‘Exclusive’ is a word often used in marketing, to promote deals, offers and products not available to a company’s full audience.

Exclusivity can be effective in increasing sales and targeting audiences with specific messaging, but it can be a brand-destroyer.

Although marketing is all about providing a solution to a customer’s problem, we, as marketers, need to make sure the customer’s problem that we’re identifying as ‘solvable’ is not rooted in a form of oppression.

Forms of oppression are defined as:

“... malicious and harmful pattern[s] of unjust treatment… practised by a regime or societal group… Oppression refers to discrimination when the injustice does not target and may not directly afflict everyone in society but instead targets specific groups of people.”

For example, some forms of oppression include racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism, sizeism, nativism, classism, antisemitism, cisgenderism, colourism, and ableism.

Unfortunately, forms of oppression have been rampant in marketing for decades, and continue to thrive today.

It can be difficult for some people to identify where oppression is impacting other peoples’ lives – owing to the ignorance of other cultures or identities.

I’d like to add here that I don’t mean ‘ignorance’ as a jab at those who are struggling to identify oppression of other people, more pointing out that sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Here are a few examples of oppressive marketing, so you know what to look out for:

In the first billboard, advertised in London tube stations, suggests that there’s just one type of ‘beach body’ – the body of the thin model – and that, in order to achieve that body, we need to eat protein powders.

The second billboard pictured compares fat people – or even those who choose to eat meat – to whales, by way of their size, implying from the image that their ‘blubber’ is not acceptable at the beach.

News flash: people with larger or smaller bodies, or different proportions, can go to the beach.

The idea of beach bodies being a specific size or shape is offensive – they’re essentially telling anyone that doesn’t look like the model in the advert that they can’t go to the beach, for fear of judgement and ridicule.

Unfortunately, this sort of advertising is rife in the massive world of weight loss.

Marketing in the world of fitness, wellbeing and diets should be aimed at feeling better in yourself, no matter what size or shape you are, encouraging healthy eating and exercise, not for the sake of weight loss, but for the sake of wellbeing.

That way, you’re not excluding certain groups of people, or making them feel minimised, or less-than your definition of an ‘ideal’ person.

I honestly don’t know who could possibly pitch this idea, or even who could sign it off.

It’s horrific to think that this advert would have gone through the ideas stage, proposal, design, sign-off, and then been plastered on billboards in public – without anyone thinking that it was offensive and exclusive.

The billboard depicts a black person, dressed all in black, being grabbed aggressively by the face by a white woman with white hair, dressed head-to-toe in white.

The caption reads ‘White is coming’.

No, it’s not advertising UKIP, nor is it Trump’s 2020 campaign slogan – it’s adverting the Sony PlayStation Portable, which comes in a white version.

The advert implies that ‘black’ is outdated, or even subservient to ‘white’.

Don’t use the colour of someone’s skin to promote your marketing message.

If someone’s white, that doesn’t make them look ‘more pure’ than or ‘superior’ to a person of colour.

Consider how your advertising looks to someone who isn’t you.

If you look around the room of marketers and see no diversity of race, age, background, disability, or gender identity, then you need to take the initiative and research how your messaging could be interpreted by those people. 

You need to take action, before it backfires and causes a marketing nightmare and makes someone feel alienated or isolated.

I hate the term ‘anti-ageing’.

It’s ridiculous, when you think about it.

There is no avoiding the passage of time, and ageing.

Everything ages, it’s natural.

Suggesting that your products ‘fight ageing’ is preposterous, and defies nature.

Products and advertisements like this are part of our ageist problem.

Ageism is rife in our society – older people aren’t getting jobs, are heavily misrepresented in pop culture (how often do you see 40-year-olds playing 60-year-olds?), and are bombarded with the message that they aren’t attractive, all simply because they ‘reach a certain age’.

Look at the billboard by Aveeno above – the woman in that photo looks like she doesn’t have to even think about anti-ageing products.

Let’s make ageing normal, again. 

