In trying to be diverse, marketers are damaging brands and creating further bias
Activism isn’t working, according to Anne Miles. It’s causing further division and perpetuating (or creating) bias. And marketers are partly to blame.
I’m an advocate (maybe even an activist) for diversity and inclusion. I’ve been discriminated against or bullied in pretty much every job I’ve ever had. And I care greatly about these topics. But, at the same time, I do believe we are in a phase of ‘diversity oversteer’, and, as much as many of us mean well, we are creating a backlash that could undo all the good we have achieved.
There is a time and a place for activism and speaking up about topics that are being ignored, but there is a time where we should move onto just living and breathing what we fight for, rather than making lots of noise or falling into tokenism.
“Putting a female in a masculine concept doesn’t make it gender diverse, it forces women into the wrong box”
The New York Times reported on a 40-year study by sociologists Joanna Pepin and David Cotter that demonstrated the number of millennials who believe that “the husband should make all the important decisions for the family” has grown from 30% in 1994 to nearly 40% in 2014. The rate of decline is improving since then, but we’re still in trouble. We’re doing something wrong if this is where we’ve ended up.
Great article Anne. This concept hit me in the face when I watched a Kmart ad on TV the other night. A young white couple went about their shopping and came home to their friends….so on the couch was the original couple, another white female (from memory), a Nigerian female and an Asian guy. It was paint-by-numbers diversity and just felt forced.
Jamming a bunch of ethnic groups unnaturally into one ad, when most ethnic groups tend to hang out together for a variety of reasons (not always, but you know what I mean), is toe-in-the-water stuff.
Give me a whole friendship group of Asians or Nigerians and I’ll be more on board. It may not be representative demographically, but at least I’ll know you’re trying.
I thought that I was the only one who noticed that. I feel like every ad now has a single ‘token’ person of African origin and it feels so fake.
As above, show the black or Asian couple / family instead of the diverse one and jump off that insincere bandwagon.
When you’re trying to cover all possible bases.
Vodafone NBN
https://vimeo.com/265107610
White father and Asian mother who look to have concieved a rather Middle Eastern/European looking child.
How do you know the person was Nigerian?
“Real acceptance and inclusion is actually invisible. It just is. It’s so natural that there is no need to make a song and dance about it.”
Yes! But despite my happiness with the above, I’m disappointing to see an entire article about inclusion/diversity without a single mention of disability – 20% of our population.
I’d be curious to see research findings (similar to that around the inclusion of Muslims) to know if we were severely underestimating numbers around disability due to a lack of representation and visibility across mainstream popular culture.
Hi Lisa,
There is a longer version, which you can read here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-brand-diversity-oversteer-anne-miles-cpm-/
It does include discussion of disability.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Very good point about disability. With a child with disabilities I care about this too. I care for a fair representation of the real customer out there. There are some brands bringing token wheelchairs into their casting in an attempt to be PC and to leverage taking a stand. Disabilities are something like 27% psychosocial and blind or hearing impaired make up a big percentage too. It is not always about a wheelchair too and that’s lacking real understanding of disability. It is insulting when it is commercialising someone’s disability for brand fame.
I really don’t need to know that the pizza I’m just heating up is the same brand as the one that’s enjoyed by gay couples, single parents, families of different ethnicities, Aunty Joan, or the lonely widower who’s looking longingly over the fence, hoping for a slice, but too proud to ask for one. As long as it’s quick, tastes OK and is on special at Coles, I’m good to go. (Sorry, the lonely widower might actually belong in another commercial, it’s becoming harder to differentiate…..)
Here’s the TL;DR version:
White “woke” boss lady in a predominantly white industry thinks there are too many brown people (read: “diverse”) on our screens and it’s not “authentic” enough for the average Australian.
Right.
According to PWC’s media report, the average media person is white, male, an atheist/agnostic, and lives in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
The average Aussie is female, in her mid forties, and is Catholic (and would infer she has an ethnic background), and lives outside the media bubble.
