Unilever is the world’s second largest advertiser. They spend £6 billion a year on advertising their products. Most of their customers are women and yet they often feature women behind the sink rather than in the boardroom; a scenario which reinforces old fashioned stereotypes.
Our progressive society rightly demands equality, diversity and inclusion, so firms like Unilever now realise that they should change their advertising campaigns. People can no longer relate to the idea of a working man and a stay at home woman – in fact – more and more people find that idea frustrating and insulting. It’s time to change. The world has moved on so why portray it as if it has stagnated?
We recently interviewed, Cassons, a Lancashire-based accountancy firm, who have thrown down the gauntlet to the professional services world by producing a comical karaoke video which challenges the stereotypical image of accountants as serious and beige. That stereotype is no longer relevant and needs to be challenged. Your culture, marketing and way of working don’t have to be stale and uninspiring. So go out there, get creative and think differently.
We need to start unstereotyping…