What you’ll read: What do Target, Bumble, Proctor & Gamble, and Coca-Cola have in common? They know their (diverse) audience. Here’s how their ads nail inclusivity.
Modern audiences are incredibly diverse, which means that our marketing campaigns must represent them as well. It’s not even a matter of principle — 65% of consumers want their favorite brands to promote diversity and inclusion. But for inclusivity to have an impact, marketers need to present an authentic experience. So what’s the right way to highlight different cultures, heritage, or orientations without coming off as phony?
As always, the best advice often comes from looking at campaigns that got diversity right. Here are four ads that managed to make their inclusive campaigns feel effortless.
Target: Holidays Are Meant to be Shared
One of Target’s core values is that everyone belongs, regardless of race, culture, or creed. It promotes this message frequently and consistently, even siding with Black Lives Matter protesters after riots damaged its storefronts. So it’s no surprise that Target’s ad campaigns present people from all walks of life instead of targeting a generic consumer.
Even by this standard, Target’s 2021 “Holidays Are Meant to be Shared” ad outdid itself. This campaign presents an impressive collection of holiday scenes from diverse families. Along with the traditional nuclear family enjoying Christmas dinner, we see two fathers enjoying the sight of falling snow with their children. Three Black children build gingerbread houses and apartment buildings. A family lights their menorah to celebrate Hanukkah. After all these sequences and several others, the voiceover reminds the audience that “What we value most shouldn’t cost more.”
Combined, Target’s campaign highlights shared themes of community and togetherness in many different forms. Even when the traditions and cultures are different, the ad suggests the core spirit of the holidays is shared by everyone. Yet even in this united front, Target makes every effort to authentically represent diversity and subtle details of each tradition — an impressive feat for a 30-second video.
Bumble: Find Them On Bumble
Any dating app needs a robust community of diverse individuals to drive long-term growth. In Bumble’s case, that meant all it had to do was showcase them. The “Find Them On Bumble” initiative produced a two-minute video ad and a companion website highlighting inspirational Bumble users from New York. Neither format mentions diversity but the message shines through in every way.
The video version of the campaign includes men and women of different heritages, cultures, religions, careers, ages, and body types. But when they speak into the camera, they don’t discuss their backgrounds or individual circumstances. Instead, each user shares their personal philosophies and what they find inspiring, bringing in all kinds of perspectives and opinions. The website goes into even more detail by letting visitors filter people by Date, BFF, or Bizz — an excellent way to touch on Bumble’s different services.
Procter & Gamble: “The Talk”
The goal of inclusive ads is not necessarily to sell a specific product. Sometimes they aim to break a stereotype or reflect the daily lives of minorities for all viewers. When it comes to the latter goal, few ads do this as effectively as Procter & Gamble’s “The Talk,” a 2018 ad designed to jump-start conversations about the impact of racism.
The Talk presents a sequence of pulled-from-real-life conversations between Black mothers and their children about how the world will view and treat them. The scenes include warning a new driver that police will pull them over, telling a disappointed student she’ll need to work twice as hard as classmates in the same field, and reminding a young girl that she’s not “beautiful for a Black girl — you are beautiful, period! ” Each tale is heartbreaking for any audience, and unfortunately, the ad remains painfully relevant in 2022.
As P&G notes when the ad concludes, The Talk wasn’t created to sell a product. Instead, it aims to “talk about the talk, so we can end the need to have it.” And it certainly managed to become part of a conversation — people shared it on social media, news outlets dissected its themes, and the ad even won an Emmy. It’s an excellent reminder that inclusive ads can still tackle difficult topics and win over viewers if they approach themes authentically.
Coca-Cola: “Hilltop”
If any one campaign represents the gold standard for inclusivity, it would be Coca-Cola’s Hilltop ad. In 1971, the soda company spent $250,000 to bring five hundred young people from diverse cultures and backgrounds to a scenic hill in Rome. Each person was given a Coca-Cola bottle and sang “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke,” touching on themes of unity and harmony.
The ad immediately struck a chord with a population watching the Vietnam war unfold on their television sets. Audiences began calling radio stations asking for “that Coca-Cola song,” while the company and its bottlers received a hundred thousand letters praising the commercial. It eventually inspired two record releases, multiple covers and reimaginings, and solidified the idea that people could come together over a refreshing drink.
Over the past five decades, many brands have tried to replicate Coca-Cola’s theme with limited success — most notably Pepsi’s tone-deaf “Live for Now” ad. It’s undeniable that part of Hilltop’s success was due to timing, but the image of people coming together from different cultures to share a hopeful message is undeniably powerful.
Coca-Cola, Target, Bumble, and P&G stood out by focusing on clear, universal messages that are authentic, speak for themselves, and acknowledge diverse audiences. Anyone who plans to develop inclusive creative would be well-advised to apply this lesson in their own campaigns.