EP 3: Why is inclusive marketing the mission?
Shownotes
In this episode, Joyann Boyce breaks down how she was introduced to inclusive marketing and why it's so important to her. She also explains its benefits and how to begin implementing it in your marketing.
Note: When Joyann said that Santa didn't wear red before Coca-Cola's marketing, she meant there's now an association between Santa Clause and Coca-Cola and they have "played a big role in shaping the big, jolly Santa character we know and love today."
You can read more about Santa Clause wearing red here: https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/our-business/faqs/is-it-true-santa-is-red-because-of-coca-cola
The transcript can be found at: https://www.arimacompany.com/marketing-made-inclusive-podcast
Useful links:
https://www.arimacompany.com/blog/what-is-inclusive-marketing
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/inclusive-marketing-practices
You can find Joyann at: https://twitter.com/joyannboyce
Transcription
Joyann Boyce 0:02
Welcome to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast. I am your host Joyann Boyce. On this podcast, we're going to discuss all things inclusive marketing, from persona creation, campaigns, and even some of the mishaps we see in the media. Tune in and let me know your thoughts on how we can make inclusive marketing the industry standard.
Joyann Boyce 0:23
Welcome to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast. I'm your host, Joyann Boyce. Today, I wanted to talk about why this is the mission. Why is this the goal for me? And why have I dedicated my career to making marketing inclusive. Essentially, I fell in love with marketing on accident, I studied psychology, and I was just so fascinated with marketing and how it can change these various things. My favourite fact, it depends on how you view it, is that Santa Claus used to be green, and the power of marketing and many other things led us and everyone knowing that Santa Claus is actually red, and wears red clothing. And that's just the power of marketing. I think that's such a clean example of how it can shift a whole world narrative on something that we consider fact.
Joyann Boyce 1:20
So I fell in love with marketing, but I realise the industry didn't like me, I am a black woman and dealing with clients creating campaigns, I started to notice a lot of things that were just not feeling quite right. I found myself saying the same things clients would say, where, oh, yeah, we're doing this, we're putting this visual behind this campaign, because that's what our audience wants to see. And it felt like an excuse. It felt like the industry was using data and how it's always been to do things that aren't always good. I've always been aware of how that, doing what's always been done has is negative in every other aspect of life. But when I applied it to marketing, I was just like, hold on, this needs to change.
Joyann Boyce 2:14
One of the main things I found when I started this journey, though, was that a lot of people wanted to apply diversity and inclusion as a whole to everything, everything in the sector, they wanted to say, if you're going to do diversity and inclusion, everything needs to be diverse and inclusive. Every sector needs to adopt the same rules and the same narratives. And it just didn't, it didn't apply to marketing. Because marketing the whole point, the whole narrative is that you're targeting people interested in your product, service, whatever you're delivering. And one of the most annoying things you can hear as a freelance marketer, or as someone working in a sector when you ask a client who their target audiences, they say everyone, their target audience is never everyone, because everyone is not going to like your product.
Joyann Boyce 3:01
However, in very niche circumstances, let's take the UK where I'm based, for example, the NHS is a brand, and a business, that targets everyone, because they're meant to provide health care for everyone. But your smaller businesses, your small to medium, your cosmetic businesses, they're not targeting everyone. But if they don't targetting to everyone, then how does diversity and inclusion apply to what they're doing and their marketing. And that's where when I found the principles from Salesforce of inclusive marketing, I started to realise there's a difference in it. Salesforce has a great mini course on inclusive marketing, I stumbled into it.
Joyann Boyce 3:41
Initially, when I was working with a company to create inclusive stock photos. And I started applying these principles but not knowing that it already existed. This is back in 2018. And as I've worked with those principles, as I've adopted, and kind of started applying it to clients and worked in a practical way, the one key thing that rings through to clients when I talk to them about inclusive marketing is that inclusive marketing is going to have exclusion. You are going to exclude people, because that is what Mark saying is you're excluding people. The difference I see what inclusive marketing is that you're being intentional with that exclusion.
Joyann Boyce 4:18
Instead of saying, Oh, no, we forgot X, Y and Z. You're either saying this is not for them. And you're making a stance in that, or you're going to address it at some point. And you're going to have bring it up to the company, bring it up to the product developers, bring it up to CEO that hey, we want to advertise to this audience, this demographic, this, this niche, whatever you want to describe it as, but our product or service doesn't actually serve them. But we think it could. This is a business case. And for me, that's the biggest differentiation between generic diversity and inclusion within a workplace within HR within society to inclusive marketing. Inclusive marketing is going to have some form of exclusion.
Joyann Boyce 5:00
And, and sometimes I meet people and they're like, oh, that doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel it's blah blah blah, but what am I thinking about the core principles of marketing, you have a product. Let's take, for example, bread, you are a consultant, you're going into this bread company, and they want to market bread. Now, bread can be eaten by majority of people. But you find that people who are wheat intolerant can't eat it. So either differentiate and make another product for those who are wheat intolerant, or can't take gluten, or you specifically say this is for the wheat lovers. And then you look at that audience, the people who love we, and then you represent them in every way, shape and form.