Getting older is something that we can’t really avoid, and with age comes both wisdom and experience – we should be celebrating age, not fighting it.

This image was designed by BIC for International Women’s Day.

Wow.

On a day of empowerment, acceptance, and equality, BIC thought it would be a good idea to dictate how women should look, behave, think, and work.

Apparently the female ideal is to look like a ‘girl’ – that is, a child.

Gross.

And the ideal way for women to act is ‘like a lady’.

No, thanks.

Better yet, she should ‘think like a man’.

I don’t even know what that means – as a woman, are my thoughts not as important or worthwhile as a man’s?

Finally, she should ‘work like a boss’.

Probably the only part of this advert I agree with.

But working like a boss has nothing to do with whether a person looks like a girl, acts like a lady, or thinks like a man.

The lesson here is not to stereotype and idealise certain genders or appearances over each other.

And try not to be borderline paedophilic in your marketing copy.

In case you didn’t already know.

How do we make our marketing more inclusive?

How we know more about what not to do, it’s a good time to think about best practices for inclusive marketing.

I also want to point out that I am, by no means, an authority on inclusivity or diversity.

But I am learning. 

So here are some things that I have learned that are helping me on my way to more inclusive marketing.

Representation matters

If you’re using stock images of people, or taking photos of models for your lifestyle or product photography, it should go without saying that they should represent your customer base.

But don’t use people’s identities to sell your product.

That would be appropriation.

Appropriation is “taking or using an aspect from a minority culture without knowing or honouring the meaning behind it.” (source)

People’s identities are not marketing strategies for you to break out whenever you want to boost sales.

Browse through your imagery of people on your website – do you see diversity?

Do your research into your customer base, and your audience, and make sure that they feel represented in your marketing imagery, copy, and the way that you conduct your business.

Inclusive marketing shouldn’t be a ploy to increase your profits, but something that you’re constantly, actively working on to ensure that your organisation (and your marketing) is helping people to feel more valued, welcomed, and appreciated.

SEO

That’s right – search engine optimisation can help you make your marketing more inclusive.

You need to consider the accessibility of your website – as many people as possible should be able to read it.

It’s not just to increase the number of visitors to your website, it’s so you’re not excluding people from accessing it.

Of course, it’s near-impossible to completely prepare your website for people with every health condition or socio-economic background, but you need to engage your empathy to implement different ways of presenting your information to make it as easy as possible for everyone.

For example, alt tags should be common practice for every image on your website.

Alt tags are mainly used for those who are unable to see images on a screen, to help them read what images are onscreen.

As an added bonus, alt tags can also further help bots to understand the images on your website, and, if used properly, can boost your SEO ranking.

Choose your words carefully

We change the way we speak all the time.

Think about the language we would commonly use mere decades ago, using derogatory racist, sexist, homophobic, and ableist slurs in our everyday language.

Maybe I’m being naïve, but I don’t think we use those sorts of terms as often today.

Our words have power.

I particularly appreciate Greenpeace’s copy style guide, which has a section dedicated to inclusive language:

“We want to ensure that our content is accessible and welcoming to everyone who uses it. Inclusive language helps us to be more accurate and build trust with our users.”

So rather than using unnecessary gendered words (like he or she) in your copy, aim to be more inclusive, and use ‘they’ or ‘them’ instead.

Instead of referring to something as ‘crazy’, instead explain or describe its actual attributes.

For example, where you might say “12 crazy marketing ideas to boost your sales”, instead define the actual attributes of the marketing ideas you’re selling, like “12 creative marketing ideas to boost sales”.

Consider your language, and consider how others could interpret or be impacted by it.

Not everyone has the same experiences with language, so what offends one person might not offend another.

It’s not about being ‘politically correct’, it’s about not alienating your audience or distancing your brand from them.

If you’re not sure, speak with people of different backgrounds, abilities, or experiences.

Connect, and always be learning.

Avoid stereotypes

Stereotypes can be harmful.

