Campaign published a lengthy report stating the
obvious: Adland’s commitment to DE&I—sparked in recent years after the 2020
George Floyd murder—is performative, box-checking bullshit.
Additionally,
cultural cluelessness gone bad—eg, the Bud
Light–Dylan Mulvaney scenario—prompted
diminishing interest and investment in DE&I initiatives by White
advertising agencies and brands alike.
To
summarize, insincere dedication to equality, insufficient heat
shield financing, and ineffective
tactics to address exclusivity are worsening.
In
Adland, systemic racism isn’t being fought—rather, it’s being fortified.
Adland backtracked on its DE&I
commitments in 2023. Leaders worry 2024 will be worse
From Bud Light and Target to KFC and
Zara, many of this year’s most divisive moments in advertising were attempts at
diversity gone wrong. Industry leaders say there is an urgent need to rethink
DE&I’s business role.
By Bailey Calfee
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for over
nine minutes while two fellow officers watched. Floyd was one of 1,152 people
killed by U.S. police officers in 2020, and his death started an uprising as
the country forced institutions to reckon with deep systemic inequality.
In the advertising industry, those demands
were met with promises to increase diversity in campaigns and within teams.
Agencies and brands created new positions and departments to address DE&I
shortcomings, and reexamined business structures to eliminate institutional
bias.
By 2023, the limits of these commitments
became apparent. High-profile backlash to LGBTQ+ inclusion by brands led many
to abandon or pull back on their displays of Pride, while advertising blunders
sparked allegations of racism and concerns regarding marketing teams’ internal
diversity measures.
Meanwhile, the chief diversity officer role
is increasingly susceptible to elimination as companies tighten their belts and
lay off staff amid fears of recession. Three years after Floyd’s murder,
industry leaders told Campaign US that the industry’s commitment to racial
parity is still lacking.
According to Dr. Dawn Wade, managing partner
and chief strategy officer of multicultural creative agency Nimbus, industry
norms of calculating DE&I impact by revenue gains sets the system up for
failure.
“DE&I doesn’t have a return that hits
your bottom line — it’s an expense, it’s not a revenue generating opportunity,”
she said. “Of all the efficiencies and good work that DE&I has done, it
hasn’t generated money for the brand, so it’s going to get cut — and that’s
what we see happening across the board.”
When averting risk is prioritized in the name
of maximizing profits, some brands have made plain their limited interest in
pushing for progressive change.
“I don’t think that people of color in
general are surprised at the downward trend of DE&I,” said Tyra
Jones-Hurst, managing partner at agency Oliver and founder of its inclusive
marketing arm, InKroud. “We’ve seen it time and time again, where there’s going
to be change and then nothing happens.”
But rather than give up on making progress,
adland must examine its mistakes and rethink its strategy as the country
becomes more diverse — and consumers and employees alike demand change.
A purpose-less Pride
In March, ABInBev’s Bud Light commissioned
trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney for an Instagram partnership that involved
sending her a custom can of beer with her face on the label to celebrate her
one-year anniversary of beginning her transition.
What ensued was a vicious reaction from a
conservative faction of the brand’s audience: Stock prices plummeted, buyers
backed out and truck drivers with Bud Light branded vehicles were attacked
along their distribution routes.
But instead of reiterating its support for
Mulvaney, Bud Light instead distanced itself from the controversy. This
broadened the backlash to both sides of the aisle and undid any attempts at
diversifying Bud Light’s audience, a strategy shepherded by its first woman
marketing VP in its 40-year history, Alissa Heinerscheid. ABInBev suspended
both Heinerscheid and her direct supervisor in the aftermath, and Bud Light’s
advertising has reverted to tie-ins with football stars and country musicians.
In the wake of the fiasco, many brands that
had previously expressed support for the LGBTQ+ community went silent or at
least muted their marketing efforts during Pride month.
Perhaps energized by their success with Bud
Light, conservative media targeted other brands that activated for Pride to
varying degrees of success. While The North Face refused to backtrack on a
Pride campaign starring drag queen Pattie Gonia, Target moved its Pride
collection to the back of some stores and pulled a collaboration with a trans
designer after untrue allegations circulated that the company was selling
trans-inclusive swimwear to children and stocking products with Satanic themes.
Wade noted that the speed with which brands
backtracked around Pride commitments this year proved that their initial
DE&I commitments were rooted in risk aversion, and therefore were
performative.