Joyann Boyce 5:42
Now, where I’d say inclusive marketing is key in that inclusion aspect is understanding that your audience comes in so many shapes and sizes and forms and formats and tones and heritage, just everything, whatever market you're in, whatever industry you're in, that audience is diverse, with it’s interest in your product, brand or service. So, for example, there could be a bread community of individuals who love bread. And they have this fond memory of a particular your particular brand of bread, and how their grandparents would have used it in some traditional form. I'm reaching here, I'm making up scenarios to not specific talk about any company, but you get the idea. Or you find that your product is being used by a community in a new way that you didn't realise before. So for example, you may have designed chairs, and you think the chairs that are designed by your company are just really cool. It's a really innovative, random niche design. Come to find out there's a community online who like the shows are so ergonomic for amputees, you didn't even think of it when you were designing the chair possibly wasn't even on your brain. But that is someone who's interested in your product, that’s a community that's interested in your product that you should include in your marketing.
Joyann Boyce 7:04
And I'm not talking including them in the sense of, oh, it's Black History Month, it's Disability Awareness Month, it's Women's History Month. Let's chuck a campaign out there. More so along the 365. Wherever you have a campaign, wherever you can change the narrative of the main character or include other characters within the visual aspect, include that audience, also include them in the strategy. So say, you're getting your product out to influencers, you can go with a generic route of reaching out to influencers who have a certain type of following, or you're giving it to an agency who are saying, you give them these criterias.
Joyann Boyce 7:42
But I see no issue and specifying to them that you want the influences they bring to you, the influences you're looking forward to be as diverse and you want a certain amount of representation. In that aspect, being intentional with your outreach is so important. And I think a brand that is key in doing this. And I'm going to harp on about Fenty beauty because they really did blow the ball out the park when it comes to marketing and how they work with different types of influences and how they make sure they have a wide range of representation. They looked at their product, looked at the influences that were using it, reached out to a nice diverse representation of that, made sure they try to include as many influences in terms of skin tone, body size, and following count, because they probably look focused more on engagement. But we can talk about influencer marketing a whole lot of time, all of that encompassed. Yes, the marketing, but also the inclusion. They aligned the two, they made sure that what their goal was within the marketing was also reflected with the inclusive aspects of the campaign of whatever they're doing. It wasn't an add on, it wasn't just, oh, it's Black History Month, let's reach out to all the dark skinned influencers and forget about them for the rest of the year. It was a continuous input, continuous cycle of thinking about these things and being aware.
Joyann Boyce 9:08
And that's why I say that inclusive marketing is just as much about exclusion, as it is inclusion. The difference to what it is in our current marketing industry is that you're actively being aware and taking responsibility and accountability for who you're excluding. Rather than, oh, we just didn't know. Gone is the time of we just didn't know I'm sorry. Google exists. The internet exists. So many platforms out there and marketers are inspired by the environments that are in there inspired by the content they consume. We live in a world where you can be exposed to do so many things. And see so many cultures, communities, representation in so many ways. And as a marketer, as a content creator, we should always be seeking new inspiration. In terms of whether that inspiration gets approved by whoever needs to approve the content is a whole nother topic. I, we'll, talk about systems and processes in another episode. But in general, if we're going to be inspired by the world, if we're going to be inspired by the people that use our products, that people that we want to use our products that should be diverse, that should be rich, and just nourishing for everyone.
Joyann Boyce 10:29
I don't know, I feel like if a campaign comes too easily and too quickly, and looks like everything you've always done, maybe change career. No, I'm joking. That would be a drastic, drastic step. But yeah, think about it, push the boundaries and the other aspects I have on inclusive marketing and why this is the mission rather than diversity and inclusion itself. Diversity and inclusion within the advertising and marketing industry has been very focused on hiring, which is valid and is needed, we need diverse representation in all levels, from creative to directors to who's deciding what campaigns even get to be published in the first place. However, I also believe that inclusive marketing can be practised even if the room of people are not diverse. I don't want it to be an excuse.
Joyann Boyce 11:23
I give workshops to companies a lot and a lot of the times I hear the one person who's different within the team, is the one person advocating for all inclusion and inclusion is wide. If we just think of some of the pro, protected characteristics, you have a list of representation of different skintone and ethnicities, then body size, then representation of the disabled community, then you have accessibility of your content and how it's gonna be consumed, representation of religion and not causing offence, or it's, it's, it's a lot. It is a lot. And I don't think that the one person who's already extremely feeling marginalised within the industry has to take on that whole burden within your company. Or you should be waiting in a company, for that one person to be hired before you start thinking about inclusive marketing.
Joyann Boyce 12:19
It can be practised, even if your team all looks like they are siblings, who came from the same family and I'm thinking of a particular company. Oh, gosh, yeah. If they all wear the same shirt, the same, the same uniform. On a complete tangent, the unwritten uniform for the tech sector is like jeans, trainers and a t-shirt. But why? Anywho, even if everyone in your team particularly wears jeans, trainers and a t-shirt every single day, you should all be challenging and attempting to market inclusively. And it's not to say that you're going to be able to speak on every experience and develop these campaigns. But if you start the idea, it gives you a foundation. It gives you a narrative to reach out to consultants, to reach out to influencers, to reach out to other people, to help you shape something, to help you shape a narrative shape or story, to be this is what the data is showing you.
