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Big brands shun straight, white Britain in their adverts

Advertisers are turning to gay couples and ethnic minorities to sell their products

thetimes.co.uk, 26/8/2017

Ikea used a gay male couple to represent the diversity of modern family life in a recent campaign

Advertisers are so worried about being accused of racism or homophobia they are shying away from using images of white people and straight couples.

Marketing departments are even putting diversity above relevance to their target audience to avoid accusations of bigotry, a survey of 500 companies has found.

A third of advertisers questioned said they had used fewer white models and heterosexual couples over the past year. More than a third of these said they were taking this approach to “prevent perceived discrimination”.

The findings are likely to trigger accusations of political correctness but show a marked change in attitudes in the advertising industry, which has until recently had a reputation for under-representing ethnic minorities.

Brands that have featured gay couples include Lloyds, which ran a “he said yes” campaign and Tiffany, the jeweller, which ran a “will you” gay proposal.

Dove, which is owned by the Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever, recently used a significant number of women from ethnic minorities in its “real beauty” campaign. McDonald’s has also run adverts with few white people.

The study by Shutterstock Inc, which provides commercial images and music, found that almost half of marketing departments had increased their use of racially diverse images over the past year and a third increased their use of homosexual couples.

The overwhelming majority that used images of gay couples or “non-traditional” families admitted doing so even if it did not fit with their brand. Half said they were using fewer white people because they no longer represented “modern society”.

The 2011 census found that 87.2 per cent of the population is white, 2 per cent mixed race, 6.9 per cent Asian and 3 per cent black.

Less than 1 per cent identified themselves as “other”. Since then there has been significant migration to the UK. Last year net migration from outside the EU was 175,000.

Many companies also have their marketing departments in London or outsource work to advertising agencies in the city where there is a much higher proportion of ethnic minorities than the rest of the country.

Research last year by Lloyds Bank found that one in five adverts featured people from minority groups although the Shutterstock study suggests that this proportion will have increased this year.

As recently as 2010 only 5 per cent of TV adverts contained someone from an ethnic minority and in 2009 Microsoft was forced to apologise after photoshopping a white man’s head on to a black man’s body on a poster.

Keren Sachs, content development director of Shutterstock, said that for many years the advertising industry suffered a diversity problem. “The people chosen to represent campaigns have an obvious and visual impact on public life. This appears to be changing. Marketers are now being more inclusive through their choice of images,” she said.

“Our research shows that marketers in the UK are shifting their attitudes and selecting images, primarily to represent modern-day society.” These “influencers” understood that marketing needed to reflect the diverse range of communities in the UK.

Trevor Phillips, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said that brands were right to increase diversity and often this was to appeal to white consumers. “Businesses have to appeal to minorities but also the white population, who think it’s peculiar if they see an ad that doesn’t have minorities in it and looks like they are being sold something from the 1950s,” he added.

“The biggest drivers are to get the black or brown pound but frankly white consumers think if you look like a firm selling something that is for an all-white Britain, it is something that went out of date decades ago. If there is a change this is businesses doing what they are supposed to do. This is good capitalism in action. It’s the exact opposite of political correctness.”

Advertisers working in finance were the least keen to show diversity, the study suggested. Only 28 per cent have used more racially diverse or homosexual images over the past year.

Human resource consultancies were the most enthusiastic, with 60 per cent using more diverse images this year.

Hue and cry
● In the 1900s a Fairy Soap advert showed a white girl asking a black boy: “Why doesn’t your mamma wash you with Fairy Soap?” Pear’s Soap described teaching cleanliness as the “white man’s burden”.

● Robertson’s used a golliwog in adverts until 1988, saying it was “a fictional nurseryland character, not a depiction of a black person”. The image lasted on its labels until 2002.

● In 2012 a Nivea campaign featured a clean-shaven black man throwing the severed head of a bearded black man, with a call to “re-civilise yourself”.

● Qiaobi, a detergent company in China, showed a black man being forced into a washing machine and emerging as a fair-skinned Chinese.

● Paddy Power was accused of racism this week in an advert promoting the Mayweather vs McGregor fight. “Always bet on blaway derogatory or insulting.

● The actor Ashton Kutcher stirred controversy in 2012 by wearing brownface in an advert for Popchips.