Creating Inclusive and Diverse Video Content
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have become key components of effective video content marketing campaigns. According to research from Facebook, over 60% of audiences around the world have stated that they’d like to see more diversity from the brands they follow. However, diversity isn’t a thing that companies can simply check off a list, because implementing fully inclusive and diverse video content is a complicated task. They’re both external and internal facets of a company, and they also have to take many areas into consideration when creating diverse video content.
Diversity
Diversity can be defined in terms of race, but according to recent research, diversity in video content extends far beyond race. There are many layers to diversity aside from race, including age, ability, body type, faith, sexual orientation, and more. Last year, some of the top keywords that businesses were using for their own search queries included body diversity and general diversity. In fact, a number of industries prioritized body diversity by increasing their representation of plus-size bodies. Plus-size bodies have been underrepresented historically in video content, with most companies choosing to create ads that feature thin body types. These days, many companies have started approaching this type of video content differently, by highlighting the importance of body diversity in their video content.
Representation
According to reports, in the last couple of years, there’s been an over 100% increase in BIPOC video searches and a nearly 200% increase in the number of BIPOC video downloads. There has been a notable increase in demand for this type of representation in media, which may be linked to racial inequities becoming exposed through increased coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement resulted in a global ripple effect across business and media, with the movement continuing to grow today.
Research
When creating inclusive and diverse video content, companies have to start the process by investing in research. Whenever a particular community starts gaining more coverage and attention, companies should be careful before they decide that they need to dive into a conversation. Before joining in discussions, companies should fully understand the communities they want to represent in their content. This is because there have been many inclusive and diverse media campaigns that ended up receiving backlash from the public simply because those companies didn’t represent the communities the right way. In these cases, everything could’ve been avoided if the businesses had done proper research.
Decision-makers
Companies shouldn’t only incorporate diversity and inclusion into their marketing content, as diverse representation should exist at the decision-making level inside companies too. Companies should recognize it if their teams aren’t as inclusive as they’d like. In these cases, they should reach out to third-party support, such as external advisers, who can help them make up for their internal lack of internal representation.
