As a marketer, you're acutely aware that different messages resonate with different demographics. A brand targeting urban college students will have a different narrative than one targeting rural retirees. Unless your brand caters to a single, hyper-specific customer base, a one-size-fits-all approach to ad campaigns is not only tactless—it can impact your bottom line.

Making advertising more inclusive seems like common sense in our modern day and age. But historically, advertising hasn't always spoken to diverse communities and voices. Today, however, there's no excuse: Inclusive advertising should be a top priority for any brand that wants to reach a global, dynamic, and culturally diverse audience—and younger customers in particular.

Ready to make marketing choices with diversity and inclusion in mind? Read on.

What is inclusive advertising?

In a nutshell, inclusive advertising is about authentically mirroring the diversity of the world. Inclusive ads can be a win-win—they signal that your brand understands its customers, and they can help consumers choose products that align with their values.

This type of advertising encompasses marketing that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). At its core, inclusive advertising is a chance to connect with real people by portraying real life. It incorporates more voices and perspectives into campaigns and ad creative. This can mean working with a broad range of brand spokespeople or influencers, showcasing diverse family structures in visuals, or using voice actors from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

This type of diversity in advertising gives brands a chance to reflect—and celebrate—the rich mosaic that makes up their customer base. Marketing that depicts racially and ethnically diverse people; people with disabilities; and people of different ages, body types, and sexual orientations can help customers from any walk of life feel valued and seen.

Bottom line? In the global digital age, where cultural and generational values are constantly evolving, an inclusive advertising strategy can help you craft content more likely to resonate with more people—and more potential customers.

Why is diversity in advertising so important?

Our world continues to get more diverse with every generation¹: In the US, a larger percentage of today's youth identify as mixed race or LGBTQIA+ than ever before², ³—which means more young people are likely to notice whether or not your brand's ads reflect their identities. Recent research also suggests that more than half (55%) of Americans between 18 and 34 want to see more racial diversity in ads.⁴

Such insights can help inform not only your brand's core message, but also your marketing mix—including the types of ads you choose to invest in. Spotify’s Culture Next 2023 report, which explores Gen Z trends, found that three in five Zs in the US (60%) think podcasting is more trustworthy than other forms of traditional media—in part because it's more representative of diverse voices and perspectives.⁵

Gen Zs also like to go deep on the issues near and dear to their hearts. Culture Next 2023 found that this generation prioritizes discovering more about culture, the world, and themselves.⁶ They look to streaming media for exposure to people of all backgrounds. Not only do 78% of Gen Z listeners in the US say Spotify "brings them deeper into culture,"⁷ but 58% say podcasts "bring them closer to the zeitgeist of culture" than any other form of media.⁸

Multicultural advertising on Spotify

If it's one of your goals to promote a sense of belonging through diversity and inclusion in advertising, Spotify can lend a hand. In the US, 56% of all AAPI and LatinX audiences and nearly half of all Black (45%) and LGBTQIA+ (47%)9 audiences are reachable on Spotify.⁹ Our listeners average more than 2.4 hours with us every day, choosing playlists that include everything from K-Pop to Brazilian funk.¹⁰

Spotify's vast collection of podcasts also spans diverse creators who share their insights on topics ranging from religion to history to politics. In fact, more than half of Gen Z podcast listeners in the US (53%) say they've learned about a community they're not a part of and "probably wouldn't have learned about elsewhere."¹¹

Spotify's diverse content extends to marketers and brands, too. Outside Voice, Spotify Advertising’s annotated playlist series, highlights BIPOC professionals and industry icons making a difference in creative fields and marketing. These champions for diversity aim to inspire brands and help them navigate the nuances of multicultural advertising.

How to create an inclusive advertising strategy on Spotify

To create an inclusive marketing campaign, here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

• Put real voices front and center. Find opportunities to incorporate real stories, voiced by real people.
• Read the room. Be mindful of the current climate around specific issues or geopolitical events.
• Be conversational. Speak to your audience in language and terms they "get," but don't be performative or culturally appropriative.
• Casting is critical. Aim to use a diverse roster of creative talent across all elements of your campaign.

On Spotify, amplifying your campaign with content affinity targeting lets you reach users based on both streaming behavior and historical engagement around cultural moments. Language targeting is helpful, too. For instance, it lets you target French-language creative to users who have adjusted their language settings to French in the Spotify app.

With our cultural packages—which bundle playlists and podcast sponsorships based on themes like Black Music Month, LatinX Heritage Appreciation, and Pride—brands can show up with a meaningful message that signals their support, and reach listeners who actively engage with these moments.

Inclusive ads: Examples on Spotify

Below are two examples of inclusive ad campaigns from Spotify advertisers.

Totino's reaches Hispanic parents with a multilingual campaign

When snack company Totino’s wanted to increase brand awareness among customers in key geographic regions, they created an Audio Everywhere campaign targeting audiences who have their language set to Spanish on Spotify across key US cities like Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Miami. The campaign encouraged listeners to "Get Saucy" and spice up their lives by using Totino’s in unique, Latin-inspired recipes.

The CPG brand won over a key audience by speaking their language through catchy, upbeat ads. The bilingual content strategy boosted Purchase Consideration among Spanish-language listeners by 32 points. Among overall listeners, the ads increased Recall by 43 points, and Top of Mind Awareness by 9 points.¹⁶

Cheetos champions diversity in a digital audio campaign

Just how much buzz is inclusive advertising generating? Diversity was a major topic of conversation at last year's Cannes Lions 2023 event.

A long-time champion for diverse ad campaigns, SVP of Marketing at PepsiCo Frito-Lay Tina Mahal spoke about how brands can drive real impact: "Personally, I never thought that brands were really talking to me when I was growing up. I felt a bit invisible. Our Cheetos campaign is about making the Hispanic community not feel invisible; it’s about empowering them to leave their mark on their own communities, in their lives, and in their work."¹⁷

The campaign used the tagline "deja tu huella" (or "make your mark") in Spotify ads peppered with Spanish phrases. By tapping into a collaboration with the Batman Unburied podcast and the Spotify Audience Network, the campaign—which featured voice talent ads, CTA cards, and displays as presenting sponsors—successfully targeted listeners with a LatinX cultural affinity. The ads resulted in a 23-point uplift in users who agreed that Cheetos "shines a light on the transformative power of people in Latino communities."

Ready to make real listener connections with an inclusive marketing campaign? Get started with Spotify's ads manager today.

Sources: 1 Global Web Index, Q3 2023 - Q4 2022 2 "2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country," Census.gov. August 2021. 3 "LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%," Gallup. February 2022. 4 Opinions on including racial diversity in advertising according to adults in the United States as of June 2020, by age group. Statista, 2023. 5-8 Spotify Culture Next survey, US, June 2023. 9 Comscore Plan Metrix, US 18+, Nov 2023. 10 Spotify First Party data, Q3 2023. 11 Spotify Culture Next survey, June 2023. 12 Global Web Index, Q3 2023 - Q4 2022 13 Spotify Culture Next survey, June 2023. 14 Spotify Internal Data, 1P_Custom_Content_Affinity_LatinX, Free, Min Age: (None) Max Age: (None), Gender: (All), US 15 Spotify Internal Data, 1P_Custom_Content_Affinity_LatinX, Free, Min Age: (None) Max Age: (None), Gender: (All), US 16 Nielsen Brand Effect, 2023 17 Cannes Lions 2023: A New Way to Create. Spotify, July 2023.