Tackling unconscious bias in media: How Nationwide and Wavemaker lead the way with inclusive planning.

Agency: Wavemaker UK

This is not your usual awards entry, because this is not a standard campaign.

This is the story of how we shone a spotlight on our planning approach for Nationwide and challenged ourselves and others to strive for greater inclusivity.

The media landscape is subject to unconscious bias, meaning diverse audiences are too often overlooked, excluded, or underrepresented across media plans.

So when Nationwide challenged us on whether we were truly speaking to all of UK society, we embarked on a complete overhaul of every aspect of our media planning and buying and put inclusivity at the heart of our approach.

Almost 15 months later we have spent over £700k actively diversifying Nationwide’s plans; investing in smaller, diverse media partners and helping those partners build relationships with other brands too.

In doing so we have seen overall brand health increase by 18.5% amongst ethnically diverse audiences (Source: YouGov Brand Index), and we’ve helped create a more diverse and inclusive media landscape for all.

We’ve proved that inclusivity is more than just a moral imperative, it gives brands a true competitive advantage.