One of the biggest challenges that marketers face today is making sure that their brand embraces DEI. If you don’t know what DEI stands for it is diversity, equity and inclusion. After several recent movements, society has embraced new ideals that include DEI and it’s extending into the advertising world. People want to feel that they support brands that align with their values now more than ever. 83% of millennials to be exact, according to the Consumer PR Culture Report. Brands have to include all people of any gender, race, age, sexual orientation and economic status. This means that every type of individual will need to be featured in their content. But this is not all. Companies must take stances on social issues and build diverse teams behind the scenes as well. First and foremost, brands must talk the talk and walk the walk. Taking action is the only way to ensure that your company is actually practicing DEI. We will touch on a few ways to get you started.
1. Always be learning. No one likes a know it all anyway. If the brand is always curious about new ideas and trends it will be in the know about what is important.
2. Embrace diverse holidays and traditions. This will help to immerse the brand and its team in different cultures they may not be familiar with.
3. Make sure you have a diverse team. This will also ensure a more creative team. Many different kinds of ideas come from different backgrounds and cultures. This will keep the spark alive so to speak when it comes to creation.
4. Look at other brands for inspiration. See what others are doing to create diverse campaigns.
5. Take a position. It won’t be easy but difficult things that are worth anything, never are. Make sure your agency is showing up to social issues that are current. Your audience will thank you for it and it will build more authentic trust.
6. Lastly, and most importantly. There must be diversity in the campaigns. This one we feel should be a given but we wanted to touch on it nonetheless.
The key takeaways from this article are DEI is an important topic that’s not going away. And why should it? It’s helping us create a better world to live in overall. Brands need to make sure that their teams and campaigns include diverse voices. If the brand aligns with their audience’s values trust is created. People want to support brands that they have something in common with.
