As someone who has long spoken up about adland’s issue with representation, I’m always interested in how brands navigate the challenges of creating campaigns that are truly diverse and representative, and avoid outmoded stereotypes rather than portray them.

And while we should call out brands that get it wrong, it’s only useful if we also talk about how to get it right. Missteps aren’t random or unavoidable, and you don’t need to be a mind reader to predict them. It’s actually simple: you can’t get representation wrong if you always consult the people represented. Whether it's engaging with campaigning bodies or consulting experts, it’s crucial to consult with and incorporate diverse voices from the start of every campaign.

When brands don’t take this step the work misfires. We saw it with Heinz pasta sauces recently, when the food giant came under criticism for promoting stereotypes of absent black fathers in its out-of-home campaign and last year, KFC Canada came under similar reproach for reinforcing damaging racial stereotypes in its billboard ad.

Learning from positive representation

But I also believe that celebrating representation done brilliantly is far too rare, and when we do we can learn from it to move forward. The new Burger King “Bundles of Joy” work feels like an honest and authentic portrayal of postpartum mums, and the continually brilliant campaigns from Libresse / Bodyform show the brand clearly knows, understands, speaks and listens to its target audiences of women, and continually challenges outmoded stereotypes. 

Great examples from outside advertising should be referenced too, like the new season of “Heartstopper” that showcases LGBTQIA+ relationships on screen in a fresh way; and Didi, a fantastic semi-autobiographical coming of age film from Taiwanese American director Sean Wang, authentically narrates the immigrant experience.

At the start of the creative process for us at Wonderhood Studios, our go-to resource is The Diversity Standards Collective (DSC), who’s Targeted Community Research Platform allows you to conduct fast and specific community research and campaign testing to deeply understand what matters to community groups. We usually involve The DSC as early as the script stage.

Creative bravery beyond the backlash

“Gravlax,” our ad for mobile network provider Three, was our first experience working with The DSC. It was about a guy trying to impress his girlfriend’s parents for the first time in an intimidatingly upscale restaurant. We also wanted to show a diverse cast. Three was concerned that, with the cost-of-living crisis all over the news at the time, this setting might feel alienating. They also wanted to ensure that the diversity in casting felt authentic and sensitive.

The DSC’s community helped us gain great insight into the setting, script and dynamics between cast members, and their consultation went beyond just avoiding offence, and actually encouraged us to, well, be even more diverse with our diversity.

As Rich Miles, CEO and founder of DSC, explains: “The problem with making ads is that marketers tend to be one kind of person and think, ‘Well, that doesn’t annoy me, so it’s fine.’ There’s also a fear of getting it wrong, which holds people back creatively. This process gives people their creative freedom back.”

By switching their mindset, The DSC believes, creative teams can be primed to always ask the question, 'I'm ok with this but are others?' Because if we can involve more questioning of representation we can start changing it for the better.

Diversity drives creativity

With The DSC’s input, we ended up casting a more diverse family than we originally planned. Three lent on The DSC's community research that uncovered the insight that multi-ethnic relationships were rarely shown in adverts, but were wanted by audiences. On-screen families where one partner is not white are still rare. We featured an East Asian father and a Black mother and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, especially from people of mixed Black and East Asian heritage. They saw themselves reflected in ways they rarely do in mainstream culture.

Even as someone who's part of the East Asian community, it was important to gain further outside perspectives. But we did, and the feedback we received, such as ensuring the father was shown being warm towards his daughter, were crucial in avoiding harmful stereotypes.

For a campaign for Starling Bank, working with The DSC was equally valuable. Starling Bank, with services like SignVideo for BSL speakers, wanted to feature disability prominently but wanted to ensure that we were getting it right. None of the creative team had lived experience of hearing loss or deafness, so we consulted The DSC’s Collective, who lived with hearing impairments. Their insights shaped the entire process, from concept to execution. A small detail like featuring a double rear-view mirror might go unnoticed by the average person, but it is something that truly resonates with this community.

As Rich points out, “Diverse casting without diversity of culture is when you get tokenism.” It’s not just about putting diverse faces in front of the camera; it’s about understanding the lived experiences of those you’re representing. For full disclosure, after three years as a client of The DSC, I now do some consulting for them as part of their East Asian and LGBTQIA+ communities, (as long as there’s no conflict of interest).

There are other ways to consult with the communities brands are portraying in their campaigns, but the important thing is that you do it.

At Wonderhood, we’re no longer afraid of making mistakes. We know that with the right process in place, our creative ideas don’t just pass the offensiveness sniff test – they resonate authentically with the communities they feature.

Ultimately, this is about building a culture of visibility for brands, helping them add to the cultural conversation in a way that resonates, rather than disrupts. Great representation enables brands to be seen and heard in an increasingly diverse world – and that’s something worth celebrating.