Rash decision-making to retreat around Pride
exacerbated the backlash by alienating both sides, leading to more financial
damage.
“Target, for example, made those radical
decisions before there could be any counterbalancing from those that support
[Pride] efforts, which could have actually balanced losses from that
perspective,” Wade said.
In the name of risk-aversion, she added,
Target and Bud Light reacted “before [they] recognized that the system was
going to normalize itself.”
Had either brand played the long game and
stood behind their inclusive decisions, the tide would eventually have turned
in their favor, Jones-Hurst agreed. Similar to trading stocks, one doesn’t cash
out at every dip.
“You have to trust and believe in the change
that’s coming about and that you will get more gain in the end — and not just
financial gain, but brand loyalty, brand awareness and new consumers from an
audience segment you might not even have tapped into.”
When risk aversion leads to community
abandonment, it becomes clear that a brand’s values do not align with its
promises.
“If you really stood by the principles and
values of what you were creating, then why would you pull it back?” said
Theresa Sarbeng, head of DE&I, North America at Oliver. “It shows who your
company is if you’re like, ‘oh shoot, we’re gonna lose some profit.’”
Lack of accountability
breeds “easy” inclusivity
Three years after the business world began to
prioritize DE&I, it seems to no longer be viewed as a business
essential. According to industry leaders, this reflects a lack of
accountability from the industry as well as consumers.
“There have been countless conversations,
countless promises [to prioritize DE&I], and I feel like there is a
question around accountability,” said Leila Fataar, founder, CEO and CSO of
cultural relevancy agency Platform13. “Even in 2020, I thought, ‘Who’s going to
check all this stuff?’ There was so much promise.”
Nimbus’ Wade argued, “Many of those
commitments were a facade, and will continue to be a facade until the consumer
decides that it’s important to them,” adding that consumers as a whole have not
abandoned brands who have failed to meet promises made in 2020.
“[Brands] recognize, ‘they’re not holding our
[feet] to the fire to make sure that we are delivering on those [promises],’”
she said. “So they took a tentative step back to see if that would be felt, and
when there was no blowback or accountability, now they’re more comfortable with
taking two feet back — and they will continue to backtrack.”
Similarly, ABInBev’s earnings took a hit in
the aftermath of Bud Light’s controversy, its stock prices have since
stabilized to about $2 more per share than their worth in January. And as the
controversy has faded, more than 40% of consumers that boycotted the brand in
April are more willing to come back to Bud Light.
As brands continue to lack accountability for
their actions, people from marginalized communities are most likely to continue
to push for inclusive marketing — but their voices are less likely to be heard.
Leaders agreed that while inclusivity has not
fallen completely by the wayside, brands have pulled back from taking big
risks.
“I wouldn’t say that I see a shift toward
less inclusivity, but I see a shift in easy inclusivity,” said Jones-Hurst.
“The quick wins were easy — setting a vision, being very vocal about your
commitments, setting metrics — and then the hard part comes with the endurance
and shared accountability,” said Sarbeng.
Honing in on the right
issues
According to Natalie Silverstein, chief
innovation officer at influencer marketing agency Collectively, brands are now
honing in more carefully on which issues their consumers want them to take a
stand on.
“What we saw in 2020 was that every brand was
feeling like they needed to comment on everything, and I think that that’s
definitely shifted — brands have gotten more selective about what they focus on
by really hearing their customers,” she said. “There’s not as much of a
knee-jerk reaction from brands to say something immediately.”
This strategy has been most noticeable amid
the war in Gaza, with very few businesses willing to speak in support of either
side. Though it’s a nuanced topic that doesn’t affect every U.S. brand, brands
were very quick to risk speaking out in 2022 when the Russia-Ukraine war began.
According to Silverstein, brands that
have shifted the ways they react to issues have in fact shown who they want as
their customers.
“Seeing these patterns, the smartest
marketers are focusing on understanding, ‘Who are my customers of today, who
are my customers of tomorrow, what am I trying to communicate through this
brand effort and what risk am I willing to take to go there?’”
The great DE&I layoff
As brands grapple with how to react to
societal issues around inclusion, they’re grappling with a loss of DE&I
leadership.
A Paradigm study found that companies are
less likely to have had a DE&I budget or strategy in 2023 as opposed to
2022, though it noted an increase in companies with senior DE&I leaders
during that time.
