Twelve steps towards diversity in advertising | WARC | The Feed

Twelve steps towards diversity in advertising

Building diversity into the creative advertising space is not just the right thing to do, suggests a new report from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), but it also helps brands boost their effectiveness.

Purposeful inclusion

The WFA has launched an open-source guide aimed at tackling diversity challenges: “Diversity & Representation: A Guide to Potential Areas for Bias in the Creative Process” can be downloaded free from the WFA. Its purpose is to lead brands towards “purposeful inclusion” – “truly connecting brand purpose to meaningful action, often with partners and deliberate storytelling”.

The details

• The WFA identifies 12 key stages of the creative process and urges brands to ask questions about diversity and inclusion at each stage.
• Bias can creep into the process at any stage of the process, the guide says, even when people have the best intentions.
• The guide also makes it clear that by asking fundamental questions, like: “Who is your audience? Who is excluded?” not only is a brand more likely to achieve better Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI), but it will also potentially be able to identify new business opportunities.

Soundbite

“We can all go on a journey from not considering diverse audiences to fairly representing them, or even purposefully driving action for change – wherever you are in that process we hope to help you take the next step” – Jerry Daykin, WFA Diversity Ambassador & GSK Senior Media Director.

Sourced from WFA