How brands can win big with inclusion strategy

Identity is an increasingly central driver of consumer purchases, even as diversity suffers backlash in some parts of the world. Here’s how brands can get it right.

Sep 05, 2025, 12:52 IST8 min

Despite pushback against diversity initiatives, particularly in the United States’ corporate and higher education realms, brands tapping into consumers’ desire for more diverse identity representation can reap substantial commercial advantages.

One study found that brands using inclusive advertising benefit from real commercial growth: They experience increases of 3.5 percent in short-term sales, 16.5 percent in longer-term sales and 15 percent in customer loyalty. For instance, Mattel’s Barbie saw revenues grow 63 percent from 2015 to 2022 following the adoption of a brand-wide inclusive strategy to attract new audience segments.

Step 1: Identity Audit

Start by mapping the identity of your existing and potential customer segments. Ask yourself how these identity profiles influence their perception towards your brand. Then, identify fixed elements of the brand’s DNA (such as heritage and core values) and fluid elements (be it messaging or aesthetics) to see what can be adapted or improved. Specifically, pay attention to these three dimensions:

Go beyond generic segmentation and segment audiences using identity-specific factors to understand how different groups identify with your brand or its category. These can include values, interests and lifestyle choices (such as sustainability-minded consumers or luxury aspirants), degree of acculturation for immigrant populations, and cultural identity orientations.

Scan and analyse social trends and tensions that could be relevant for your current and future brand identity – from the level of political polarisation to calls for social justice around certain issues. Uncover simmering tensions through social listening, ethnographic studies or consultations with cultural experts.

Take Bud Light. The American beer brand once tried to redesign its brand identity and broaden its appeal through various campaigns, including an advertisement featuring a transgender influencer. Unfortunately, Bud Light hadn’t fully assessed how much tension the shift could generate among its long-standing core market – conservative blue-collar beer drinkers. This put it in a vulnerable position as core consumers felt alienated, while the intended new audience appeared indifferent. Sales dropped by over 20 percent.

Assess stretch potential by evaluating how compatible the brand is with new identity segments. Determine which attributes are sacrosanct and which can evolve, then develop strategies accordingly. For instance, a legacy luxury brand might find its “exclusivity” narrative clashes with an inclusion push unless carefully reinterpreted.

Bud Light’s attempt to shift its identity failed to bridge existing and prospective audiences. Instead of commercial growth, it got cultural dissonance and backlash. In contrast, Modelo, known for its Mexican lager, audited carefully: it segmented US Hispanic consumers by region, age and acculturation. Understanding the cultural nuances allowed it to expand its market with clarity on which aspects of its identity were fixed – those rooted in cultural authenticity, heritage and brand story – and which could be tweaked without alienating its core. As such, Modelo adapted its messaging to highlight values like grit and ambition that resonated across demographics. It also launched English-language campaigns and partnered with mainstream platforms to engage younger and non-Hispanic audiences.

These examples demonstrate how auditing identity divides can expose incompatibilities between brands and new customer segments that no marketing execution can overcome. Conducting an identity audit in the right way will save brands millions of dollars and help steer campaigns in more fruitful directions.

Step 2: Identity Test

No matter how sound an identity audit is, messaging can be misinterpreted. Testing enables brands to use audience feedback to refine tone, visuals and narrative, catching misalignments early and preventing costly backlashes and wasted ad spend. A stakeholder map is a great starting point. Stakeholders aren’t strictly allies or adversaries; they should be seen as vital voices that help amplify impact or signal risks. The idea is to identify and consult key stakeholders on three key factors relating to an identity shift:

Interpretability: Test the messaging to assess whether the audience is interpreting it correctly and if it’s aligned with the brand’s creative legacy. For example, when Louis Vuitton (LV) sought to shift its brand identity closer to youth culture and streetwear aesthetics, it appointed Virgil Abloh as creative director in 2018. But prior to the appointment, it conducted deep surveys with key stakeholders to uncover: Would new audiences understand the identity change associated with hiring someone like Abloh? Could Abloh’s appointment unlock new brand territories without compromising LV’s luxury positioning?

