Under the premise that advertising influences the image of how we behave in society, technology Facebook and the Effie Awards contest come together to launch a special category focused on recognizing initiatives that give voice and space to underrepresented groups in advertising.
The ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ category, which will be part of the event in Mexico and Latin America from the 2021 edition, seeks to promote a broader vision of the importance of involving the whole of society – regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation or race – in advertising and the media.
“When it comes to diversity and inclusion we cannot be neutral, we have to be intentional,” said Maren Lau, vice president of Facebook in Latin America.
“Building a truly inclusive and representative advertising industry is up to all of us. With the creation of this new category, we want to see brands and agencies even more committed to representing the whole of society ”, added the board of directors.
Data from Facebook indicates that in Mexico, 53% of the people who appear in an advertisement for retail stores are women, while 82% of those who are part of car commercials are men.
Women are still more portrayed in the home and family care, personal care and beauty and general shopping industries. While men dominate in technology, games and education, according to an analysis of thousands of campaigns that appear on the social network.
Regarding race, in the country there are no data on the participation of the Afro-Mexican community in advertising. But, globally, the study ‘Bias & Inclusion in Advertising’ by the Geena Davis Institute shows that the incursion of black people in the 251 ads that participated in the Film and Film Craft categories of Cannes Lions 2019 decreased 5.1% compared to the previous year .
In Mexico, the new category will be awarded during the Effie Awards 2021, a contest that will take place from March 1 to 3. This initiative is the result of joint work between Facebook and the Alliance for the Strategic Value of Brands (AVE), the entity that organizes the local event.
This year, the AVE not only renewed its board of directors, which is now chaired by Claudio Flores, vice president and founding partner of Lexia, but also created for the first time a committee specialized in diversity and inclusion issues. This, made up of a multidisciplinary team of professionals, will be in charge of generating strategies to eradicate social stereotypes through the incorporation of both elements in business.
For Facebook, it is not the first foray into diversity and inclusion issues. The technology company already collaborates with the advertising industry in the creation of a more democratic communication, which gives voice to social groups with little representation, such as ‘Ads for Equality’, a tool launched in 2019 that allows brands to diversify your campaigns through data analysis and measurement.
