The Diversity Standards Collective (DSC), the research business specialising in connecting agencies and clients with diverse, intersectional communities, has launched a campaign to urge the industry to ‘Just Ask’.

The campaign, which will run across out of home channels, comes as the DSC launches its new Community Safety Check System, a service that makes it easier and more cost-effective to speak to diverse communities.

The new service launches at a time when a growing number of marketing leaders have pointed to fears of ‘cancel culture’ as stifling creative bravery. Despite research from the Unstereotype Alliance busting the myth of ‘go woke and go broke’ by proving that inclusion drives business results.

But authentic inclusion demands expertise, focus, investment and lived experience. According to the DSC, with agencies and clients striving to make more inclusive work, there is a much higher risk of that work being ignored, rejected or cancelled by the communities it is trying to reach if it does not authentically speak to or represent them.

The DSC believes that many of the regular issues that plague campaigns, from stereotyping to miscasting to misrepresentation to outright offensive messaging, can be tackled by just asking the right people the right questions at the right time.

This is what the ‘Just Ask’ campaign is urging agencies and brands to do: if they don’t know whether their campaign will be ‘impressively inclusive or culturally intrusive’ they can just ask the DSC’s network of over 10,000 different people. The network includes advertising professionals and consumers from around the globe and a wide range of different people spanning communities including LGBTQIA+, ethnicity, religion, disability, socioeconomic class, age, and gender.

Executions include questions such as: ‘Have you made a cultural insight or a stereotypical oversight?’ or ‘Will your campaign resonate or irritate?’

Rich Miles, CEO of the Diversity Standards Collective, said: “We are excited to launch our first OOH campaign in partnership with JCDecaux, aimed at encouraging advertisers and brands to test their creative work with our diverse Collective. We recognise having worked with brands over the past four years that a huge amount of money has been wasted due to a fear of asking the right questions to the right people - we are delighted to offer a cost-efficient way of getting it right first time every time.” 

Brands and agencies already just asking the DSC include Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, Barclays, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, National Trust, L’Oréal, Metro, McDonald’s, Just Eat, Mother, Leo Burnett, Pablo, McCann, BBH, Wieden+Kennedy, Ogilvy, Mindshare, and OMD.

Matt Reischauer, Marketing Director, McDonald’s UK and Ireland, explained: “We welcome people from all walks of life into our restaurants, so at McDonald’s, when we represent any of these diverse communities in our work, we must represent them in the most authentic way possible. We’ve worked with The DSC over the last year to help connect personally with members of these many communities, our work is stronger because of it.”

Media space for the campaign was provided by JCDecaux with executions featuring across media-land hotspots in London. The campaign is targeting key decision-makers and industry folk, challenging them with the questions they should be asking to ensure their ads are inclusive and authentic to the communities they are trying to reach.

Josh Bullmore, Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Burnett, added: “We’re all about populist creativity, so making sure our work is inclusive, accessible and represents communities accurately and respectfully is crucial.  That’s why we partner with The Diversity Standards Collective. Whether it’s for our campaigns with McDonald’s, the National Lottery, or Kellogg’s, The DSC’s community research gives us the confidence to create work that works for everyone. When we don’t know, we just ask.”