The Financial Benefits of Inclusive Marketing
Why make your marketing inclusive?
Marketers can sometimes view efforts to be inclusive as unnecessary – something that’s ‘nice to do’ for society. Other times, they think inclusive marketing is nothing more than a passing fad…
But the big and unavoidable truth is: Inclusive marketing is here to stay!
Statistics show our audiences want to see inclusive campaigns. And guess what? Inclusive marketing practices have a strong and positive effect on profits.
If your marketing isn’t inclusive, you could miss out on a lot of money. You could even lose large sums of money by inadvertently causing offence.
Let’s take a look at two companies that didn’t work on making their marketing inclusive and the repercussions they faced…
H&M: the failure to be inclusive and the consequences to revenue
Remember the infamous ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ scandal? It involved a campaign with a Black boy wearing those exact words on his jumper. Unfortunately, H&M failed to spot the issue before releasing the campaign.
If you’re not sure what the problem was, or want to read more details about the scandal, you can read the case study here.
If H&M had baked inclusivity into their marketing strategy, they would have understood the impact of those words on the Black community. But they didn’t. And this short-sightedness had a tremendous impact on their sales and brand image.
Here’s what happened after the release of this campaign:
H&M’s sales plummeted in the first quarter, leaving them with $4.3 billion of unsold inventory.
The hashtags ‘H&M racist’ and ‘Coolest Monkey H&M’ trended on Google for the entire month of January
Social media was flooded with cries to #BoycottH&M
Famous Black celebrities, like The Weeknd, severed ties with the brand
Politicians publicly condemned the brand for their racist campaign
In other words, the reaction was global. And hard to bounce back from.
H&M didn’t go out of their way to be racist or to cause offence (at least, we don’t believe they did). Instead, they did what the majority of marketing departments fail to do all the time – they didn’t consider all of their audience. And because of that, they offended an entire community.
Victoria’s Secret: failed to be inclusive, and then failed again
Another major brand that faced backlash for their lack of inclusivity are Victoria’s Secret. On a campaign exclusively featuring thin women, Victoria’s Secret wrote the message: ‘The Perfect Body.’ The implication? That only thin white women have the perfect body. Considering the average woman doesn’t fit that description, you can imagine the Twitter firestorm that followed.
More than 29,000 signatures were given to stop the campaign. Victoria’s Secret were suddenly under immense pressure to fix the problem. So, what did they do? They changed the tagline of the campaign to read “A Body for Everybody.”
While they were able to improve upon their existing campaign, the brand didn’t quite get the message… In 2021, they included plus-size bodies in their campaign, but when consumers browsed their stores for larger sizes, plus-sizes couldn’t be found. This made Victoria’s Secret appear inauthentic, and their customers lost trust in them.
The conclusion: not only is it possible to lose customers when you aren’t inclusive at all, but you can also lose them if your inclusive marketing is done incorrectly.
Inclusive marketing doesn’t just revolve around the images you use. The brand and the products you sell need to be inclusive too. We break inclusive marketing right down in our detailed blog post.
Companies that increased their bottom line by being inclusive
Fenty Beauty: when inclusive marketing paid off big time
Believe it or not, Fenty wasn’t the first cosmetics brand to offer 40 shades of foundation (now 50). Before they exploded onto the scene, other makeup brands were catering to different skin tones too. So, what happened? Why did Fenty disrupt the market and not those other brands?
The other brands didn’t make inclusive marketing a key part of their business. Fenty Beauty became known as “the new generation of beauty” because they used models from different ethnicities in all their campaigns. And because they marketed to all women…
Fenty generated a remarkable $100 million in its first 40 days alone. In its first 15 months, they reached $570 in revenue.
Dove: ‘Real Beauty’ made a REAL impact on profits
Unlike other brands, Dove doesn’t use celebrities in their ads. Instead, they commit to using real women. Their Real Beauty campaign captured a full spectrum of women’s bodies and their differences, celebrating them and highlighting their unique beauty. As you can imagine, this campaign resonated with a huge section of their audience.
The results? Sales for Dove jumped from $2.5 billion to $4 billion in ten years. Plus, their Real Beauty Sketches attracted more than 50 million views in just 12 days, demonstrating impressive reach.
Bodyform: When ‘normal’ blood led to extraordinary results
Bodyform did the unthinkable. They released a period product ad and showed blood (instead of that mysterious blue liquid!). Their #BloodNormal campaign aimed to break the taboo surrounding periods while promoting their pads.
With 9 out of 10 women feeling the need to hide their periods, Bodyform did their bit to destigmatise something millions of people go through every month.
Can a bit of blood make all the difference? It turns out… yes! Bodyform reached 800 million people and earned £3.2 million from their campaign. It’s fair to say that this ad initiated a big conversation and sparked a cultural shift. Even now, people continue to talk about the impact of their ad and their portrayal of regular blood.
No brand is immune to criticism
If you don’t market to your diverse audience and consider their needs, you’re vulnerable to criticism.
Big brands like Pepsi and Quaker Oats have all been hit with backlash because they’ve failed to be inclusive. In both cases, the issue wasn’t overt racism. It was ignorance.
If you don’t think about your whole audience and how they’ll respond, or you don’t include their voices during the creative process, your brand could land in hot water. And it might not recover…
Will Inclusive marketing cost too much to implement?
Put it this way: when you get your marketing materials and advertisements right the first time, you’ll see an uptick in sales. But if you miss the mark, you’ll need to try again.
You might need to put in more effort to become inclusive, but you’ll reach more of your audience and can expect to see a bigger return on your investment. The ROI then funds your inclusive marketing letting it become a full embedded process.
So, no, it won’t cost ‘too much’ to be inclusive. But not being inclusive could cost you more than you imagine.
Are you ready to become more inclusive? Get in touch and we’ll stop you from making the mistakes that even big brands struggle to avoid.
Reach out to us for an informal chat. When it comes to making marketing inclusive, we have a number of solutions to suit different budgets. Get in touch with us.
