IS REPRESENTATION JUST ANOTHER MARKETING BUZZWORD?

Nope. It’s just something you can’t ignore in 2019. It means that every single one of your customers gets to see themselves in your marketing. They’ll feel seen, and heard, and ultimately convert.

Take Hollywood. For years, studios marketed their superhero movies to white men. It didn’t mean that only men went (I’d know, I’ve never missed one), but the heroes, the advertising, were overwhelmingly male and pale. Until 2017, and a small movie called Wonder Woman, followed nine months later by another sleeper hit, Black Panther. Boom. Both movies racked up millions. Black Panther was the quickest superhero movie to reach $1 billion. Why? Sure, they were good movies (I might have seen them a few times. Or 10). But more importantly, they were finally talking to an entire segment of the population who had been told until then that their specific stories didn’t matter.

Our goal with The Inclusive Branding Agency is to bring the same success to your own company. I don’t mean the $1 billion in 24 days thing, not right away at least. I mean demonstrating to customers who keep being ignored by your direct competitors that they matter to YOU, and that you keep them in mind when creating your products and services.

REPRESENTATION / INCLUSIVITY / DIVERSITY

I prefer talking about representation and inclusivity.

Diversity suggests that there is a default setting, which often happens to be pale, male, straight, able-bodied, and that you need to vary from this.

Whereas representation and inclusivity is about including everyone in society. And everyone also happens to be who your customers could be.

Riz Ahmed explained it best while on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Best thing to come out of Venom, as far as I’m concerned.

BUT DON’T I RUN THE RISK OF ANTAGONISING SOME PEOPLE?

Probably, but do you really want these people as your customers? If so, I’m definitely not the right consultant for you.

How we work

HOW WILL IT PLAY OUT?

Fear not, we are not going to sprinkle #GirlPower all over your marketing strategy and content! In fact, using the latest empowerment hashtag or slapping it on your marketing is the surest way to see your well-meant attempts at inclusivity backfire. Why? Because people will know if it’s only campaign-deep. And then you run the very real risk of generating bad buzz, which will have the exact opposite to what you were looking to achieve.

That’s why you need someone with expertise in both branding & marketing and representation & inclusivity. Someone like… us. Obviously.

WHAT HAPPENS ONCE YOU’VE HIRED us?

It depends on the inclusive marketing & branding services you’ve hired us for. Generally, the first step is understanding your great product/service and your customer - we can do this in person if you are London-based or on a call. Knowing your product/service inside-out and who you are targeting is key to creating a successful inclusive marketing and branding. For instance, there would be no point in featuring black models in a skincare campaign if all your tinted creams are fair. That’s not representation, that’s false advertising (and again, bad buzz). Instead, we’d suggest first going back to the drawing board to work with black women to create the right products for them, before brainstorming on a great campaign to promote them.

We’ll then review your current marketing and branding and how it aligns with your target customer groups to identify where the two don’t overlap.

The time we spend on these two steps will vary based on what you hired us for, but they are key to assess your current content and implement a successful inclusive marketing & branding strategy going forward.