Towards successful diversity initiatives: the importance of building audience connectedness

ABSTRACT

The past decade has seen an increasing number of diversity initiatives undertaken by brands in an attempt to connect with consumers. While audiences view some initiatives positively, some evoke controversy or backlash, indicating that they have not been successful. Without clear research-based directions for designing diversity initiatives though, marketers continue to struggle. Therefore, this article proposes a framework of how diversity initiatives might achieve success through audience connectedness. The framework includes three characteristics of such initiatives: the marketer’s approach to diversity, the audiences’ perception of diversity, and the level of belief congruence. When all three factors converge, diversity initiatives can evoke a sense of audience connectedness. Through leveraging audience connectedness, marketers can devise and achieve initiatives that target, reach, and resonate with broader, rather than limited audiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity initiatives
• advertising
• audience connectedness
• belief congruence
• tokenism
• intersectionality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amelie J. Burgess

Amelie J. Burgess is a PhD candidate in marketing at The University of Adelaide Business School. She graduated with a Bachelors Commerce Degree majoring in both Marketing and Management, receiving first-class Honours in Marketing also from The University of Adelaide Business School. Her research interests focus on diversity in marketing.

Dean C. H. Wilkie

Dr Dean C. H. Wilkie (PhD University of Sydney) is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at The University of Adelaide Business School. Before entering academia, he had over 15 years of experience in brand management. His primary research focus is on areas that potentially have the greatest impact on practicing brand managers. His research has appeared in the European Journal of Marketing, Marketing Letters, Journal of Brand Management and the Journal of Marketing Management, among others.

Rebecca Dolan

Dr Rebecca Dolan is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at The University of Adelaide Business School. Rebecca’s research focusses on contemporary issues in marketing, such as digital disruption, social media, and engagement. She has a particular interest in deriving insights from Big Data, particularly investigating patterns of online consumer behaviour through digital and social analytics. Rebecca’s research has primarily focussed on the Australian wine industry. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Strategic Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, and the Journal of Advertising, among others.