Marketers are often told that creating diverse and inclusive advertising campaigns can improve their bottom line. However, there is limited research available into just how much these campaigns can improve business outcomes.
But now VAB’s Do The Right Thing: How Diversity & Inclusion Drives Brand Outcomes report has analysed over 3,300 commercials from 50 brands across all categories to see which campaigns deliver the best results..
More than 20 diversity and inclusion campaigns from the past five yearss were included in the study, including works from Johnnie Walker, Nike, Target, ThirdLove, Ulta Beauty, and other global brands.
Ahead of the 2016 US Presidential election, Johnnie Walker launched its ‘Keep America Walking’ campaign to spread messages of unity and inclusion.
According to the study the ad achieved a positive sentiment of 90 per cent – significantly higher than the usual positive sentiment of 80 per cent for Johnnie Walker ads – and a digital engagement impact ampunting to 65 per cent of total earned online activity. This was despite the fact the digital budget was just 16 per cent of the TV spend for the campaign.
The study also analyses Pantene’s 2017 ‘Celebrating Strong, Beautiful African American Hair’ ad as part of the ‘Strong is Beautiful’ campaign.
Even with a relatively small ad spend, the ad outperformed 29 other ads that aired during the same period, including campaigns with up to 10x more TV investment support.
The ad also achieved a positive sentiment score of 97 per cent.
Perhaps the most notable campaign included in the study is Nike 2018 work with NFL quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick. “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything,” Kaepernick famously says during the commercial.
According to VAB, after launching the ad at the beginning of Q3, Nike proceeded to see their highest Q3 revenues ever at that point and their highest year-over-year growth in any quarter in over two and a half years. Record-breaking quarterly sales have continued in each successive quarter through the evaluation period.
