
A recently released study by the Unstereotype Alliance, Inclusion=Income, shows that it is.
Contrary to the “Go woke, Go broke” howling of the Weird Right, particularly in the US, this global study shows that inclusive advertising with positive portrayals leads to:
Short-term sales lift of +3.5%
Longer-term sales lift of +16.3%
33% higher strong consideration
62% higher likelihood of being a consumer’s first choice
8% higher incidence of being trialled
23% lower chance of being abandoned after trial
54% higher pricing power
15% higher loyalty
Make your advertising inclusive. It is the right thing to do for a more equitable society. It is the right thing to do to grow your business. It is one of those rare occasions when morals and money are on the same side!
But…
Who is being included and how are they being portrayed?
Channel 4's Mirror On The Industry report revealed that even amongst the top 1,000 TV ads of 2021, disabled people only appeared in 4% of those ads. Disabled people comprise 24% of the UK’s population. The gap suggests exclusion, not inclusion.
A disabled person appeared in a lead role in under half of those ads. The portrayal of disabled people was found to be changing; moving forward from describing disabled people only as “heroes” or “victims”. Nonetheless, there still seemed to be a pervasive theme of ‘overcoming difficulty’ - disabled characters in ads were 5x more likely to be a famous athlete. This suggests that ads that do include disabled people are still tending toward stereotyping rather than “unstereotyping”.
Can anything be done?
Yes. Quite simply, get disabled people involved in the creation of advertising. And no, we don’t mean you only try and get disabled people involved in ad in which you had planned to portray disabled people. We mean that all campaigns should include the perspective of disabled people.
Only through making consultation with disabled people routine can we create advertising that is routinely inclusive.
How?
One of the simplest ways is to utilise Untapped Opinion’s “Creative Community”. This is a community of ‘everyday’ disabled people. They can collaborate with you and your agency partners to provide insight on real life, review storyboards, and provide feedback on choice of actors, music, and content.
An ad is the outcome of multiple creative and commercial decisions. By including disabled people during the process, those decisions have the greatest chance of being authentic, meaningful, and impactful.
Go for growth. Choose to include.
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