Diversity in Advertising
Scenario 2: Diversity in Advertising
You work for a company that produces a variety of popular and tasty breakfast cereals, and you spend a good deal on television and web-based advertising. In your ads, you strive for diversity of all kinds; however, one recent advertisement generated controversy. In it, a happy family with two mothers, a young son, and a toddler daughter are shown eating breakfast and engaging in lighthearted antics. Bits of cereal are tossed about, milk is spilled, and so on.
In response, members of an organization representing what they refer to as "traditional family values" have written numerous messages of protest and have posted them on social media. They feel that this portrayal of a nontraditional family is "morally wrong" and they are threatening to boycott your company.
Your task is to write a response to this organization and to post it on your website as well as your official social media platform sites. Your goal is not to engage in a war of words with this organization, but simply to make it clear that your company values diversity, and that you will continue to portray that diversity in your advertising materials.
Your Name
Course ID
Instructor
Institutional Affiliation
Scenario 2: Diversity in Advertising
As a premier manufacturer of popular and tasty breakfast cereals, we spent huge sums of money on TV and web-based advertising. Therefore we strive to get value for money. Our customers reflect diverse demographics, and hence we consistently strive to achieve diversity that mirrors our modern-day society. The modern-day family comprises both traditional and non-traditional family setups, and hence we uphold values that address both since our customers are drawn from both setups. The referenced advertisement portrayed a non-traditional family signifying our corporate effort towards creating inclusive advertisements. We do not manufacture products for the traditional family but for the entire family. Therefore we are committed to creating inclusive ads that portray the realities of the 21st-century family setup. As a business organization, we are committed to serving all our customers who cut across the spectrum of our society.
Our policy on diversity is informed by research findings showing that brands that uphold diversity in advertisements get 83% higher consumer preference. The same research found that less than 1% of advertisements portrayed LGBTQ+ characters (Williams, 2019). Although 94% of the advertisements portrayed women in a traditional family setup, most portrayed women in a stereotyped position. Barkley and PSFK found that younger consumers preferred brands that uphold diversity, while PQ Media found that multicultural consumers comprised 40% of the U.S population (Alcantara, 2021).
According to research live, diversity boosts the effectiveness and impact of advertising and brand perception. Kantar research established that the UK had the highe...