Media-land is hardly the benchmark for diversity so, no, the industry is not in a position to say that there’s “too much” diverse representation.
We’ve only just started to feature diverse people on our screens and ads – but now someone is saying there’s too much “diversity” going on? What a disappointing thing to hear from someone in a senior position in the industry.
I’ve yet to see the “many marketing campaigns” that feature Muslim people that the writer claims that are out there. And how can you tell if they are Muslim anyway? If the writer was such a diversity advocate, she would know that not all Muslims wear hijabs or other external markers of their religion. And that not all Arabic looking people are Muslims – now there’s a thought!
Interestingly the writer is only concerned about “diversity” when it involves brown people but curiously leaves out LGBTI+ people who the media have been trying to shoe-horn into the “diversity” bucket over the last few years.
I guess when white-sanctioned “diverse” people are featured on our screens and ads it’s ok.
Don’t make one thing mean everything. If you look at what I stand for you will see I have a very passionate stand about LGBTQIA+ actually. I have a transgender family member and fight for their rights often. I’m egalitarian actually. Don’t read things into this thoughts that are not there.
Asians and Muslims are over-represented in Australian advertising? Are you viewing the same ads I am??
Probably a grain of truth in it, but allow me to be pedantic.
‘Millennial’ is not a synonym for a young person. The 1994 version of that study asked high school seniors in 1994 so they would’ve been Gen X. One could also make a reasonable argument that Gen X was raised by the war generation which saw women step up to fill the war economy en masse, while millennials were raised by boomers who could prosper on a single income family. Perhaps each generation took on more of their parents’ values.
Also the Muslim estimation survey indicates pretty much every country overestimates their Muslim population. That’s including Russia and China, certainly not poster kids for wokewashed marketing. The one exception they surveyed was Turkey, which is 99% Muslim and *underestimated* the Muslim population. Seems to be more of a salience bias – Muslims are visibly different, so we notice them more. Likewise in Turkey, non-Muslims are visibly different and so get noticed more.
There is a problem with sticking to statistical representation as a benchmark. If for example, your ad has 5 people in it and the Muslim population is 2.4%, you can’t put 0.12 of a Muslim person in it. You’d need roughly 41 people in your ad to justify casting one Muslim. In other words, there would never actually be any Muslims in ads. Which means perception of Muslims is left to the mercy of A Current Affair.
I’m not sure how you can start an article claiming to be an advocate for diversity an inclusion and then go on to complain that there are too many people of color in advertising. This piece is just a long racist rant, and it’s a great shame it has been published.
I think the argument is that white people would be less likely to be racist if we never saw people of color ever, and the way to prevent PoC experiencing racism is to shield white people from PoC at all times, and that just doesn’t make sense.
The piece seems to suggest that all Asian people come from China, that the only PoC in Australia are immigrants, and also that everyone from the UK and New Zealand is white. And the figures quoted are not even true (or in any case *extremely* misleading. In 2016-17 56% of immigrants to Australia were born in Asia, and the most represented countries of birth of immigrants were India and China, with the number of UK-born immigrants being just over half of the number of Chinese-born immigrants. Just 11% of immigrants in 2016-17 were from Northern and Western Europe; 7.5% were born in the UK (source: ABC). And, of course, very large numbers of people who were born in Australia and live in Australia are not white; many immigrants who were born in Northern and Western Europe are not white.Using immigration statistics and country of birth of immigrants to make judgments on the demographics of the population in Australia is, itself, pretty racist.
The reason we see “many Asians walking around our major cities” is that lots and lots and lots of people of color live in Australia, and the major cities they are walking around are theirs too.
People of color experience racism in Australia because white people are racist, not because people of color are over-represented in advertising.
Also, on a few of occasions I have noticed same sex couples – absolutely nothing wrong with that, but felt it was also a token thing. All for the dollar.
