Marketing and communications professionals working in higher education are more conscious than most that they serve incredibly diverse audiences and stakeholders, and of the vital importance of equity and inclusion. (Today’s students can quickly become outspoken protestors in the face of what they perceive as injustice.)

This week, Ken Steele sits down with Matthew Tsang, co-founder of inclusive communications agency AndHumanity, to discuss what he calls “JEDI” principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. “Justice is at the forefront for us,” Matthew explains. His agency, and the cause of inclusive marketing, grew in prominence in the wake of George Floyd’s death in May 2020.

“Inclusive marketing is elevating underrepresented voices, not about including everyone all the time.” The key is to ensure that you’re not defaulting to the dominant culture - because GenZ and GenAlpha have heightened awareness of diversity, and greater expectations that marketers will represent it in their work with cultural competency. Communicators have a moral responsibility to contribute to improving society by not just avoiding stereotypes, but by incorporating counter-stereotypical messages.

Too many marketers fail at inclusion when they forget that people are intersectional, and effectively centre the dominant culture of a broader community. “We’re all complex human beings, and we can’t be checked off in a box.” The specialists at AndHumanity always encourage really deep storytelling with intersectional nuance, rather than reinforcing stereotypes or generalizations about a community.

It's also vitally important to include a broad diversity of people with lived experience in the writing and creative process: “Nothing about us without us.” This mistake causes some obvious, egregious mistakes – and it’s not sufficient to consult people, they need to feel psychologically safe expressing their feelings.

Marketers and communicators need to avoid a fear-based approach, simply focused on avoiding causing offense. “Is this safe to say? is a very check-boxy approach.” A fear-based approach most often results in “very diluted, boring, uninspirational work” that is inoffensive, yes, but also forgettable. Institutions should also focus on “going deep” into specific dates of significance, telling deep culturally-nuanced stories, rather than spreading their efforts wide at superficial recognition of a broad range of dates.

Matthew’s advice to anyone who wants to reinforce their intercultural competence is to deliberately follow 5-10 people on social media who have different lived experiences from you yourself, or who specialize in JEDI issues. Even when watching TV shows or movies, it can be valuable to watch content about protagonists with different dimensions of identity than yourself. “I don’t think it has to be difficult… but this is a good first step.”

Members of Eduvation’s MarCom, CMO, and Guild Circles are invited to attend a free workshop on inclusive marketing and communications for higher education, led by Matthew and the AndHumanity team, on October 24 2024. (If you’re not a member, you can sign up for a free trial at https://circles.eduvation.ca/landing/plans/232788 )

For more information about AndHumanity and their services, see https://andhumanity.co

#EDII #EDI #Diversity #InclusiveMarketing #Indigenization