Degree inclusive Language exercise
While it’s a small change, my team was able to convince the North America Degree brand team to make a very important change in their communications across an entire campaign. The article I wrote below explains.
No doubt actions speak louder than words. And what a brand does irrefutably outweighs what a brand says. But as our collective understanding of sexual orientation and gender continue to evolve, we can’t ignore how the words that we help craft for our clients still greatly impact perceptions and understanding of a brand.
I’m talking about inclusive language – which means language that recognizes people of all identities – in-between, or outside of the man/woman gender binary. And sometimes, yes, when a brand recognizes and actively changes their brand communication to be more inclusive, they are in fact, doing something.
Because when you put a little more thought and care into crafting language with gender inclusivity top of mind, you help to safely invite all people, regardless of identity, to feel welcomed to use and engage with your brand.
And furthermore, there can be greater implications in terms of making your brands more shoppable, more discoverable and ultimately more relevant in those moments that matter for all consumers and shoppers.
But it can seem daunting or challenging for our client’s brands with a history of producing and separating their products using the man/woman gender binary. Take the personal care category for example, where products “for him” and “for her” still largely guide how we’re told to shop.
Realistically, we can’t expect most brands to evolve overnight. And I imagine a lot of those brands are still trying to understand what “evolving” even means or looks like. But what we can do, as agency partners and marketers, is help point them in the right direction.
Organizations like GLAAD (and many others) teach us how to do this with simple recommendations for using more gender inclusive language. We saw this last month during Transgender Awareness Week (Nov. 13-19) when GLAAD posted their “Beyond the Binary” messages that reminded us to use phrases like “Distinguished Guests” instead of “Ladies and Gentlemen”. As well as saying “theirs” instead of “his or hers”.
https://www.glaad.org/beyondthebinary
But what does that mean for those thousands of brand products out in the world still produced and separated by “men’s” and “women’s”?
It all goes back to this same, thoughtful communication around inclusivity. Coincidentally, that was exactly this case last week when our agency team was faced with a copywriting request to include copy that explicitly stated that their line of products we’re produced “for men” and “for women”.
The products themselves are separated by gender and have been for years and years and years. But that doesn’t’ mean we can’t help our clients recognize and put action to language that recognizes what the brand already knows at heart: That anyone can use either of their products regardless of identity.
The key though, is making sure your brand is actually saying that.
And as you can probably guess, in a moment of serendipity, we referenced GLAAD’s “Beyond the Binary” campaign to help rationalize, and recommend, to our clients that they change their language to “For Everyone”.
The result? The brand team agreed. Not only were they thankful for our advice, they agreed to change all combined “For Men” and “For Women” communication on their shopper marketing materials to read “For Everyone”.
But, we’re not kidding ourselves. We know this is just a small victory. So, as we continue to see the lines between digital and physical blur in shoppable moments, remember that the lines between the male/female binary are as well.
It’s not a light switch to flip. It’s an ever-evolving conversation. And one that we owe our clients to have so that we can continue create a future where all genders feel welcome and included.
For More information on Gender Inclusivity and Transgender Awareness Week visit
https://www.glaad.org/transweek