Tag: inclusivity

United Kingdom – Global consumer healthcare company Haleon has developed an AI-powered tool aimed at improving inclusivity and representation across its digital advertising content.

According to Haleon, its ‘Health Inclusivity Screener’ is the only data driven tool of its kind to analyse digital advertising content for both readability and inclusivity metrics. 

The tool assesses creative content for the criterias health literacy (how easy it is for consumers to understand and interpret Haleon’s healthcare messaging), accessibility (how accessible Haleon’s advertising is for people who have visual or hearing impairments), and representation (to allow Haleon to understand whether its casting choices are representative of all consumers).

Moreover, Haleon will use the new tool to enhance its digital advertising through greater accessibility, simpler messaging and content which better represents the diverse range of consumers it serves globally. 

It will also drive improved brand performance and ROI through campaigns which resonate more strongly with consumers, including those who are more vulnerable to exclusion – while supporting Haleon’s ambition to achieve greater health inclusivity for all.

Working with its Panadol pain relief brand, Haleon has piloted the tool in nine markets, including Australia, Colombia, Egypt, Malaysia, Saudia Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, UAE and UK. The company intends to extend the tool to other markets and global brands over time, allowing it to deliver more inclusive advertising at scale.

For this tool, Haleon has tapped CreativeX, a technology company that helps brands power their creative decisions with data. By using AI and machinelearning, CreativeX can extract creative data from individual assets, assessing the age, gender, skintone, and situation of individual characters. 

This data is combined with an AI application and analysed to provide data on message comprehension. All components are combined to create a user-friendly health inclusivity performance dashboard.

Tamara Rogers, chief marketing officer at Haleon, said, “While many brands have taken positive steps in inclusive advertising, we see a huge opportunity for Haleon to set the standard in the consumer health sector. We’ve already taken action to improve the accessibility of all our marketing assets, but we know that we can go further.”

She added, “Message comprehension has a key role to play in improving the performance of our campaigns and building greater health literacy, helping people take better care of their everyday health. This tool is truly unique in measuring this alongside other inclusivity metrics, allowing us to enhance our advertising to make sure it’s seen, heard, and understood by all consumers.”

Meanwhile, Anastasia Leng, founder and CEO at CreativeX, commented, “The launch of Haleon’s Health Inclusivity Screener sets a new standard for how brands can systematically improve inclusivity in their creative work through always-on measurement. This ushers in a new era for creative data, demonstrating its ability to help brands not only lift the floor of creative quality but raise the ceiling to creative excellence. Thank you to Haleon for being brave and curious enough to continuously push the boundaries of how data can enhance creative execution and effectiveness.”

Beijing, China – Global beauty brand LUX proudly announces the launch of its new campaign, ‘In Her Name’, aimed at empowering women, as they bring to attention the unconscious bias of naming children in China.

The campaign aims to empower Chinese women and help them rise above their names being treated as sexist labels, with a mission to rewrite the narrative for the next generation.

The ‘In Her Name’ campaign by LUX aims to change the way women are named by creating 100 names reflecting the essence of femininity today, drawing inspiration from classical literature, positive connotations, and the evolving landscape of societal development.

To make this possible, LUX partnered with Dr. Liu Yanchun, a distinguished linguistics scholar from the University of China, to pioneer a movement challenging societal norms and stereotypes. The collaboration with Dr. Liu Yanchun ensured a thoughtful selection process, incorporating unbiased options to emphasise the diverse spectrum of femininity and promote inclusivity.

Speaking on this collaboration, Yanchun said, “In the process of creating these 100 new names, I’ve combined elements from literature, researched terms with positive connotations and took into account present societal norms to craft meaningful names for the women of today.”

Additionally, LUX collaborated with digital artists to showcase each selected name through visually stunning illustrations, with a unique design for every name, enhancing the experience of choosing a name and celebrating the beauty of femininity.