Even today, adverts for washing up products still show women adopting the ‘traditional’ role of ‘housewife’, smiling as they scrub the dishes dutifully.

That’s not to say that women don’t clean dishes in modern society, or that we shouldn’t see women washing dishes in adverts today.

More that there should be representation and diversity there – men also do the washing up, as do people of colour, differently-abled people, children, older people… I could go on.

Seeing other people taking the responsibility of washing the dishes shows people everywhere that it’s not just one gender’s responsibility to keep things clean.

Things like this have a knock-on effect on our society, and the way we perceive different people.

But this is just an example.

Something as innocuous as an advert you glimpse out of the corner of your eye can impact the way you treat people in day-to-day life.

Marketing cooking playsets to young girls and science kits to young boys can be detrimental to their development, and can stunt their opportunities later in life.

One stereotypically-based product design technique that really pisses me off is ‘shrink it and pink it’.

Companies take products generally marketed at men, make them smaller, and colour them in typically ‘girly’ colours, and voilà – they have a new product, ‘just for women’.

It’s insulting.

Where is the product research?
Where’s the audience research?
Where’s the diversity?

Sure, I like the colour pink, but don’t want everything I own to be entirely candyfloss-baby-salmon-rose-fuschia.

And, honestly, my hands aren’t that much smaller than my boyfriend’s – if I need to do any DIY (granted, it doesn’t happen too often), I’d rather use Dean’s ‘man-size’ hammer rather than the ‘shrink-and-pink’, floral one that’s supposed to be mine.

Don’t reduce people and their identities to stereotypes – we are all individual, and sweeping statements can be both offensive and alienating.

Accept responsibility

You may not always get it right – introducing more inclusivity in your marketing can be a learning curve, and you’ll always be learning about other people’s experiences on the job.

If you do slip up, don’t just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened.

This is the digital age: everything is recoverable.

Hold your hands up and accept responsibility for your marketing, and the impact it has on your audience – even those who aren’t your target audience.

Learn from your mistakes.

Take steps to ensure the same mistake doesn’t happen again, and communicate that to your audience.

As PR professional Ronn Torossian (5W Public Relations) said:

“A good apology is always telling the truth. A good apology is owning up. A good apology is moving quickly. And a good apology is authentic and real and isn’t fabricated, it needs to come from the heart.”

If in doubt, ask, listen, and learn

Speak to your audience about what inclusivity means to them, and bring that into everything your company does – inside and outside of marketing activities.

Speak to people from various backgrounds, with different experiences of life, and be willing to learn.

No one person, by themselves, can know every other person’s experiences.

Ask, listen, and learn.

If you don’t know where to start, start with your customers and your employees.

Speak to them about what they think of your brand, and what you could do better to be more inclusive.

As I mentioned before, connect and always be learning.

Inclusive marketing is not a tactic to increase sales

Inclusivity is a brand value, not a marketing strategy.

If you’re using faux-inclusivity to increase your brand awareness or boost your sales, it won’t be genuine.

And your audience will see that.

Inclusivity should be something that is inherent to your brand and your company, something that you’re always working to improve.
As Ra’el Cohen, Chief Creative Officer of bra designers, ThirdLove, says, “Inclusivity is a movement, not a trend. In order to authentically embrace the movement, it has to be core to who the brand is ­– it can’t be a gimmick.” (Source)

Inclusive marketing is not something that can simply be ‘done’ and ticked off a list.

It’s something that you should always consider –not just in your marketing, but throughout all of your business practices, and even in your personal life.

Excluding others is not how we grow as a species, or even as a planet.

Exclusion and barriers lead to misunderstanding, which leads to ignorance, which can lead to hatred.

Hatred is what’s wrong with the world.

And it starts with exclusivity.

So we need to combat hatred with inclusivity.

Ultimately, we’re all in this world together – it’s an unavoidable fact.

Differences in people are what makes the world so special, but we’re all the same in that we’re all here together. 

We just need to be more considerate and willing to learn.

Then we can continue to evolve and grow.