Joyann Boyce 13:20
And if you're fearful of taking that first step, it's like it's like when you learn to walk or ride a bike, you got to take the first step. And then others can just help you move faster, help you fine tune it. Nothing in life is perfect. But we have to start, you have to take the steps. So if there's campaigns that you're normally doing, or stock photos that you're always using or language that you're always using, just try changing it up. Don't be afraid to be held accountable when you put things out into the world, especially now in 2022, going into 2023. Time has flown.
Joyann Boyce 13:54
But yeah, don't be afraid, inclusive marketing can be practised by every single team, even as a solo marketer, do things like diversify to stock photos you're using, a lot of stock photos, companies are starting to realise the issue with algorithms and the issue with the content they provide a certain search terms, and it's getting better. When I first started speaking about inclusive marketing, I remember it was for my first company, I was trying to build a website. And on that website, I wanted to have a stock photo of hands on a keyboard. I am a black woman, so the hands I was looking for, were somewhat of a dark brown skinned turn shape and had some kind of feminine aspect. I couldn't find any.
Joyann Boyce 14:41
And I will caveat that I was looking on the free sites because I just started my business and I did not have money. But I was looking on the free sites and it kind of dawned on me. This limitation is probably impacting so many people for a stock photo website that is free and I looked on quite a few websites, and I started to see that there were people who are creating certain packs just to fit these target audience. Why did we have to create a pack and have to go somewhere else. And for marketers who aren't actively thinking, when they type in the word woman in a stock photo website, they aren't actively thinking, I need to get different skin tones. They're just being fed the same skinny, white woman with blonde hair every time. They get into the habit and it's subconscious, in that mindset of thinking, this is what the world wants, this is what I will provide them. So it's a responsibility of the people producing those things to think about diverse representation.
Joyann Boyce 15:44
So even if you're solo marketer, and you're completely independent, you make all the decisions, I would say stock photos is probably the first thing you can take a stab at, to practice inclusive marketing, because that's something you have control of, and you can test it with your audience, you can put it out there.
Joyann Boyce 16:03
Another question I tend to get about why this mission is it's always worked, why change. And that brings me back to the business case. Diversity and inclusion has this business case, hiring diverse workforce, making sure that you have creative minds from different background, different life experiences in a room, in a team is essential. And there's many studies out there that prove that helps to increase business revenue production, solve problems faster. The same thing applies to increase your marketing, but in the sense of the audience's you reach. If you diversify the content you're creating, start testing, you can even AB test certain things, not everything, but start testing different tones of voice and different audiences and seeing what they respond to. When you use something different to your generic, blonde white woman in a campaign. It opens up your brand, it opens up your brand to wider audiences, but it also should be practising your brand values.
Joyann Boyce 17:07
Now, I don't know every company's brand values. But I do see a lot of brand values nowadays that have inclusivity and diversity, or they welcome everyone or we treat everyone like family. If you do that in your company, you should do that in your marketing. Outside of making more money for a company, I think looking at their brand values, if you having pushback from the higher ups, or anyone who's making decisions or campaigns just be like, hey, our brand value say x, I would like to represent x in our campaigns. Why are you pushing back on this? Why is this a problem? Now, I will say you have to be very, you know, strong to push back. Probably bring in an external person to make that point. And on that note, we do provide audits through our company to help people understand that benchmark, because sometimes they just don't see it, they don't see what is needed. But if it's in your brand values, implement it in your marketing.
Joyann Boyce 18:11
This has been a very continuous tangent of things. But I just wanted to talk and say a little bit about why I'm so passionate about it. Why I think it should just be the way we're correcting something that started many centuries ago when marketing was first invented. Which I wonder this is another tangent. I think marketing is probably the oldest profession, when you come to think about it. Because for anything to have existed, it needed to be marketed or advertised, however you want to differentiate it.
Joyann Boyce 18:47
So we have a lot of things to polish up. Like we're any tool machine, even houses, we have to look at the structure, you know, update it a little bit, get it in line with current practices, get it in line with current society. And that's what the mission is. I just want to I want to update outdated rulebook and I want to make it known so wherever you study marketing, or practice it on any type digital, print, advertising, paid ads, paid media, comms all variations, which I all branch under marketing, because inclusive marketing sounds a lot more nicher than let's make inclusive comms. Yeah, totally understood. But any form of communicating with a wide audience of people should be inclusive and should be representative of the audience you're speaking to. On that note, thank you so much for listening to me and let me know if you have any questions. I would love to know your thoughts. If you've had any fears or any successes with implementing inclusive marketing within your business, your company or practices.
Joyann Boyce 19:53
We're very early in starting the podcast so yeah, I wanna know the questions, I wanna know what you have. Probably do a Q and A in a couple episodes just to find out what people want to know. And thank you for joining me and I hope you can join the mission to make inclusive marketing the industry standard.