Further to your great comment Helen, has anybody else noted if there’s a male same sex couple in an ad, one member of the couple must have an appearance similar to a non threatening gay character already in a popular TV show? Very diverse.
Thank you for this article Anne; you’ve articulated this concept really well.
Once again, you’ve raised an issue – capable of creating much angst and division – and addressed it with a professional well-researched opinion piece.
Discussions like this need to be had , but it takes discussing them like you have, that enables sensible discussion to take place.
Thank you.
This article is a bit of a shame for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the entire premise of the article is based on a correlated increase in certain perceptions around Australian gender roles and population makeup, and the rise in diversity focus and brand activism in advertising. You have not provided a causal link at all. While you may have used words like “could” rather than “is” you’re still basing your whole point on something that is not substantiated and entirely debatable.
Secondly, you’re looking at it all in a vacuum, as if advertising is the only possible cause. You’ve neglected to mention the post-9/11, anti-Islam, stop-the-boats sentiment of the 00s and 10s and the heavy media coverage of Chinese nationals coming in and buying homes at the top of the property boom. Nor have you referenced the constant vilification of our first-ever female prime minister, during her time in office, the gender backwardsness of the Abbott years or the rise of conservative populism in the last few years and their potential effect.
The fact is, Australian consumers see 3,000 advertising messages per day, notice 18 and actually engage with 10. It would seem very unlikely tokenism and over-representation in advertising would have had the effect you are suggesting. Political and social discourse and the over-representation of issues in the media are much more likely to have had a meaningful effect.
I say Here, Bloody Here to Anne Miles.
However, I think a number of the above correspondents have missed Anne’s point. Ads are made by ad agencies at the direction of their paying clients. I doubt whether many ads are made (excluding Clive Palmer here) by people using their own money, because it gives them a nice warm feeling inside. Ads are made to sell stuff: a consumer item; a service; or a change of attitude. It’s the clients, reaching for a point of difference, in this highly risk-averse world, who think their brand will be enhanced if they are perceived to be inclusive. However, I doubt many have really changed their ways to deliver on what their ads promise?
I’ve noticed various ads recently for airlines, Telcos, fast and slow food brands who have all worked obviously non-Christian, non-European, non heterosexual talent into their ads. That’s fine but, I’m yet to decide if my respect or desire to engage with these brands is enhanced or diminished. It’s not wrong, its simply unnecessary. Hopefully we are not seeing the launch of a Brand-New 2019 model hybrid powered Bandwagon.
There’s nothing wrong with Australia that a good dose of education and common sense won’t fix.
‘people wouldn’t be racist if they didn’t have to see browns so much’ now that’s a take.
Woof, Mumbrella.
‘I saw some multicultural people on tv and completely changed all my views on economy and race and being nice to people overnight as a result. I now boycott every brand that does not appeal exclusively to me.’
People have shitty opinions they brandish to sow doubt in diversity initiatives, rarely do they acquire these shitty opinions because of diversity.
If you don’t think this article has at least a ring of truth to it, you’ve never been part of the cynical discussion about how many brown people to put in the shot.
White marketers having a “cynical discussion about how many brown people to put in the shot” is a pretty common sight in media-land.
That was his exact point.
This is not helpful.
I find it really obnoxious that you, as a white person in a position of senior leadership are suggesting that these minority groups are “overrepresented” – when they are STILL minorities. They NEED to be represented, and this should not be discouraged for fear of it feeling inauthentic – you’re only thinking about it from the perspective of boosting revenue and brand exposure – not about the people. Distinctly unrefreshing, and inauthentic of you who claims to be an ‘activist’.
Thoroughly disappointed with what this article insinuates and disappointed in Mumbrella for publishing it. A very dangerous opinion to endorse.
The sad thing is that Anne Miles is so tone deaf she doesn’t realise what she’s written.
I believe dog lovers are under represented. What about rock climbers, incarcerated persons, people without valid visas and paedophile representation?
