Login to Complete an Application or to Access Judging Panel
Don't have an account?
If this is your first visit to the awards site, start here.
Have questions? Contact:
The Multicultural Awards Team, multiculturalawards@ana.net
Multicultural and Inclusive Marketing Excellence Awards Grand Jury
Executive Vice President
AARP
BIO
As AARP’s Executive Vice President, Edna Kane Williams has the responsibility for driving AARP’s enterprise diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy encompassing our workplace and marketplace. She leads strategies for multicultural audiences and age discrimination and oversees the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Advisory Council and AARP’s Employee Resource Groups. Before this appointment, she served as Senior Vice President of Multicultural Marketing at AARP.
Ms. Kane Williams brings over 25 years of experience to AARP working in senior management positions in both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. She previously served as Senior Vice President at IQ Solutions, Inc. and Senior Vice President at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.
Kane Williams holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.A from George Washington University. She was a Coro Foundation Fellow and a Diversity Executive Leadership Program fellow for the American Society of Association Executives. Kane Williams is currently on the advisory board for the forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, the Board of Trustees for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Company, and the Legal Counsel for the Elderly. She previously served as a board member of the Black Women’s Health Imperative and The Center for Responsible Lending.
Kane Williams has received numerous career awards, including: Diversity Woman Media’s 2025 Inclusion Innovation Leadership Summit & Awards’ Inclusion Innovation Impact Award, ColorComm’s Circle Award in 2023, Savoy Magazine’s 2023 list of the Most Influential Executives in Diversity & Inclusion, Diversity Woman Magazine’s 2022 Elite 100, Black Enterprise’s Most Powerful Women in the Business in 2017, National Coalition of Black Civic Participation’s Spirit of Democracy Award, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters’ National Marketers Award, and the Conference of National Black Churches’ Dorothy Height Humanitarian Award.
Q&A with Edna Kane Williams
What makes great marketing today?
Great marketing starts with understanding people as they actually are, not as a demographic line on a media plan. The work that moves people is work that reflects their real lives. It meets them where they are with something useful, relevant, and true. It respects the audience's intelligence and earns their attention rather than demanding it.
What is the one cultural trend you are watching today?
The growing recognition that age is a dimension of culture. More marketers are starting to understand that the 50-plus consumer is not a monolith, and that when you layer in race, ethnicity, gender, and lived experience, you get a much richer and more accurate picture of who these consumers are and what they need. The intersection of age and culture is still underexplored, and the brands that get there first will have a real advantage.
In one sentence, what will it take to make an entry worthy of winning a Grand Prize award?
Show me that you understood a community deeply enough to create something they genuinely needed to see, hear, or experience, and then prove it moved the business.
What advice would you offer to teams preparing submissions for the ANA Multicultural and Inclusive Marketing Excellence Awards?
Tell the full story. Walk us through how you arrived at the insight, not just the creative execution. The strongest submissions connect a specific cultural truth to a clear business challenge and show measurable results. Do not assume the judges know your category or your brand's history. And be honest about what worked and what you learned. Authenticity in the submission matters just as much as authenticity in the campaign.
Why do awards programs like ANA Multicultural and Inclusive Marketing Excellence Awards matter to the health and progress of the marketing industry?
These awards create visibility for work that often does not get the recognition it deserves. Inclusive marketing is a growth strategy, and the organizations that treat it that way consistently outperform those that treat it as a separate function. Programs like this give marketers the evidence and the examples they need to make the case internally for investment, talent, and sustained commitment. When we celebrate this work publicly, we raise the standard for the entire industry.
When reviewing submissions, what signals tell you that a program is driving real, sustainable business growth?
I look for programs that go beyond a single campaign moment. Did the work change how the brand shows up in that community over time? Did it drive repeat engagement, not just awareness? I pay close attention to whether the team measured what matters to the business, whether that is acquisition, retention, lifetime value, or market share. A spike during a cultural moment is fine, but I want to see evidence that the investment built something lasting.
What lessons from your own leadership journey most influence how you assess excellence?
Over 25 years in this work, I have learned that the best marketing comes from teams that invested in understanding before they created. Having led multicultural and inclusive strategy across both agency and nonprofit settings, I have seen the difference between teams that had the right people in the room and those that did not. When I assess submissions, I am looking for evidence that a team listened before they built, that they were willing to be challenged, and that they treated the community as a partner in the process. Excellence also means recognizing the strengths of the people around you and giving them room to lead. It requires both courage and humility.
