Inclusive media planning

What’s next for Wavemaker?

In response to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and in the knowledge that criticisms around the lack of representation in our industry are not new news, we’ve started to unpick all stages of the planning and buying process to evaluate where representation of diverse groups is falling short.

Our tools

To understand where data is missing, incomplete or inconsistent, we did a deep dive into the tools we use to plan and buy media, highlighting where our data is causing blind spots in media planning for diverse audiences.

This has shown that offline media channels have difficulty reporting certain audiences (i.e. TV and radio) are unable to report on LGBTQ+ or Religious (ex. Christian Audiences). Meanwhile, in digital, we’re prevented from targeting anyone using what the industry deems to be ‘protected characteristics’ meaning that any targeting of audiences by ethnicity, sexual preference, etc. has to be done contextually and cannot be accessed by first-party data.

Channel index against diverse groups

To allow us to pre-empt where plans may under-deliver. Initial findings show that TV delivery under-delivers against Multicultural or Minority Ethnic groups (MoEMG), Radio will naturally under-deliver across C2DE, Disabled and MoEMG and OOH under-delivers against both C2DE and Disabled audiences versus all adults but is in line for both LQBTQ+ and Religious (ex. Christian).

Evaluate media consumption

Followed by an industry-wide conversation with media partners and channel bodies to identify the less mainstream media properties serving diverse communities that are excluded from planning tools.

Action plan

We will develop an action plan applicable, from client briefing right through to implementational planning, to enable planners to be better informed about how media plans deliver against diverse audiences and empower clients to plug any gaps where necessary

Looking ahead, Wavemaker will be putting the wheels in motion for a review of how diverse media plans are for all clients. Whilst we understand that not all briefs require explicit targeting, we feel it’s important to understand how any plan naturally delivers to ensure that no-one is being unintentionally excluded when buying broadcast channels.

Further to this, we will also be challenging both internally and externally on the need to look further into representation in research projects and planning, as well as facilitating both qualitative and quantitative research to ensure that the voices of diverse groups are able to shape developments in survey data, media consumption information and research pieces.