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Retail
MARKETING
INCLUSIVE MARKETING: DIVERSITY AS AN ADDED VALUE By Matteo Melani Advertising is not only a technique for communicating a brand or positioning products, but also a strategy for identifying one’s target audience, intercepting their values and beliefs. skin tones. There are also other areas of inclusive marketing which highlight diversity, such as the adaptation of physical locations for special events coming from other religions and countries. For example, over the last few years, stores and shopping centers have decorated areas with dragons or lanterns to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
THE VALUES OF MARKETING AND INCLUSION
To represent the diversity of today’s society, companies are adopting inclusive marketing strategies and communication tools to rethink stereotypes to which we are accustomed and represent minorities. Key diversity issues concern gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and physicality. Over the years, thanks to social movements, organizations, and individual activists, companies have become highly sensitized to the fight against discrimination of any kind, launching initiatives with inclusive marketing to advertise their brands. Mattel’s Barbie was among the first brands to put inclusion strategies into practice directly
through their products. Several years ago, they launched the Fashionistas collection, which includes a doll in a wheelchair, curvy Barbies and Barbies with different
Today, diversity has become a feature that forcefully entered our common lexicon and the choices of buyers. According to a Microsoft study on the purchasing attitudes and trends of Generation Z (young people born between 1996 and 2010), 70% of respondents said they trust most of the brands that represent diversity in advertising, while 49% said they have stopped buying products from companies that do not represent the values they believe in. But what are the main characteristics of an inclusive marketing message? First, it should have a simple message; second, it