MARKETING Inclusive marketing: diversity as an added value

MARKETING

INCLUSIVE MARKETING: DIVERSITY AS AN ADDED VALUE

By Matteo Melani

Advertising is not only a technique for communicating a brand or positioning products, but also a strategy for identifying one’s target audience, intercepting their values and beliefs.

To represent the diversity of today’s society, companies are adopting inclusive marketing strategies and communication tools to rethink stereotypes to which we are accustomed and represent minorities. Key diversity issues concern gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and physicality. Over the years, thanks to social movements, organizations, and individual activists, companies have become highly sensitized to the fight against discrimination of any kind, launching initiatives with inclusive marketing to advertise their brands. Mattel’s Barbie was among the first brands to put inclusion strategies into practice directly through their products. Several years ago, they launched the Fashionistas collection, which includes a doll in a wheelchair, curvy Barbies and Barbies with different skin tones. There are also other areas of inclusive marketing which highlight diversity, such as the adaptation of physical locations for special events coming from other religions and countries. For example, over the last few years, stores and shopping centers have decorated areas with dragons or lanterns to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

THE VALUES OF MARKETING AND INCLUSION

Today, diversity has become a feature that forcefully entered our common lexicon and the choices of buyers. According to a Microsoft study on the purchasing attitudes and trends of Generation Z (young people born between 1996 and 2010), 70% of respondents said they trust most of the brands that represent diversity in advertising, while 49% said they have stopped buying products from companies that do not represent the values they believe in. But what are the main characteristics of an inclusive marketing message? First, it should have a simple message; second, it

must instill hope for the future through the recognition of people’s triumphs. As to the visual elements, images and videos must be real to ensure a genuine sense of inclusion and a positive connotation. The latest advertising campaigns by Zalando and Gucci, for example, contained all these prerequisites to represent inclusion by featuring Ellie Goldstein, a model with Down syndrome, to demonstrate that disability does not preclude style.

THE EXAMPLE OF BARBIE

Inclusive marketing is coming up with more and more revolutionary content than ever before, breaking traditional patterns. A number of brands have limited themselves to promoting diversity through communication, but Mattel has done even more by creating Barbies with many more real-life characteristics. Barbie has always promoted the ideal of perfect female beauty, often winding up at the center of criticism from psychologists and educators because of how unrealistic their representations of girls and women were.

doll inspired by Yara Shahidi, the American actress and activist for gender equality.

In this page examples of Barbie Fashionistas encouraging inclusiveness To address the issue, Mattel has decided to re-create dolls with more realistic and representative physical characteristics, such as the disabled Barbie or Barbie with a prosthetic leg. By playing with a disabled doll, a young girl encounters diversity and, if she also has a disability, will have a more positive image of herself. The Fashionistas toy line includes other dolls that celebrate female identity in other areas as well, such as careers or the

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE CHINESE NEW YEAR

In addition to manufacturing companies, shopping malls and stores can also implement an inclusive marketing strategy. February the 12th marked the Chinese New Year (a.k.a. the Lunar New Year),when the year of the Rat ends and the year of the Ox begins. As opposed to Western countries’ New Year celebrations, the Chinese New Year lasts 16 days and is celebrated by Chinese people with dances and red lanterns attached to the facades of shops and bars. The highlights are the Spring Festival, lasting from February 12th until February 22nd, and the Lantern Festival, from February 23rd through 26th. It is the most important and joyful holiday in China and in recent years has spread to cities around the world where there are large Chinese communities. To pay homage to the Chinese, some shopping malls have started decorating their locations with red decorations and dragon displays, while some other outlets have launched promotions such as discounts or benefits to be used during the Chinese New Year. So it seems that diversity and tolerance in society will become a permanent feature of advertising going forward.