Why inclusion is now a core marketing strategy

Marketing used to be about aspiration. The problem? The default image of “aspiration” was too often white, male, thin, cisgender, and Western. For decades, entire demographics were made to feel peripheral—spoken to only during certain months or entirely overlooked. That’s changing. Not just because it’s the right thing to do—but because markets have shifted. In the US, more than half of Gen Z identifies as non-white. In the GCC, digital-first Muslim consumers are reshaping fashion and beauty. In the UK, South Asian and Afro-Caribbean creators are influencing mainstream aesthetics.

Today, an inclusive marketing strategy is no longer about token gestures. It’s a business decision—one that reflects how well a brand understands who it serves, how people see themselves, and where cultural power is moving.

Many brands still treat inclusion as a seasonal add-on. Cue rainbow logos in June, hijabi models during Ramadan, or Mandarin New Year TikTok ads. These aren’t inherently bad—but they reveal a surface-level approach. The deeper shift comes when representation moves from marketing calendars to core strategy. When ad teams co-create with disabled talent, not just cast them. When product teams build for hair textures, body types, and skin tones often excluded. When agencies are selected not just for reach—but for cultural fluency.

What makes this powerful isn’t optics. It’s operational fluency. Let’s be clear: representation done right isn’t a checklist. It’s a signal that a brand has built processes—recruitment, customer research, content localization—that match the complexity of the markets they serve.

Fenty Beauty’s 2017 launch wasn’t just disruptive—it rewired the logic of beauty retail. While other brands offered five shades for darker skin tones, Fenty launched with 40. This wasn’t about inclusion as add-on. It was a complete reorientation of who the brand imagined as “the customer.” And it paid off. In its first month alone, Fenty pulled in $72 million in earned media value. More importantly, it forced industry giants like L’Oréal and Estée Lauder to expand their shade ranges—not because they wanted to, but because they had to.

Fenty’s lesson wasn’t just about shade diversity. It was about power. When a brand centers the people who’ve historically been sidelined, it doesn’t shrink its market. It expands it.

So why do so many companies still fumble this? Because they confuse visibility with belonging. They hire diverse models, then force them into legacy scripts. They create “diversity” content—but don’t diversify the teams behind it. They ask if a campaign will offend the majority—instead of asking whether it reflects the reality of the consumer base.

One clear example: Pepsi’s infamous Kendall Jenner protest ad. It featured multicultural imagery, but with no grounding in the lived experiences it claimed to reference. The backlash wasn’t just about the ad being tone-deaf—it was about a brand trying to borrow equity from movements it didn’t understand. This is where inclusive marketing becomes strategic. It’s not about showing everyone. It’s about showing you get them.

In the UAE, brands like Modanisa and The Giving Movement are growing by understanding modesty not as limitation, but as design innovation. Their marketing doesn’t “include” Muslim women—it’s built with and for them. In the US, haircare brands like Pattern, Mielle Organics, and Bread aren’t apologizing for texture—they’re celebrating it. Their inclusive approach has landed them in mainstream retailers like Target and Sephora, not as special categories, but as leading product lines.

And in Southeast Asia, companies like Zalora have created Ramadan-specific campaigns with embedded cultural fluency—featuring Muslim stylists, halal beauty partners, and delivery cadence tuned to religious calendars. None of these brands treat inclusion as a lens. They treat it as infrastructure.

Great campaigns don’t come from good intentions. They come from internal systems that support cultural literacy. That means hiring creatives from underrepresented groups—not just consultants. It means giving marketing teams time and budget to engage real communities, not just mine trend data. It means having feedback loops that flag when a campaign feels wrong—even if no one in the boardroom “gets” why.

P&G’s “The Talk” and “Widen the Screen” campaigns, which tackled racial bias in everyday life, worked not just because they were well-produced—but because they came from a company that had invested years in DEI work, both internally and externally. This is why inclusive marketing strategy isn’t a branding conversation. It’s an org design one.

The stakes are high. Campaigns perceived as disingenuous or performative now backfire faster and louder than ever. Just ask H&M, which faced global backlash for an ad featuring a Black child wearing a sweatshirt labeled “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle.” Or Gucci’s blackface-style sweater. Or Dolce & Gabbana’s tone-deaf “chopsticks” campaign in China.

The pattern? A lack of cultural awareness upstream. These weren’t just PR failures. They were operational blind spots—proof that marketing didn’t have the checks, voices, or context to avoid predictable harm. Inclusion isn’t a luxury. It’s risk mitigation.

And those risks don’t just come in the form of headlines. They show up in long-term damage: boycotts, severed influencer partnerships, loss of trust in emerging markets, and recruitment struggles among diverse talent pools. Once a brand is seen as disrespectful or out of touch, regaining credibility is exponentially harder—and more expensive—than getting it right the first time.

There’s also the opportunity cost. When a brand alienates a community, it’s not just losing potential customers—it’s handing them to a competitor who did the work. In today’s hyperconnected landscape, cultural insensitivity isn’t just a blunder. It’s a signal—to consumers, creators, and capital—that your business may be structurally unprepared for the future.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. As markets fragment and identities become more fluid, the old playbooks don’t scale. Mass-market messaging is losing ground to micro-communities, niche creators, and hyper-local narratives. Brands that know how to navigate this complexity—not just broadcast into it—will own the next decade.

An inclusive marketing strategy helps you:

• Build brand trust in markets others neglect
• Create content that resonates across channels and cultures
• Recruit talent that reflects your customer base
• Avoid reputational risk from cultural missteps
• Future-proof your campaigns for evolving social norms

This isn’t just about what people see. It’s about what they feel—and whether they see themselves in the future you’re selling.

At its core, inclusive marketing is a test of how well a brand listens, learns, and evolves. It reveals whether you see underrepresented audiences as an afterthought—or as the engine of future growth. Consumers are watching. So are employees. So is the market. Inclusion isn’t something you “do” once a year. It’s something you build—systematically, sincerely, and with the same strategic rigor you apply to every other part of your business. Because in the markets that matter most, the default customer is no longer default. They’re dynamic, discerning, and ready to reward the brands that see them fully.

And here’s the truth few brand leads admit aloud: the hardest part of inclusive marketing isn’t representation. It’s relinquishing outdated assumptions about who matters most. It’s building campaigns that center someone other than your historical core—and trusting that they are not just present, but powerful.

It’s not just your creative that needs to shift. It’s your boardroom, your briefings, your metrics of success. Representation is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s a mirror—and a measure. It shows who you are, how far you’ve come, and whether your business is built for who’s next. Your future market is already watching. Are you speaking their language—or just hoping they’ll adapt to yours?