It’s like nobody can draw a stop line under all this ‘wokeness’ and virtue signalling by the pony tail brigade of advertising ‘creatives’ .
I love it when rich white woke commentators become so woke they try to our-woke everyone else and end up showing their true colours as rich white elitists. This applies to like 80% of adland and Australia’s media landscape.
If you want truly diverse and representative ads / media – stop hiring privileged prep kids from the inner-city and start hiring lower-middle class people who actually grew up in and around diverse communities and who treat people as people (rather than view diverse people as pets for their morals).
Horrible article and shame on you Mumbrella for allowing this person to write such inaccurate crap. I am of North African descent and find the tone and convenient use of “facts” highly offensive.
The author obviously hasn’t had her article proof read by someone who isn’t a WASP
I’m a white female of European descent. My great grandfather came over on a boat from New Calendonia alighting in Double Bay. I married a Nigerian creative director (and there’s not too many of those around in Sydney yet rarely is this imbalance ever questioned!) who was born, raised and educated in London. Our two mixed race kids are Australian. They have the skin I dreamed of as a kid, and when with their friends in the Inner West at a top performing arts school (mentioned only because of the range of amazing talent it attracts), the group’s skin colours traverse the South Pacific Islands, Africa (54 countries), Europe and Asia (48 countries) – while all sharing Australia as their country of birth. I welcome what some label as racial “tokenism” in Australian advertising. That’s how unconscious bias talks, and it’s a slippery slope we’re on to call it “paint-by-numbers diversity” and that it “just felt forced.” Why? Because the reality is that it’s who we are as a society now. Just as my family is the real deal so is the Asian boy holding hands with the Nigerian girl. I saw exactly this couple mix today – yep, in real life – it’s a thing! (Curious to know how you’d know if the girl was Nigerian or if it’s classic white person’s assumption). It’s as real as the possibility that my Nigerian daughters could fall in love with non-White people. Heck, I did a Grad Dip with a Chinese girl who was 5th generation Australian – that no doubt makes her more Australian than most of you!
What I’m seeing on screen and print is a representation of my mixed race family (finally I’m not the nanny anymore) and the experience of many others. Australians just aren’t used to seeing diversity represented and use appearance to thin-slice, which brings me to my closing comment that while visual representation is massively important to us as individuals to form healthy cultural identities, we need to remember that no matter our skin colour we’re all the same – humans, consumers and individuals.
Calling out the positive change in Australia’s overtly traditional, white advertising is as redundant a comment as suggesting the type of jeans the cool dude wore in the Pepsi ad, had too much stitching around the pockets. To me this article, while thought provoking, should heed John Avocado’s words – “People of colour experience racism in Australia because white people are racist, not because people of colour are over-represented in advertising.” Thanks John!
Hi Chantal,
I’m the person who commented above in tokenism. I celebrate your mixed race family, but your families makeup is the minority and when projected on our screens, it feels like an insincere grab for likes.
Give us the whole Nigerian family and not the faux woke one some jerk slapped together as an afterthought.
How boring would it be if only “majority” families were shown. 25% of Australians were born overseas, fewer couples are having children or live in single parent households, our population is aging. We need to shake up our idea of what the ‘average’ household looks like as it is no longer a white nuclear family.
I just want ‘truth in advertising’ and not this ‘woke crap’ we are being fed by types who think they are so progressive.
Odd that you keep referring to your husband and children as ‘Nigerian’.
Sounds like your husband is black british of Nigerian heritage. Your children are mixed race Australians. But if you insist on defining them by their second or third generation heritage, surely you should be saying “my white European Nigerian daughters”
Just an observation
“I’m all for diversity BUT…” This take sucks. So we should pander to racists by leaving Muslim people out of ads lest we trigger more racism? You really haven’t thought this one through, have you? Over a quarter of Australians were born overseas with roughly another quarter having parents born overseas yet the “culture” constantly played back to us as the right one has for a very long time been white, anglo Aussies. Now some brands are rightly changing that and you think it’s all going too far. My god, no wonder this industry is in trouble. The whole history of advertising is to amplify or exaggerate and yet when it comes to diverse representation or multicultural visibility you suddenly want pinpoint accuracy? Funny that.
