How GSK and Other WFA Advertisers Are Going Open Source to Champion Diversity

Aiming for fair, positive representation

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It’s well beyond time to just talk about the importance of diversity and representation in our advertising; we need to practically get on and do it.

We’re challenging ourselves on the role we can play in driving that externally too, given that our products and communications reach billions of people, and we source from or supply to companies employing hundreds of thousands more.

The power of advertising

Today’s advertising can be tomorrow’s garbage, but yet we shouldn’t underestimate the power it has to enforce or challenge stereotypes, and to fund different viewpoints and perspectives. Regrettably, advertising has tended to exclude diverse representation or jump to stereotyped shortcuts. For decades, it was unheard of to see a visibly LGBT person in an advert, to have a positive story told from a Black perspective, to casually include a character in a wheelchair or even at times to show women as anything other than housewives or objects of attraction.

It is our job as marketers to reflect and appeal to the rich diversity of society that surrounds us. Average portrayals are a part of that, but so is celebrating nuance and the depth of humanity that comes out of our shared differences. Diversity isn’t just a problem facing the marketing industry; it’s also a fantastic opportunity for our brands to positively impact society and find new growth audiences and commercial opportunities along the way. Every single advertiser can move from exclusion or stereotyping to fair, positive representation.

It’s a small step, but representation really does matter. GLAAD and P&G research has shown that mere exposure to progressive advertising encourages positive acceptance. Kantar Millward Brown and the Unstereotype Alliance have shown it outperforms from a business perspective, too.

Many of the barriers are not deliberate exclusion, but accidental bias or lack of consideration. Whilst as an industry we don’t yet have the full breadth of perspectives in the room, we must be careful to ask key questions along the way to ensure we aren’t erasing diversity.

GSK’s response

We’ve created new internal training materials for over 1,000 of our marketers to take this year, walking them through the marketing process. Our global brand teams are building this mindset into the heart of our creative approaches. We’re not alone in pushing this and in partnership with other WFA members. We hope our new 12-stage open source Guide to Creative Bias will catalyze more.

It is our job as marketers to reflect and appeal to the rich diversity of society.

Jerry Daykin, senior media director at GSK Consumer Healthcare

It’s worth thinking about the conversations and workshops you need to really embed this into your own business. Don’t forget the power of deep-dive discussions and specialists to help drive this change.

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