Identity testing conducted before appointing Abloh enabled targeted adaptations in LV’s messaging and strategy. Notably, LV directly addressed stakeholders’ concerns about the brand’s understanding of new audiences. It launched the “Coming of Age” campaign, bridging high fashion with youth culture, featuring diverse young models in urban settings. At the same time, it reassured traditional clients by emphasising Abloh’s training under Maison Margiela and previous collaborations with artists like Takashi Murakami in press materials, framing his work as “heritage in dialogue with rebellion”.

This layered strategy proved profitable. Just one year after Abloh joined LV, the conglomerate announced a 16 percent revenue increase during the first quarter of 2019 year-on-year.

Differentiation: Any shift in identity should help differentiate the brand from its competitors. Before execution, testing with trend-sensitive consumers and relevant media can help brands assess how such shifts will be perceived by the market in relation to competitors’ positioning.

Deliverability: Ensure that the new brand vision and identity are well-represented in store environments, customer interactions and product storytelling. Testing with stakeholders such as sales teams, merchandisers and marketing specialists can help brands gauge and improve effectiveness of the actual implementation.

Finally, it’s worth noting that digital tools can help brands probe and collect feedback from stakeholders at scale early on in the process and reduce the risks of an identity shift. These insights may include quantitative data such as behavioural tendencies and preferences, alongside qualitative information like perceived authenticity and emotional resonance.

Step 3: Identity Integration

Integration ensures that identity considerations survive beyond a single campaign, and the new brand identity is incorporated across the organisation. Long-term integration typically involves taking action on three fronts:

Build infrastructure for incentives and decision-making:

Through rewiring incentives and adopting new KPIs tied to the identity shift, brands can build a new infrastructure to get buy-in across business functions while holding teams accountable. These include setting KPIs around cultural fluency and ensuring a percentage of product teams are trained in identity literacy. It also helps to build team rotation mechanisms and include diverse members in product launch teams, embedding diversity into everyday decision-making.

Forge partnerships to strengthen the new identity:

To make inclusion a brand-wide mandate, form new partnerships or adapt existing ones to align with the identity shift. These partnerships should go beyond superficial, one-off engagements and, instead, showcase the brand’s deep commitment to walking the talk on its new strategy.

The transformation of British Vogue is a best-in-class example. When Edward Enninful took over as editor-in-chief in 2017, he inherited a legacy publication struggling to shift towards inclusivity and stay relevant to an evolving readership. Rather than simply launching isolated diversity-focused campaigns, he executed a brand-wide identity shift and integrated its new inclusive identity into every aspect of its strategy, including partnerships.

Enninful collaborated with institutions like The Prince’s Trust (now The King’s Trust) – a UK charity supporting disadvantaged youths – to co-create content featuring young working-class creatives. This reinforced British Vogue’s identity shift from an elite fashion authority to an inclusive platform by amplifying underrepresented voices, allowing it to maintain its luxury positioning while making the identity shift a core brand asset.

Incorporate the new identity into governance DNA:

Brands should institutionalise the identity change through their hiring and leadership practices. Management teams that reflect and understand the communities the brand seeks to serve are more likely to foster an integrative strategy.

In the case of British Vogue, Enninful diversified his staff at all levels such that his team represented a wide range of voices and viewpoints. Thanks to the identity integration, British Vogue achieved a 75 percent increase in digital traffic and a 23 percent increase in physical circulation in the UK from 2017 to 2022, outperforming most of its competitors at the time.

Entering a conversation is not enough, and simply showing up in campaigns without a credible, long-term connection to an identity space can feel opportunistic and alienating. Brands must consistently and intentionally reinforce an identity shift by aligning their business practices with the segments they seek to serve, creating a solid foundation on which their new brand identity can be built.

The future of identity branding

Identity branding presents both opportunities and challenges. Brands must navigate tensions while recognising that changing demographics will increasingly influence consumer choices. This pressure drives marketers to act. Yet, missteps in identity branding persist. Successful brands understand that identity branding goes beyond labels and checklists; it requires a structured approach to achieving cultural and creative relevance.

Indeed, identity branding is no longer merely a reputational or moral imperative; it’s increasingly recognised as a growth strategy. Our framework can help brands meet customers where they are, reflect the richness of their identities and build a loyal base that grows alongside demographic change. The payoff is significant: more resilient brands, deeper customer trust and a competitive edge in a world where identity is increasingly important.

The authors would like to thank Cici Zhang for her editorial input.

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