How Mindshare's Collective is making media planning more inclusive

By Deborah Harper, Partner at Mindshare Worldwide and Head of the Mindshare Collective

This week marks a milestone for Mindshare as celebrations come to a close on its first ever inclusion festival.

The festival offered the Mindshare team a series of virtual events ranging from sessions discussing how intersectionality helps to create a culture where everyone feels able to bring their true selves to work, to an online fashion show that explored how culture and religion help shape fashion – and even a cultural supper club celebrating different cuisines from across the globe.

Today, most businesses recognise the value of diversity and inclusion. Mindshare believes diversity and inclusion are not an add-on but a business imperative.

The “Collective” is the umbrella name we have given to a wide range of diversity and inclusion groups and initiatives within Mindshare. These groups include Mindshare Roots which aims to educate, provide awareness and take action around Diversity and Ethnicity issues; Mindshare Pride; Mindshare Enable which supports people with disabilities; Declassify a group which champions those from lower socio-economic backgrounds;

The Womxn Network supports, empowers and take action to re-balance and develop women in media; while the Masculinity group seeks to understand and highlight the breadth of masculinity in modern society. The group works to reframe masculinity away from limited and often negative stereotypes of what masculinity is, and discuss key issues such as toxic masculinity and men’s mental health.

Ultimately, the goal of the Collective is to deliver complete inclusion across the Mindshare business.

The impact of the Collective is felt both within the Mindshare team and more widely. Declassify is leading a number of outreach programmes including being an active participant in the Upreach Tech 500 event which seeks to teach first year university students from lower income backgrounds core tech skills. Enable has registered Mindshare with the UK Government’s Disability Confident Scheme earlier this year. The Disability Confident scheme is creating a movement of change, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. Pride worked with LGBTQ+ advertising and marketing, advocacy group Outvertising to write an open letter to the industry calling for greater representation of queer women.

Our 0Borders group meanwhile is working to educate all employees on the challenges and misconceptions of immigration, refugees and asylum seekers and to offer practical support and mentoring for recent migrants in the UK. We’re also looking forward to the Mindshare Roots’ Power Room podcast. The Power Room will be a monthly inspirational and practical advice podcast designed to bring influential, successful Black leaders to the forefront. The podcast episodes will be informative and easy-paced discussions celebrating success, career development and self-belief.

Earlier this year Mindshare launched its new Good Growth brand positioning. Good Growth is rooted in combining sustainability and profitability - creating sales growth for our clients while respecting the planet and society, and taking an ethical approach to the business of advertising. A key component of Good Growth is respect for people – whether they be clients, the public or the Mindshare team.

Alongside Mindshare’s inclusion week, the Collective also launched an Inclusion Planning Initiative – which helps to rapidly upskill everyone on intentional inclusive planning – tapping into the collective for frameworks, guidance, and consultancy.

This initiative gives brands the opportunities to speak to audiences in a new and more relevant way. Whether targeting underrepresented people from the disabled, social mobility or LGBTQ+ communities, an intentional mindset and the relevant planning tools will ensure Mindshare’s campaigns are driving Good Growth for our clients among inclusive audiences.

It is this kind of innovative approach to diversity and inclusion that is at the heart of Good Growth. This is far from simply paying lip service to inclusion, it is an approach that will drive  growth for our clients by devising campaigns that reach and resonate with valuable but under-served audiences. I couldn’t be more thrilled with how this past week has gone – not only has it opened our eyes and educated us further to inequality and injustice but will help us to continue to drive better outcomes for advertisers. That really is the embodiment of Good Growth.

To find out more about how Mindshare is utilising Good Growth to drive results for our clients visit: https://www.mindshareworld.com/news/goodgrowth