Well said.
I read this article and felt utterly aghast. This segment took the biscuit:
‘Similarly, we often think Australia is filled with Asians because we see many walking around our major cities. The Australian tourism dollar is strong in Asian markets (and welcomed), but may be impacting our population perception.’
We probably think Australia is ‘filled with Asians’ because they live in our inner cities, Anne. Many are in fact Australian. They’re probably not tourists, Anne. They’re Australian just like me and you.
PS. the tone of ‘we see many walking around’ is very revealing indeed. You sound truly detached from, and above, these other humans.
There is data on urban versus regional split of different nationalities and my point took that on board.
Yikes. As other commenters have said, the writer hasn’t proven causality at all. If I was to guess, negative political and media commentary about Muslim Australians would be more more impactful than seeing a Muslim woman buy a mobile phone in an Optus ad (to use a fictional example.)
But the point is I don’t know, and therefore wouldn’t write an opinion piece claiming some sort of connection without speaking to experts on the subject. I am sure there has been a tonne of studies done by university departments if the author would care to do some research.
Of course tokenism and inauthentic diversity isn’t great, but this can be remedied by hiring diverse teams in adland who can sense-check creative concepts as well as think outside the box of affluent white Australia.
It would be disappointing if our ads became even less diverse as a result of people reading this piece.
The idea that the media is currently too diverse is prima facie absolute nonsense.
If you want to pander to racists to sell more lipstick or whatever then fine, but do us a favor and stop pretending that you’re still an advocate for diversity.
For reasons that are incredibly obvious, you can’t promote diversity by saying we should be less diverse.
Actually you have missed the point here. If you know me you will know I stand for diversity and for removing unconscious bias. I’m saying we should be diverse, but just be it. Naturally without over-compensating and over-representing for the sake of trying to be politically correct or to cash in on a cause for fake notoriety. It is the same as someone claiming they are not racist because ‘look at me I have good friends who are Asian’. If we were fully integrated we’d just say ‘we have friends’ and their race would be invisible. Being activists and demanding of society is back-lashing and undoing important work. We need to BE diverse, not rant about it. Make it normal and a true representation of our population. Of course some media is grossly under representing our community but others are inauthentically try-hard and demanding – which is pushing people away from an important message. There are a bunch of psychology principles at play here including social proof, mis-matching, and we see what we want to see. Those who see this article as anti-egalitarian want to see that. That’s not at all what the motivation here is. We need to get this right but not fake and tokenistic as it does more harm – despite best intentions a lot of the time.
The most hilarious thing about these comments is that you think people care about advertising. They don’t. They like good entertaining stuff, hate crap and detest brands trying to lecture them. The world is too serious. Advertising shouldn’t be. Sadly this is missed on a lot of clients today.
Unfortunately brands and agencies have allowed themselves to become controlled by ‘activists’ where showing how smart you are about how to structure society is more important than work. Simply browse LinkedIn to see this. Australia has appropriate laws about discrimination and showing more or less Asian, brown, white people in an ad is not a crime nor is having a team that over or under represented in one dimen sion. How about we focus on good work instead of this inane posturing.
This article and ALL the comments are an act of white colonial violence. Or something.
I think if they had good creative ideas there would be less activism.
You might want to review this claim:
“The majority of our immigrants are from the UK and New Zealand, with 2% of immigrants coming from China”.
An ABC article lists country of birth of permanent migrants:
India 38,264
China 29,604
United Kingdom 16,982
Philippines 12,180
Iraq 9,771
Syria 8,229
New Zealand 8,199
Pakistan 6,315
Vietnam 5,579
…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-20/where-do-migrants-to-australia-come-from-chart/10133560