue of race, gen­der, or any oth­er point of social equal­i­ty.

What’s more, these should ide­al­ly be part of all year round ini­tia­tives, sus­tained efforts that build on the aware­ness gen­er­at­ed dur­ing spe­cial events such as Black His­to­ry Month. Accord­ing to Mary Zer­afa, VP of Sales & Mar­ket­ing at Bri­abe Mobile, a mobile adver­tis­ing solu­tions provider with exper­tise mar­ket­ing to diverse con­sumer groups:

“In the last 10 years, we’ve seen a lot more brands rec­og­nize how impor­tant it is, espe­cial­ly when it comes to mil­len­ni­als. Mil­len­ni­als are syn­ony­mous with mul­ti­cul­tur­al, and rep­re­sent 92 per­cent of the country’s pop­u­la­tion growth in the last decade. This gen­er­a­tion rep­re­sents the future of the U.S. mar­ket­place, which will account for 30 per­cent of all retail sales by 2020. It’s impor­tant when mar­ket­ing to a mul­ti­cul­tur­al audi­ence, to make sure you are reach­ing out in a mean­ing­ful way that will res­onate. Con­nect­ing with them is key to future busi­ness suc­cess.”

More than any one cam­paign, long-term, sus­tain­able cor­po­rate endeav­ors will win the life­long sup­port and advo­ca­cy of con­sumers.

Ways Brands Are Engaging Communities, Minorities

McDon­ald’s 365Black ini­tia­tive demon­strates the kind of all-year round com­mit­ment that can make a dif­fer­ence to con­sumers. 365Black’s slo­gan, “Deeply Root­ed in the Com­mu­ni­ty”, sup­ports schol­ar­ships, col­lege funds, events and awards that work at a grass­roots lev­el with­in black com­mu­ni­ties.

Gen­er­al Motors is anoth­er brand that has a his­to­ry of sus­tain­able work in pro­mot­ing black Amer­i­can his­to­ry. This year the com­pa­ny host­ed it’s ninth-annu­al Black His­to­ry Month Cel­e­bra­tion in Detroit, and since 1998, the auto­mo­bile giant has sup­port­ed vol­un­teer affin­i­ty groups, such as the Gen­er­al Motors African Ances­try Net­work (GMAAN), which con­nects and sup­ports around 2,300 employ­ees.

While some may crit­i­cize such ini­tia­tives as being “divi­sive,” in that it seg­ments cor­po­rate mes­sag­ing, it’s crit­i­cism that so often comes from a dis­tance – crit­i­cism that under­mines the incre­men­tal, prac­ti­cal pos­i­tive val­ue of grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty work. Seg­ment­ed mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives have a role in edu­cat­ing and shar­ing the mes­sage of oth­er cul­tures.

As Pat Har­ris, McDon­ald’s Chief Diver­si­ty Offi­cer said in an inter­view with PR week: “it is anoth­er way to edu­cate all employ­ees and cus­tomers about oth­er cul­tures. I am not opposed to hav­ing seg­ment­ed mar­ket­ing.”

Should brands be doing more to pro­mote social issues and reach out to eth­nic minori­ties?