The unveiling of the 100 new names has taken place on Chinese social media platforms Little Red Book, Weibo and Douyin, where women from all walks of life could choose new names for themselves that best represent their spirit and character.

Talking about the campaign, Severine Vauleon, global brand vice president of LUX, said, “Our ambition with the “in Her Name” campaign is to create a movement challenging the status quo that still confines some women to narrow stereotypes today. By collaborating with Dr. Liu Yanchun and harnessing the power of language, we aim to raise awareness about gender bias for Chinese names and inspire women to react to the initiative of adopting powerful names for themselves. By doing this, they will help to foster a more inclusive society where women are celebrated for their strength and resilience.”

Meanwhile, Marco Versolato, chief creative officer – Unilever at VML Singapore, who spearheaded the campaign, commented, “The ‘In Her Name’ campaign represents a shift in how we perceive and celebrate femininity. By reimagining the power of language and visual representation, we have the opportunity to challenge stereotypes and create a more inclusive future for women worldwide.”

London, United Kingdom – Dove, the personal care brand under Unilever, has announced a commitment to never use AI-generated images to portray distorted perceptions of women’s beauty, and instead putting focus on real women portrayals in its ads as part of the brand’s commitment to portray authenticity–and with the brand recently celebrating its 20th year anniversary.

Dove notes that one of the biggest threats to the representation of real beauty is Artificial Intelligence. Today, almost 9 in 10 women and girls say they have been exposed to harmful beauty content online.

In addition, With 90% of the content online predicted to be AI-generated by 2025, the rise of AI is a threat to women’s wellbeing: nearly half feel pressure to alter their appearance because of what they see online, even when they know it’s fake or AI-generated.

With this in mind, Dove will accelerate its efforts to champion transparency and diversity and take action to shatter beauty stereotypes in new and emerging media. Dove is renewing its vows to protect real beauty – committing to never using AI to represent real women in its ads. 

Moreover, to help set new digital standards of representation, Dove will create the Real Beauty Prompt Guidelines, easy to use guidance for everyone on how to create images that are representative of Real Beauty on the most popular generative AI programs.

Alessandro Manfredi, chief marketing officer at Dove, said, “At Dove, we seek a future in which women get to decide and declare what real beauty looks like – not algorithms. As we navigate the opportunities and challenges that come with new and emerging technology, we remain committed to protect, celebrate, and champion Real Beauty. Pledging to never use AI in our communications is just one step. We will not stop until beauty is a source of happiness, not anxiety, for every woman and girl.”

Dove’s new campaign, the Code, reflects the impact of AI on beauty and demonstrates the impact real beauty has made to change beauty for the better, 20 years and counting. It also stems from its initial research in 2004, where they found that 2% of women considered themselves beautiful. 

Since then, the ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ has challenged society, media and the beauty industry itself to change its representation of women, be transparent about digital distortion and face-up to the harmful impact unrealistic beauty standards have on women and girls.

Moreover, in its ‘2024 The Real State of Beauty: a global report,’ Dove finds 2-in-5 would give up a year of their life to achieve an ideal look or body. The study shows that while beauty ideals have diversified over the years, the checklist is growing and impossible to meet – from looking healthy (79%) to also being slim (71%), having a small waist (66%) while also being curvy (55%). 2 in 3 women believe that women today are expected to be more physically attractive than their mother’s generation was.

Sydney, Australia – Few days left for the observance of Pride Month this June, yet new data from LGBTQIA+ media advocacy organization GLAAD and visual communications company Getty Images shows how even developed regions, specifically in the ANZ region, have low or stereotypical representation among visual storytelling in their respective markets.

According to their findings, 30% of such visuals depict gay men as ‘feminine’ and 31% of such visuals depict lesbian women as ‘masculine’. They also noted that 36% of such visuals depict gay men as ‘flamboyant’ and 25% of such visuals depict LGBTQ+ people carrying the rainbow flag in some capacity.