What distinguishes exceptional multicultural and inclusive marketing work from work that is simply "good"?
Good work acknowledges that diverse audiences exist. Exceptional work demonstrates that you understand how they live. The difference is depth. Exceptional campaigns are built on real cultural insight, not surface-level representation. They go beyond casting to reflect values, language, humor, traditions, and the specific tensions a community is navigating. And critically, exceptional work does not treat these audiences as an add-on. It positions them as central to the brand's growth strategy.
How do you evaluate the role of data, AI, and marketing technology in creating meaningful brand impact?
Data and technology are tools, and their value depends entirely on who is using them and what questions they are asking. Throughout my career, I have used data to understand the distinct needs of multicultural audiences, from health disparities to financial security gaps to caregiving realities. That data helps reach the right people with the right message. AI and marketing technology can accelerate and deepen that understanding, and the teams using these tools well are the ones asking better questions about the communities they serve. I want to see submissions where technology sharpened the insight, not where it replaced the cultural work.
When you review the "breakthrough insight" or "aha moment" behind a campaign, what tells you that a team has uncovered something truly meaningful? What do you most want to understand about their thinking in this section?
The strongest insights feel specific and earned. I can often tell when a team spent real time with a community versus when they pulled from secondary research and assumptions. A meaningful insight surprises you a little. It reveals a tension or a truth that is particular to how that audience actually lives, not a broad generalization dressed up as a discovery. In this section, I want to understand how the team got there. Who did they talk to? What did they hear that changed their direction? If the insight could apply to any audience with a few word swaps, it probably is not deep enough.
An effective performance evaluation framework is critical to show the value a marketing campaign delivered. What type of evaluation framework do you use when assessing marketing efforts? What metrics and KPIs will you expect entrants to provide in their submissions?
I want to see that teams measured what actually mattered to the business, not just what was easy to track. Strong submissions connect campaign activity to outcomes like acquisition, retention, market share, or revenue in the communities they were trying to reach. I also value leading indicators that show whether the work built something durable: brand consideration, sentiment shifts, engagement depth. Tell me what you set out to move, how you measured it, and what the results actually showed.
How have your expectations of great marketing evolved over the past few years, and how does that shape how you approach marketing?
Early in my career, great multicultural marketing was about visibility. Getting diverse audiences represented at all felt like progress, and it was. But expectations have rightfully moved far beyond that. Today I expect to see cultural intelligence woven into the strategy from the beginning, not layered on after the general market plan is set. I also expect accountability. The industry has made a lot of promises over the past several years, and the work that earns my respect now is the work that can show sustained investment and measurable impact, not just a moment.
Risk taking and effectiveness, sometimes friends, sometimes foes. How have you handled the balance in your marketing experience?
The biggest risk in inclusive marketing is playing it safe. I have seen campaigns water down a cultural insight because someone in the approval chain was uncomfortable, and the result is work that connects with no one. At the same time, risk without strategy is just noise. The balance I have found is building trust with stakeholders before the creative gets bold. When leadership understands the audience and trusts the team's cultural expertise, they are more willing to support work that takes a real point of view. Bold work holds up when it is backed by preparation and conviction, not just instinct. The campaigns I am proudest of are the ones where the team held firm on the insight and let the data make the case afterward.
How do you balance creative ambition with commercial accountability in marketing?
They should not be in tension. The most ambitious creative work I have been part of was also the most commercially effective, because it was built on a real understanding of what the audience needed. Creative ambition without a business case is art. Commercial accountability without creative ambition is forgettable. The balance comes from starting with a clear business objective, grounding the creative in genuine cultural insight, and then giving the team room to execute with conviction. If you have to choose between being bold and being accountable, you probably have not done enough work on the strategy.
How do you cultivate great partnerships with your agency relations and align your goals with internal stakeholders?
The best agency partnerships I have had were built on honesty and shared ownership. That starts with being transparent about what you know and what you do not know, and giving your agency partners real access to the communities and stakeholders they need to understand. The teams that produce the best work are the ones where the client and agency built the brief together. Internally, the same principle applies. Aligning stakeholders early and making the business case in their language is what turns inclusive marketing from a departmental initiative into an organizational priority.
Get to know the 2026 Multicultural and Inclusive Marketing Excellence Awards Grand Jurors.