But any uptick in DE&I leadership has
been overshadowed by industry-wide layoffs. DE&I roles added 2020 getting
cut as early as 2021, with the number of job losses surging in 2022. DE&I
professionals were disproportionately laid off in 2022, according to a study
from Revelio, and while final stats are not yet available for 2023, anecdotal
evidence suggests that DE&I positions have continued to be
disproportionately laid off or eliminated amid fears of a recession.
“We can see what has been deprioritized, we
can see the layoffs, we can see the heads of diversity being removed,” said
Fataar.
Sarbeng said she was afraid for her own job,
and shared her concerns from “watching different companies cut very
established, very strong DE&I leaders across the industry,” with her CEO.
“Many companies are almost blaming DE&I for not achieving their goals.”
Fataar argued that DE&I layoffs are due
to failures to properly integrate the department as a core business function.
“It should be horizontal throughout the
business,” she said. “DE&I needs to go across the business, not just one
department, because as soon as you’re deprioritizing, you just get rid of that
department.”
DE&I as an easy internal fix also doesn’t
work in the long run.
“To try to change a system where the dominant
majority have been benefiting from systemic racism and asking them to give more
power to a group that has been historically marginalized takes time and
investment,” said Sarbeng. “The disconnect is on the original structure.”
Inclusive marketing blunders underline lack
of diverse talent internally, or at least a lack of those with power to sway
campaigns.
For example, a diversely cast KFC Canada
campaign ended up drawing accusations of racism for its out of home element,
which showed Black consumers eating fried chicken without utensils. In a
previous piece on the campaign, Jones-Hurst cold Campaign US that the OOH
imagery “dampened what should have been a cheeky and refreshing take on an old
slogan into a classically harmful and stale stereotype for the Black
community.”
Recently, a global Zara Atelier campaign drew
backlash for the imagery’s resemblance of photos from the war in Gaza, showing
mannequin bodies and limbs wrapped in white tarps. A Muslim person on staff
could have pointed out that the images were reminiscent of an established
Muslim burial tradition.
“Brands don’t know what they don’t know, and
until they open their doors and are willing to be exposed, they won’t — that’s
why you have to be intentional about who sits at your table,” said Wade.
Having diverse talent on staff can not only
limit potential blowback from a problematic campaign, but also underline the
importance of standing by inclusive efforts. Fataar noted that ABInBev’s
decision not to stand by Mulvaney reflected its lack of awareness on the impact
of such a move, whether that be threats to Mulvaney’s life or a subsequent lack
of opportunities for other trans influencers.
“Diversity and representation cannot only be
on the output — it’s got to be on the input, or else you’re not checked as a
brand, you’re not challenged internally and it will hurt your brand at the end
of the day.”
Where does the industry go
from here?
The lack of accountability and the pullback
of DE&I efforts in 2023 shows that brands need to set clear values to
inform their course of action.
“Shifting cultural relevance from a marketing
‘nice to have” to a business strategy is what I’ve always championed, because
then it goes throughout the business and the output is different,” Fataar said.
This is a responsibility for brands, she
said, “especially big global brands, because they’ve got a big voice in the
world. They can influence things, they can stand for something.”
Brands also must see DE&I as valuable,
rather than costly. “Brands that commit tend to do better over time,”
Silverstein pointed out. Likewise, “If it’s just empty behind those messages,
consumers feel that.”
Sarbeng acknowledged the challenge for brands
and agencies. Oliver, she said, “didn’t cut our budget and stays investing [in
DE&I], yet it’s still very challenging. You can constantly feel like you’re
failing, but it’s going to cost time and money to make systemic change, which
is why you can’t ever give up even when it feels like you’re taking two steps
back.”
Though this year was full of high-profile
setbacks, there are bumps on the road to progress.
“We’ll have this huge leap forward and then
we’re going to have some setbacks,” said Silverstein. “Our responsibility is to
continue to emphasize and recommend to our clients how to operate in these
spaces and to always be pushing for authentic representation wherever we can.”
In the long term, “if marketers and business
leaders are not adapting to an inclusive and diverse workplace and if you
aren’t leveling up your leadership in those areas, you are going to fall behind
and lose profit,” said Sarbeng.
“I think they’re waiting for us to go away,
but we won’t,” added Jones-Hurst of people from marginalized groups. “As
generations keep shifting and as time keeps going, we become more and more
outspoken — and we’re the ones with buying power.”
