According to a statistics published by the World Bank, nearly 15% of the world's population, or more than one billion people, has a disability. but, how those with disabilities have been portrayed in marketing has made them all but invisible.
With over 1.3 billion people living with a disability worldwide, this group of people is both significant and underrepresented. Successful communication relies on the fundamental principles of encoding and decoding, but companies frequently forget to check for accessibility for people with disabilities.
Care for people with disability
According to Yuping, Director of Topic News PR, when seeking for engagement and public recognition, brands and marketers have been disregarding this demographic. It is evident that the best approach to bring about change and increase diversity for all businesses is to improve representation and talk openly about disability.
Companies used to rely on cause marketing largely to promote corporate philanthropic initiatives or social impact campaigns. Companies are increasingly subject to a heightened level of scrutiny due to changing consumer demographics and associated mentalities; they are expected to more fully represent the values that underpin their effect.
Customers are shown by businesses how important impact is to who they are. This influence should be related to all facets of corporate operations. And in this line, an increasing number of businesses are making a social impact and corporate social responsibility (CSR) the core and most important facets of their operations.
In impact marketing, we all too frequently categorize the public into different groups. We address certain marketing difficulties with a focus on how our efforts will be geared towards specific demographic groups, whether it be pushing and advertising items or services or luring and then maintaining clients with our offerings.
Such highly targeted appeals have proliferated in modern marketing and advertising, whether we're talking about appealing to particular ethnic groups or the LGBTQ+ community. We have come a long way as a society in just a short time in terms of acceptance and tolerance, though we still have a long, long way to go, and marketing has undoubtedly played a large role in this societal advancement. Just earlier this decade, Cheerios caused quite a stir with a commercial featuring an interracial couple.
And yet, when it comes to marketing and advertising efforts to date, there is one very sizable sector of our society that seems to have gone unnoticed. The disabled community is located here. And given the size and, yes, the purchasing power of this group in our culture, this is quite surprising.
Understanding Social Impact Marketing
Impact marketing encompasses techniques used by a wide range of organizations to advance and accomplish business objectives, change community attitudes and practices, and foster environmental and social stewardship. In addition to promoting a company's goods or services, this type of marketing also highlights its place in the community.
Impact marketing and corporate social responsibility, sometimes known as corporate citizenship, go hand in hand. Simply said, a corporation must embrace its ideals throughout every aspect of its operations before it can genuinely fight for change. For instance, a business that wants to support environmental causes must first reduce its own emissions and environmental effect.
Creating An Inclusive Impact Marketing For Persons With Disability
It's critical that businesses deliver on their commitments to inclusion and deliver the products that are advertised. However, inclusion goes beyond merely unique goods and includes including advertisements for commonplace goods that feature persons with disabilities. Marketers and brands or organizations may draw in new customers and work toward a more inclusive brand strategy and community by empowering and including the disability community in advertising and, where necessary, following through with products and services.
Here Are Some Of The Ways We Can Create An Inclusive Impact Marketing For Persons With Disabilities
• When Attempting To Reach Audiences With Disabilities, Avoid Using A Single Approach System.
Disability-related demands and interests are diverse. A one-size-fits-all strategy won't work with a big audience. 12.4 percent of disabled individuals in the United States have a mobility issue, and 11.5 percent have a cognitive issue. These groups are probably going to have various demands and worldviews. Advertisers should sometimes keep in mind that they are reaching caregivers or other support personnel when doing so, and they should be mindful of those concerns as well.
• Authenticity
Even when campaigns involve people with disabilities or reflect experiences that have an impact on the disability community, they frequently fall short either by using non-disabled actors or by using content that fails to properly resonant.
Unfortunately, just "15 percent of marketers worldwide recalled persons with disabilities being portrayed positively," meaning that many depictions of people with disabilities are unimportant, stereotypical, or inaccurate.
• Consider The Disability Community To Be An Important Customer
Considering the disabled community as a target market and customer is still progressive. Being the last to be considered, although having the largest minority population in the world, we are also the most underrepresented when it comes to product marketing. Although a large amount of diversity among the disabilities community contributes to some of this, these consumer segments (and their families) still have a substantial amount of purchasing power. Models with impairments are increasingly appearing in advertisements for fashion and other products, but this needs to become the standard rather than the exception.
• Creating Inclusive Content And Design
Include disabled customers in your market research to identify future growth prospects. Design inclusive products and services that go beyond helping the disability population. Employers, educate your staff on disability inclusion in the workplace and how to be a strong ally.
Some Great Examples
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Betadia, UK
A digital insurance company, Betadia, has officially appointed world-renowned Australian Paralympian and gold medalist Vanessa Low as its official brand ambassador for 2022/23.
Born in Schwerin, East Germany, Vanessa Low lost her lower parts of her legs due to train accident when she was 15. She was inspired by American disabled long jumper Cameron Clapp and began training in athletics in 2008 before making her senior sports debut the same year.
She has been making many achievements since then, and the most recent one was in 2019 when she represented Australia in international tournaments, Low won the gold medal in the Women’s Long Jump T61-63 at the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai. A year later, she broke her own previous world record and won the gold medal in the women’s T63 long jump while competing for Australia at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
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Delta, Israel
One of the best known apparel brand in Israel, Delta has employed models with prosthesis and Down Syndrome to showcase their latest products.
It went viral on social media, many people claimed that they will definitely buy their products. Some even said that they cried when they saw it, this is such a beautiful scene to see that everyone can be a presenter in the fashion industry.