Data reveals a drop in the presence of fat, black and LGBTQIAPN+ people in campaigns.
A recent survey entitled “Diversity in brand communication on social networks”, carried out by SA365, Elife and Buzzmonitor, analyzed the presence of different demographic groups on the social networks of the 20 main advertisers in Brazil, covering a total of 54 brands. The publications were collected from platforms X (formerly Twitter), Instagram e Facebook throughout 2023.
Brand publications continue to be dominated by men, an index that saw a slight increase in presence in 2023, while women and people of color suffered slight drops. Breno Soutto, Intelligence Director at Buzzmonitor, highlighted that the artificial intelligence used in the research may have limitations in accurately identifying ethnicities, despite the quality controls applied.
Asians and elderly people rose two percentage points in presence, now representing 8.6% and 3.1% of publications, respectively. The presence of fat people fell from 1.9% to 0.9%, while the presence of LGBTQIAPN+ fell from 4.9% to 1.9%.
The analysis of sexual diversity has faced challenges due to the impossibility of determining sexual orientation based on appearance alone. Contextual indicators, such as same-sex couples or symbols of diversity, have been used, but artificial intelligence may not recognize openly homosexual public figures.
The research also highlighted the disparity between diversity in advertising and the Brazilian population. Even when underrepresented groups did appear, they were usually accompanied by white people. Black people were accompanied by white people in 31.9% of publications, Asians in 31%, and indigenous people in 66.7%.
Men only appeared with other men in 69% of the posts, while women only appeared with other women in 57.6% of the images. With regard to sexual diversity, 35.7% of people identified as sexually diverse were women and 64.2% were men.
The research also identified the sectors where different demographic groups were most portrayed: men were more present in retail, women in hygiene and beauty, black people in telecommunications, Asians in entertainment, elderly people in pharmaceuticals, fat people in banking, LGBTQIAPN+ in entertainment, people with disabilities in telecommunications and indigenous people in entertainment.
The research reveals that, despite some improvements, there is still a significant disparity between the diversity in brands’ advertising campaigns and the demographic composition of the Brazilian population. Brands need to continue working to better represent the diversity of society in their communications.
*With information from EXAME
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