Highlights from MadFest 2023 Part 3
Welcome to the third and final part of our highlights from MadFest, the UK’s biggest destination marketing festival. In Part 2, we spoke about the importance of brand purpose in turbulent times. This time, we will be looking at the role each of us in advertising play in creating a healthy media ecosystem.
Conscious advertising: the need to do more to serve underrepresented groups
Jerry Daykin, VP, Head of Global Media at Beam Suntory, emphasised that advertising is an investment in the future media ecosystem. By making informed choices about media partners, we can collectively create a healthier ecosystem encompassing four essential factors:
Environmental and sustainable
Social inclusion
Truth and governance
Quality and entertainment
For more guidance, the WFA Global Media Charter offers valuable insights.
A panel discussion called “Media Investment Activism, Doing No Harm is Not Enough, We Need to Be a Force for Good” included speakers Hannah Mirza, Founder, The Responsible Marketing Agency, Isabel Massey, VP, Global Media and Marketing, Diageo, Elizabeth Anyaegbuna, Co-Founder, 16x9 Media, Deborah Gbadamosi, CEO, Brand Advance, Maya Orr, Managing Director, Connect. The panel spoke about the importance of a diverse team when creating diverse media plans to ensure financial viability. Three critical aspects of a successful media plan emerged:
Representation - the need to be authentically inclusive
Resonance - media should mean something to the viewer
Relevance - media should be matched to viewer interests
The panel also discussed the effective use of safer, smaller publications/platforms, such as Brand Advance, to reach and advertise to underrepresented groups. Influencers, too, can play a vital role in connecting with diverse and underrepresented audiences.
How distillery is serving underrepresented groups
At distillery, we recently launched Queer Joy, which shares words of resilient wisdom from one generation to the next. We worked with charity AKT and identified that queer youth struggle to see their life past their 20s due to the lack of older queer representation.
When launching Queer Joy, we implemented a mixed media plan, collaborating with YouTube for broad reach and using Brand Advance for targeted promotion to smaller minority groups across the UK.
This approach was informed by the statistic that 56% of 18-24 year-olds in the UK do not identify as 100% heterosexual (YouGov, 2018). By choosing this strategy, we ensured inclusivity and avoided exclusion of these underrepresented groups that might have occurred with larger media partners.
That’s a wrap
MadFest left a lasting impression on our team. At distillery, we are continuously seeking innovative ways to empower diverse voices and make a positive impact on society, so it was great to learn how other brands are doing this too.
Want to know more? Let’s connect to create a positive impact.
