Is your Digital Marketing Strategy Inclusive?

There are over 11 million disabled people in the UK. You wouldn’t know that if you based that figure on how many disabled people you actually see in advertising though, would you? Marketing Week recently touched upon the subject of disability and advertising - or rather, the lack of attention the average ad campaign or digital marketing strategy gives to disabled people.

To address this problem, Channel 4 have recently launched a competition encouraging advertisers to feature disability in their ads. Channel 4 CMO Dan Brook claimed “disabled people do not exist in ad land”. Sadly, we can’t help but agree. Unfortunately, the advertising industry (and many other industries) place a lot of importance on physical perfection. This ultimately excludes individuals that don’t fit in with that norm. When disability is represented, it’s often the character’s only defining feature.

Disability as an inconvenient truth

Today’s typical digital marketing strategy is inadequately showing a true representation of life in the 21^st century, and consumers agree. It’s not just disability that’s being ignored either; race, sexuality, gender identity and mental health are all underrepresented too. Is it simply because marketers don’t know how to “speak” to these groups, and therefore find it easier to ignore them.

Wrong? Yes, very wrong. And we aren’t the only ones who think that. Marketing Week carried out a survey in 2015, and found that 65% of those surveyed feel British marketing and advertising “fails to recognize the full range of lives and experiences of people across the country”. Channel 4’s Dan Brook agrees, as he told Marketing Week:

“The world needs to change quite radically. Aside from the likes of Channel 4, Lloyds and Guinness, I don’t think disabled people exist in ad land. Advertisers still want to portray the most perfect world that they can. Disability is seen as an inconvenient truth.”

This message needs to change. How are young disabled people supposed to be inspired if they don’t have positive role models to look up to?

Forget everything you thought you knew about strength

It’d be wrong to talk about disability and advertising without mentioning Channel 4’s ‘Meet the Superhumans’. This Paralympic advert holds a special place in our hearts, because it challenged viewer perceptions of what being disabled means. ‘Meet the Superhumans’ was a brilliant example of disability expressing strength, not weakness. It highlighted what those individuals had overcome and channeled into something unbelievably positive. The message - we are strong because of what has happened to us - is so important in a world where disability is often associated with weakness.

Back in 2014, I wrote my dissertation on the media representations of Paralympic athletes. As part of the research, I interviewed Paralympic athlete Callum Hall. I asked him, how does the phrase “Meet the Superhumans” make you feel, when used in the promotional material of the London 2012 Paralympic games?

Hall explained:

“I prefer it to the term disabled athlete or other terms used. I quite like it, children seem to look up to Paralympians, so do other members of the public, super humans is a good term. Makes people think about how inspiring the journey has been to the athlete.”

One of the most significant messages that Hall shared was that “life doesn’t end in a wheelchair.” His motivation for getting into Paralympic sport was to show people just that. This notion is a central theme to the “Meet the Superhumans” advert, a theme that should arguably apply to every ad campaign and digital marketing strategy. As Brooks said: “when disabled people see themselves in advertising, it creates loyalty and inclusion”.

Inclusive advertising could also change how people think about disability, and encourage them to be accepting of difference. Disabled World points out:

“Advertising images influence society in regards to what is acceptable in terms of appearance and what role models are acceptable to admire, communicate with, value, and associate with.”

Missing out on a market

 Not only is it morally wrong to exclude certain groups from an ad campaign or digital marketing strategy - brands are actually missing out on money because of it. The disability charity Scope revealed that businesses who fail to cater for the needs of disabled people could be missing out on a share of £420m a week. On top of this, three-quarters of disabled people have left a business because of lack of disability awareness.

How can companies stop this from happening then? Employing a diverse workforce is a start. If marketers are failing to represent diversity, maybe it’s because the companies they work for aren’t diverse enough.

The whole purpose behind any ad campaign or digital marketing strategy is to sell the dream, a dream that aligns with the public’s ideal lifestyle. If marketers are only targeting a percentage of the public that fits their ideal standard, they run the risk of alienating groups who don’t fit into their mold. It’s easy to see how they are missing out on money when they are essentially using a one-glove-fits-all approach. The phrase “treat people differently in order to treat them the same” springs to mind, and it’s one that marketers should be taking on board.

Brands we can all learn something from

There are a couple of brands that are doing a great job of addressing and including disability in what they do. Uber has launched UBERassist, whereby specially trained drivers pick up consumers who have additional service requirements.

The boss of Asda in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, recently introduced a “quiet hour” in the store to help autistic shoppers. This came about after the manager, Simon Lea, saw a boy with autism struggling to cope.

Marks and Spencer’s has also launched an additional section on its online store catering for disabled children who may require different styles or sizes of clothing. This happened after the Grandmother of a young boy with cerebal palsy wrote a letter asking for more options.

Although these instances are definitely a step towards inclusivity, is it too little too late? Brands should be proactive, not reactive. For such a self-proclaimed forward thinking Western World, why did it have to take someone to interact with a brand to receive this positive outcome?

Brands may not be doing this intentionally; it might just not be part of the current thought process yet. Decades ago, race wasn’t effectively represented by the media either. A lot of progress in the inclusivity of race in advertising has been made, and continues to be made. Hopefully it won’t take another few decades for disability to become better represented.

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