Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strengthens marketing and advertising campaigns
Over the past few years, inclusivity has become more important than ever—presenting an opportunity for real change. Taking a proactive approach to operating with a lens towards fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion creates a better business environment, and incorporating diversity and inclusion in marketing can improve advertising campaign performance.
What is DEI?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a term that organizations use to describe their intentional approach to:
- recognizing differences and populations that have been underrepresented.
- promoting justice and impartiality with procedures and distribution of resources to overcome disparities.
- making people feel welcomed and able to participate fully in processes and development opportunities.
Who are we thinking about when we talk about DEI?
Organizations that prioritize DEI consider racial groups including Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian/Asian American, Pacific Islander, Arab American, and American Indian groups.
In addition to race, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs prioritize people with disabilities, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ persons, people over 65 years of age, and/or people adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality. This can include people who are incarcerated, immigrant and refugee communities, people with limited English proficiency, agricultural workers, as well unhoused people, and more.
What areas of an organization should consider DEI?
While we can all recognize that there are social inequities, such as racism and sexism, that affect general behaviors, there are also institutional inequities that organizations should put under the microscope by looking closely at HR policies around:
- discriminatory policies and practices;
- workplace harassment and microaggressions; and
- implicit and explicit biases.
As a result, organizations can become more equitable by:
- employing equitable recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention practices;
- implementing anti-harassment policies; and
- increasing accessibility and accommodations.
But DEI goes beyond HR and should be considered by the marketing and communications teams as well in terms of how communications reflect a cross-section of your audience.
How should we use diversity and inclusion in marketing?
When you consider your outreach strategy and communications materials through a DEI lens, you’re actively looking to ensure all communications and outreach efforts are culturally and linguistically appropriate and accessible.
Approaching content with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind, means using language that easily understood and can be easily translated. And as the AP Stylebook guide for inclusive storytelling suggests, “At every stage of storytelling — from generating story ideas to the final editing, and all steps in between — ask whose voice or perspective is missing or should be represented more robustly. Seek to include voices and experiences from a variety of lenses.”
Graphic design with a DEI perspective can lead to images with broader representation. When planning a photo or video shoot, the AP Stylebook advises, “In the editing phase, consider whether a diverse range of views, voices and faces are making the final cut. Remember that who and what you choose to exclude can be as important as who and what you include.”
How are DEI and accessibility related?
Accessibility is about providing equal access to your communications for as many people as possible. 61 million adults in the United States live with a disability—that’s one in four American adults. This can include hearing and vision impairment among other things, which can impact how they can access information you publish on your website or in your campaigns. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.
How does GA Creative incorporate diversity and inclusion in marketing for clients?
At GA Creative, diversity and inclusion in marketing is central to the work we do for all our clients. We are proud to be a women-owned business and more importantly we are proud to partner with clients who are intentional about building an inclusive environment. According to Deloitte—owned agency Heat, representation in ads correlates with an increase in public perception. To integrate WCAG 2.1 AA Standards, DEI, and accessible visual design into our creative process we start with our clients’ audiences–to find ways to appeal to their unique audience segment needs and perspectives.
Example: Accessible web design
Example: Inclusive advertising
For Harborstone Credit Union, upholding their promise to provide a fair banking experience and offer judgment-free solutions is reflected in the social media ads we create for them.
Example: Building a diverse photo library
In 2020, Amazon Advertising embraced the need to reflect and celebrate their diverse global audience in its photo library. Because of the pandemic, we couldn’t source original photography and therefore had to rely on stock imagery to represent people of all abilities, genders, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and sexual orientation. The result was a library of more than 150 images that helped to underscore its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Example: DEI and accessibility in video
In this Medicare Advantage Plan TV spot for Community Health Plan of Washington, we needed to show diversity in its members and included large type overlays to underscore key messages together with the phone number of the screen throughout to assist those with hearing and vision impairments.
Example: Messaging around DEI
Swedish wanted to communicate their stance around diversity, equity, and inclusion to the healthcare community. Our team delivered a web page and ads that reflect Swedish’s commitments to fostering an environment where everyone is heard, respected, and valued. As a result, they saw a 7x greater response to their overarching campaign.