Consumer-wise, while 8 in 10 ANZ consumers say they expect brands to be consistently committed to diversity and inclusion, only 4 in 10 feel accurately represented.

According to Kate Rourke, head of creative insights for Asia Pacific at Getty Images and iStock, Australian and New Zealand brands have a great opportunity to look beyond token opportunism, and create and use visuals that effectively reflect and speak to the LGBTQ+ community – without fear of backlash or to simply ‘tick a box’.

“Brands that continue to use cliched visual stereotypes to minimise risk of offending the more conversative customers, will do more harm in the long run. Our society is constantly evolving and changing. Our recent research also revealed that for Australians and New Zealanders the top way they know a company is truly committed to diversity and inclusion is by consistently showing a wide range of people, lifestyles, and cultures in their communications. Ignoring these cultural changes means they will lose out to their competitors in the long run,” Rouke stated.

That reliance has left some advertisers feeling hesitant when it comes to proactively depicting the LGBTQIA+ community in their campaigns and communications, especially outside of events like Mardi Gras. 

In response, Getty Images’ has recently released its ‘LGBTQIA+ Guidebook for Inclusive Visual Storytelling’ that gives brands and businesses practical recommendations for confidently making more inclusive visual choices when depicting the broader LGBTQIA+ community.

“Our hope for the Guidebook is to empower businesses to step up and depict the LGBTQIA+ community in authentic and thoughtful ways, rather than relying on often overused stereotypes. This can be as simple as choosing visuals of real LGBTQIA+ people in their daily lives such as walking a dog, going to school, at work, cooking, running errands, even grabbing a coffee or doing laundry,” Rourke added.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Mimpikita, a local-based modest fashion label, has appointed martech company elfo in elevating its digital advertising and performance marketing initiatives.

Through the one-year partnership, elfo will be executing year-long bite-sized campaigns for Mimpikita to streamline and amplify its brand identity, as well as to align with the modest fashion label’s goals to be inclusive and provide meaningful experiences to its community known as #KitaGirls.

Furthermore, elfo will be running campaigns hand-in-hand with Mimpikita’s planned collections for the year. The campaigns, which will be deployed across all digital touchpoints – website, social media, email, conversational bot – are expected to build and uplift a Mimpikita community built on inclusivity, empowerment, and universal acceptance.

Mimpikita, originally founded by three sisters – Nurul, Amirah, and Syahira Zulkifli – has been in the fashion industry for more than 12 years, and has since then garnered a ‘local cult based on bespoke ready-to-wear pieces’, according to Rose Maria Bague, senior account manager at elfo.

“What we can bring to the table is our expertise in helping brands and businesses establish a solid brand identity and increase overall share of voice (SOV), by providing Mimpikita with brand consulting, performance optimization across all of its digital channels, and lead-generation campaigns,” Bague stated.

Meanwhile, Sri Yosephin, head at elfo, stated that their contribution to Mimpikita is part of the fashion brand’s aspiration to expand globally, as their fashion pieces have been prominently featured at the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week and had intimate collaborations with other local designers.

From left to right – Syahira, Nurul, Amirah Zulkifli, Co-Founders of Mimpikita

“Our service offerings for Mimpikita are part of a bigger plan for this modest fashion label to go global. Besides harnessing our digital marketing expertise, we are also utilizing elfo’s proprietary digital platforms such as elfoMAP (an email marketing automation platform), elfoA2P (an application-to-person messaging platform), and soon, elfoBOT (an intuitive chatbot), to complement and enable our strategic campaigns for Mimpikita,” Yosephin explained.

For one of the founders, Nurul Zulkifli, their recent partnership with elfo will center on keeping their values with the #KitaGirls community, regardless of progress and expansion.

“As we continue to evolve and expand with the help of elfo, designing carefully crafted pieces for the everyday woman will still be at the heart of Mimpikita. Our wish is to build an inclusive community, to inspire women all over the world with our casualwear,” she added.