Marketing & Communications

New Study Proves Inclusive Advertising Boosts Sales, Brand Value

“This irrefutable data should reassure any business and encourage brands to renew their commitment to inclusivity in all forms — to not only benefit the communities they serve, but to drive growth and financially prosper.”

Published 2 months ago | About a 6 minute read

Image: Dove

A first-of-its-kind global study released this week presents proof that inclusive advertising — content that authentically and positively portrays a full range of people and is devoid of stereotypes — positively impacts business profit, sales and brand value.

The study was conducted by the Unstereotype Alliance — an industry-led initiative convened by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) — along with researchers from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School; and incorporated proprietary data provided by Unstereotype Alliance members Bayer Consumer Health, Diageo, the Geena Davis Institute, Kantar, Mars Incorporated, Mondelez International and Unilever.

The research comes during a time when a growing wave of companies are dropping their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies like hot potatoes in the face of pressure from anti-woke activists; and a growing perception that DEI initiatives could be culturally, socially, and financially detrimental to business — which has become more mainstream but tends to lack empirical backing or scientific evidence.

And until now, there was also little evidence to the contrary. But the new study irrefutably demonstrates that inclusion equals income — and makes the case that not adopting inclusive advertising practices will make brands less attractive and less sticky to growing segments of consumers.

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"It’s crucially important that the decisions we make in business and society are rooted in correct assumptions and scientifically proven facts, rather than anecdotal evidence and unproven truisms,” said Andrew Stephen — L’Oréal Professor of Marketing, Deputy Dean for Faculty and Research, and Director of the Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative at Saïd Business School; and co-conductor of the study. "We are very pleased to share the findings which emerged from this study and be able to provide reliable information on this contested topic, allowing businesses to reconsider the role of inclusion in their advertising practices. They can gain a lot from doing so."

The business case

The research — based on analysis of 392 brands across 58 countries — proves the positive impact of inclusive advertising on business outcomes in both the short- and long-term, and across multiple metrics. It highlights performance improvement across sales, customer preference and loyalty, brand equity and market competitiveness across several product categories — including confectionary, snacks, personal care, beauty, pet food, pet care, alcohol, consumer healthcare and household products — across geographies.

The findings confirm that inclusive ad campaigns deliver:

• 3.5 percent higher shorter-term sales and 16 percent higher longer-term sales

• 62 percent higher likelihood of being a consumer’s first choice

• 15 percent higher customer loyalty

The results further show this positive impact extends into the longer term, with a higher sales uptick — as well as brand perception and brand value metrics indicating a stronger and more positive brand reputation.

These findings refute the assertion that inclusive advertising can adversely affect business performance — an idea that has taken hold, despite a lack of empirical backing or statistical evidence.

"The idea that that inclusive advertising content can commercially damage a business has limited progress for too long,” stated Sara Denby, Head of the Unstereotype Alliance Secretariat at UN Women and co-author of the study. “The assertion is consistently unfounded – but we needed to provide evidence to the contrary. This irrefutable data should reassure any business and encourage brands to renew their commitment to inclusivity in all forms — to not only benefit the communities they serve, but to drive growth and financially prosper.”

With the publication of the report, the Unstereotype Alliance is calling on the business community to adopt more inclusive advertising practices. The findings highlight the commercial benefits from inclusive advertising and therefore support the notion that inclusion should be considered a key element of overall corporate strategy and associated communications strategies.

“For us, creating work that is inclusive of people with different lived experiences isn’t just the right thing to do, it is a business imperative that drives brand power and commercial results,” said Esi Eggleston Bracey, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Unilever — which has led industry efforts to promote more inclusivity in global advertising through initiatives including its “Positive Beauty” commitment and Dove’s “Show Us. It’s on Us.” challenge to other brands to expand their ideas of beauty. “This report highlights the undeniable business case for more diverse and inclusive marketing and will prove a powerful tool as the industry strives for even more progressive, impactful work moving forward.”

Methodology

The study set out to scientifically test the hypothesis that inclusive advertising has a positive impact on a brand’s (a) commercial performance and (b) value. It used the Unstereotype Alliance’s Gender Unstereotype Metric (GUM) — which measures on a five-point scale the extent to which an ad is perceived by in-market consumers to present a positive image of the character(s) of each gender that sets a good example for others — to measure the extent to which a brand’s advertising and marketing was inclusive in a given year.

But the study’s definitions of inclusive advertising were not limited to gender: Kantar captured 65 characteristics of the talent in an ad — including age, ethnicity, skin tone, body type, sexual orientation and personality characteristics — as well as the activity the talent is engaged in. Commonalities were deduced across the 65 characteristics to find key drivers of inclusion in the top 25 percent of ads scored using the GUM.

“As experts in brand growth, we know that D&I can influence buying decisions — and the data from this study clearly shows that inclusive advertising drives a significant sales uplift,” said Sarah Morrell, Kantar’s Senior Client Lead of Creative. “The importance of being inclusive is only going to keep growing: Kantar insights show that globally, diversity, fairness and inclusion are even more important to millennials and Gen Z than other groups. As these populations grow — and grow their buying power — diversity and inclusion will also carry more weight.”

The study clearly shows business leaders and marketers that more inclusive advertising practices pay off for brands in multiple commercially, financially, competitively and strategically relevant ways. This means that brands with more inclusive advertising should enjoy greater growth — particularly, if key competitors in their category have not embraced inclusive advertising openly and successfully; companies that take no action to improve their GUM scores will not only forego additional value creation but also likely suffer continuous attrition of their business to their more inclusive competitors.

Read the full report here.