“When you talk about community, yes, there’s a community in the neighborhood, which is obviously super important,” Smith explained. “But there’s a community with businesses.”
Smith added that often brands don’t understand the importance of positively impacting and uplifting the communities they want to connect with, and how that can affect the bottom line.
The influence and impact of brands on communities
Leela Srinivasan, CEO at Parity, a sports partnerships platform, spoke about the company’s partnership with DNA Vibe to bring women athletes into the conversation and help them lead the push out to the communities they serve.
Srinivasan said she encourages Parity’s athletes to be authentic and true to themselves.
“When we’ve run the numbers, we see that among women’s sports fans, they’re almost 3X as likely to buy something because a woman athlete recommends it as they are any other kind of influencer,” Srinivasan explained. “And so there’s definitely a great amount of influence these athletes have. But with great influence comes great responsibility, and you have to find the balance.”
