Access &: Inclusive Marketing (9th April 2024)
Welcome
Access & will focus on accessibility and a trending topic/interesting industry/timely conversation.
With a new focus each month, I aim to show you how access should be considered in all areas of business, learning from experts, the latest statistics, and case studies along the way.
Access & Actions will follow up 2 weeks later with tasks, activities, and conversation starters- things you can implement the very same day.
Think of this as your own curated resource of how access and inclusion should be considered within business. This month’s focus is…
The Untapped Advantage
Why inclusive stories in marketing matter.
If marketing is all about powerful stories people can connect with, surely you would want to include the largest minority group in the world.
Everyone experiences disability in their life at some point, yet it’s commonly viewed as separate or with ‘otherness’.
No matter your race, sexuality, gender, or age, or whether you’re disabled or non-disabled, you want to recognise yourself, because marketing is about making your customer the star of the show after all.
The 2023 Changing the Face of Disability campaign found in a survey conducted by Ipsos:
32% of UK adults surveyed had not seen any disability represented in content they had seen, watched or read in the last 6 months.
Less than 23% of people surveyed with a disability agreed that images of disabled people used in content they had seen, watched or read reflected their own experience of disability.
Inclusive storytelling is not just a token image of a wheelchair user.
When most businesses don’t effectively include disabled people, what’s the social, economic and emotional impact on businesses, individuals and wider society alike?
The Heart Of It
Inclusive storytelling starts with…
Inclusion first.
You want your brand to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.
Are the people you want to include able to access your content?
When the moving parts of a business influence each other, are you walking the talk in areas other than your marketing department?
A brand people adore, trust and actively interact with is the aim.
As a Changing the Image of Disability focus group participant said, “Being able to relate to what you see. This goes a long way to helping you feel less “othered”, that this is normal.”
Diversity and inclusion are becoming more important to the modern-day consumer.
64% of consumers said they took action after seeing an ad they considered to be diverse or inclusive (Think With Google, 2019).
The purchasing decisions of today’s consumers are led increasingly more by their values, with a 2022 Deloitte study finding:
A huge 94% of Gen Z people expect companies to take a stand on important social issues.
90% said they are more willing to purchase products that they deem beneficial to society.
Perhaps then, this is an important question: Is your marketing as outdated as dial-up internet?
Because if it's not resonating with your customer's values, it might be time for an upgrade.
The Inner(vation) Circle
Hear from the voices shaping tomorrow, today.
The case for disability-inclusive marketing...
by Laura Winson, CEO of Zebedee Talent.
The disabled community is often overlooked by marketers. It's not clear why this is, but perhaps people are unaware of how commonplace disability is. Perhaps they are scared of 'getting it wrong' or being tokenistic? Perhaps they are just biased and discriminatory.
Whatever the reason, as Caroline Casey of the Valuable 500 says, “inaction is no longer an option, and business' risk being left behind.” Being inclusive and working towards a more equitable world is the right thing to do. Diversity and inclusion are hot topics, but frustratingly, disability often gets left out of the debate.
The impact of inclusive and accessible advertising on the individual, their families, and wider society is huge, in terms of feelings of self-worth, building awareness and changing perceptions.
Disabled people make up 1.3 billion of the world's population, around 20% of society, with a spending power of an estimated 16 trillion pounds globally. This is often referred to as 'The Purple Pound'. Despite them making up this huge population and consumer market, it‘s estimated that only 1% of people featured in advertising have a disability, and depressingly, there is evidence that these stats are dropping!
Developing your inclusive marketing
Self-reflection is important. You need to consider if you hold prejudice or unconscious bias. In a marketing context, this may be assumptions about a person's abilities and interests, and what they are likely to buy. This can manifest in hiring and casting decisions, product development and accessibility features.
Marketers need to listen and learn from people with lived experience. This means hiring disabled people, using disabled consultants and creatives and holding focus groups.
Whilst developing inclusive creative briefs, it's important to be confident that the stories are authentic, and that disabled people would use the product. Be aware of common stereotypes such as the victim, or 'inspiration porn'. The latter is a term coined by disability activist Stella Young, where advertising portrays people with disabilities as inspiring because of their disability alone.
To highlight ways to avoid this, a recent study has illustrated how social media influencers with disabilities may draw on personal empowering narratives, rather than previous 'inspirational' stereotypes.
And what about accessibility?
It's been proven time and time again that accessible products don't just benefit disabled people, but benefit huge portions of society. Captioned videos are a great example of how something which enables deaf people to access content, also supports everyone else. 80% of people prefer captioned content, and user engagement improves, both in terms of time spent and attention.
Society has a collective responsibility to build a more equitable world. Access is a human right and should not just be an afterthought, so if you are reading this, make a conscious decision to consider accessibility and representation at the start of any marketing plan or campaign. It makes ethical and commercial sense.
Zebedee are a global leading Talent agency supplying disabled models, influencers and actors. Laura and Zebedee's mission is to be the driving force behind inclusive representation in fashion and media. You can follow Laura on LinkedIn here.
Up To Date?
This month’s top need-to-know news.
The new editor of Disability Review Magazine, Lydia Wilkins, launched her first issue of the Disability Review Magazine with no other than the witty and wonderful Miriam Margolyes as the cover star.
The Assume That I Can campaign for World Down Syndrome Day on 21 March 2024 went viral. Watch the Assume That I Can campaign here.
The Misfit 100 wants to double disability rep in ads from 1% to 2% by 2025. They need 100 creative teams willing to join by this July. The goal? An inclusive ads Times Square takeover on International Day of Persons with Disability on 3 December 2025. Join in with the Misfit 100 campaign here.
Thank you for joining me for the very first Access & newsletter.
I hope you find this a valuable pit stop in your inbox. Do you have a colleague or friend who you think would find this valuable? Feel free to forward it to them!
Get ready to take action! In two weeks, Access & Actions will arrive to support you beyond the theory and the conversation, in the areas that matter most to you.
Talk soon,
Rachael x