Why inclusion?

Renowned American management consultant, Peter Drucker once said that “the aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

But, how can we be sure that we know our customers “so well” that we are indeed targeting them with messages and giving them experiences that resonate deeply with their social affiliation, demography, and unique drive for self-determination?

In our modern, global village – customer segments may have shared online behaviors, spending habits, and purchase needs. However, within each of these marketing segments there is a broad variety of individuals who come from diverse ethnicities, religions, age groups, genders, and orientations.

The days of creating marketing messages and assets that speak to one dominant majority are far behind us.

The hues of our world today are many. In the United States alone, racial and ethnic minorities make up nearly 40% of the population, more than 40 million Americans have a disability, and 4.5% of adults in the US identify themselves as LGBTQ.

This means that we need to have a more well-rounded understanding of our customers, so that we can create marketing assets, and specifically for this discussion – videos that are acutely considerate of the viewer’s specific microcosm and not just their macro-concerns.

What does inclusive video look like?

When we talk about inclusive marketing and inclusive videos, we mean that we do not operate with a single, homogeneous persona in mind. Rather, we take a more heterogenous approach.

This doesn’t mean that we need to make sure that we have the standard minimum representation of various ethnicities, religions, and orientations in each and every video.

It does mean, first and foremost – that we have an inclusion mindset and are authentically committed to representing the different types of individuals who make up our target persona.

The inclusion mindset helps us to reimagine long-standing, no longer modern nor relevant stereotypes.

So when we think of a ‘CEO,’ we don’t necessarily and automatically envision this person:

Maybe, we envision this one:

When we select a video clip to represent an athlete, we will not be more likely choose this clip:

Than this one:

The inclusive video pay-off

While all these definitions are certainly inspiring, we would like to suggest a different approach.

We would like to propose that inclusive videos don’t have to aim to change the world (although, that’s always a worthy objective, assuming it’s to change the world for the better). Nor do they need to aim to represent everyone and break stereotypes.

The goal of inclusive video is to simply make sure that all the different types of individuals who make up our target audience, segment, and buyer persona are included in the videos that we create.

There’s no need to go and research everyone and learn everything there is to know about the many different groups that make up this great big world. It just means that it is critical for our business (and for the sense of doing the right thing) to make sure that we address all the groups who are relevant and interested in our company’s products or services.

And the pay-off is great. The better we are at personalizing messages and videos the more effective we will be at delivering content that will resonate and drive action.

For example, a study by consulting firm Kantar found that ads that are considered progressive are 25% more effective. And, a 2019 consumer survey by Google revealed that 64% of respondents took action after seeing an ad they considered to be inclusive. This number rose even further with other consumer segments, with 77% of millennials taking action, black people at 79%, Latinx at 85%, and LGBTQ at 85%.

Moreover, inclusive content has also been reported to significantly lift purchase intent and customer loyalty.

Examples of great inclusive videos

Let’s take a look at some bold, brave, and moving inclusive videos, in this case commercials.

This first one comes from Proctor & Gamble, and even earned the company an Emmy in 2018:

In this commercial from Google, we are introduced to many different types of people, from various age groups, ethnicities, and genders, but who do have something unexpected in common.

Dating app, Bumble, created this video to showcase users in New York City in true inclusive fashion.

Inclusive video checklist

Before getting started with our inclusive videos, it’s important to make sure we have:

• The inclusive mindset
• An authentic commitment to creating contents that will address the different and diverse members of our target segments
• An inclusive lexicon, for which you can check out these resources: GLAAD Media Reference Guide – Terms To Avoid, Respectful Disability Language, The Associated Press Style Guide on race-related terms and phrases
• An extensive library of images and video clips to enable us to cast a wide enough net for bringing in differentiated inclusive visuals (instead of the same old predictable ones)
• An easy to use video creation tool that enables anyone in the organization to articulate inclusiveness via video, regardless of their video making and editing skills.

How Wochit Studio can help

To help anyone in the organization make killer, inclusive videos Wochit offers Wochit Studio, a cloud-based video creation platform that is designed to empower anyone and everyone, regardless of whether or not they have a background or knowledge in video editing, to create high-quality, professional-grade videos that are deeply engaging.

The platform offers a straightforward UX that simplifies editing, smart editing features with many options for customizations, an extensive pre-licensed library of 200 million images and videos, and myriad built-in templates.

So, what are you waiting for? There’s no better time than the present to get creative with inspired and inclusive videos.