A weekly recap of the best and worst social media posts in representative and inclusive marketing. This week: Petit Bateau, Ysé, Kensington Palace.
The Good
French ready-to-wear brand Petit Bateau is best known for its marinières and featuring toddlers on its feed but for its #colourhideandseek campaign, it posted a photo with 68-years-old German model Anna von Rueden.
Why it works: Women over 40 are underrepresented on social media. With this post, Petit Bateau shows that their stripes are truly for everyone. According to an AARP survey in the US, 73% of women say they like ads that feature and celebrate women of various ages, but 61% do not feel represented by images of women in media But… The Petit Bateau feed still features too few people of colours.
French lingerie and swimwear brand Ysé shot its new swimsuits on models wearing three different sizes. It also explained in its Instagram Stories that it was working on developing additional sizes.
Why it works: Only seeing pieces on women thiner than you makes imagining what the swimsuit will look like on difficult. Ysé didn’t pretend it was selling larger sizes than it actually does and was transparent with customers re: future plans.
Needs more work…
Lingerie brands expanding their “nude” offering beyond beige: great. Only shooting the range on white women: not so great. Industry specialist Cora Harrington calls them out on Twitter.
Prince William, second in line to the British throne, spent three weeks doing work experience in intelligence agencies, including MI5. His social media team, posting under the Instagram handle @KensingtonRoyal, did a story about it, including three screens on his work on terrorism that solely included black people, reproducing a racist prejudice about who is or isn’t a terrorist.
It always comes back to hiring…
Jessica Liebman, managing editor at Business Insider, has been criticised for an article where she explains that she only hires people who send her a follow up thank you email. The bulk of the criticism has focused on adding an unspoken requirement to the hiring process, which you may or may not know depending on your background. Representative recruitment is the first step to representative marketing!
On the topic of representative recruitment… Assistant professor Meredith Clark is calling out the wedding industry, particularly registries, for their lack of inclusivity. On the plus size: the team she screenshot has good gender balance and Asian representation. But it ins’t enough to be representative of their market.
This team wouldn’t pass the Beyoncé test. Shortly after she announced her sportswear deal with Adidas, ESPN reported that she had walked out from a meeting with Reebok because of the lack of representation in background and skincolour. Reebok has since denied it. No matter — going forward, always wonder whether Beyoncé would walk out from a meeting with your team.