Why Inclusive Marketing Outperforms AI (and Boosts Sales)

0:00I think the great thing about getting older is you get the fuck it factor. Oh yeah, my nan taught me that. How do you as a leader keep your team motivated? Yeah, I mean it is really challenging. There was a moment about three years ago, Jo, when I was just like, I'm really out of my depth. Ali Hannon is the founder and executive director of Creative Equals, an award-winning organisation helping brands like PepsiCo, Mars and McDonald's put inclusion at the heart of marketing. This year we're actually regressing in the way that we're depicting women. What do you mean? 71 % of our ads in the UK, women are still shown in domestic settings.

0:37You don't see disabled people in adverts. Only 4 % of ads have disabled people. Muslim women, for example, only 19 % of adverts feature Muslim women. And of course, you know, 87 % of Muslim women say that they would much rather buy a product if they see themselves in the ads. How have you navigated this year yourself personally? I'm not going to lie. It's been a tough year. Hello and welcome back to the Courageous Leaders podcast. I am very, very excited today to have the amazing Aline Hallin on the show today. Ali, welcome. Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to be here as well. I'm over the moon. I've followed your work for so many years now.

1:15And I remember when I first met you years and years ago when you first started Creative Equals and I was like, oh my God. And you have been one of those women that has been an inspiration that's helped me do my own business and believe in myself. So first of all, I just want to say thank you. And thank you for your time today. Oh, it's an honour to hear that. Yeah, thank you. It means a lot sitting opposite you today. And I really want to start by saying, or finding out what has been a courageous moment for you. Every day is a courageous moment for me. Actually, this is my very first in-person podcast.

1:47So it's a courageous moment for me. So thank you for making it feel so easy. I find it easier to talk about the work that we do than I do to talk about myself. So thanks for having me on the podcast. Yeah, I guess a courageous moment for me, and every day it feels like a courageous moment, was setting up Creative Equals to be the change that we needed to see in the sector. And I'm so proud of the practice that we've built up. I think it's one of the industry's best kept secrets, but we've built up one of the most innovative, forward-thinking, inclusive marketing practices across the sector. And when I look at some of the clients that we've got, you know, they're the kind of clients that when I was a junior creative, I would have given my right arm to work on.

2:32So we worked with the likes of PepsiCo and McDonald's and Mars and Halion and Racket and, you know, a bunch of some of the world's top brands to really get them to think about what it means to put inclusive, inclusion into their whole marketing value chain. So I couldn't be prouder of the work that we do. And particularly in 2025, I really couldn't be prouder of the fact that we're still here, we're still, you know, championing this agenda and still really driving what we call the new ROI. It's a good way to look at ROI, which is the return on inclusion. Nice. Yeah, you like that? I do. The ex-copywriter of me is like, yeah, it really works, the return on inclusion, because it really matters to our people and to society and to all the audiences that we serve.

3:20Congratulations on what you did. And I know you say best kept secret from the outside world. I see you everywhere. So I think you've really got the attention of why this is so important. I'm really curious to know, so you were a phenomenal copywriter before you set up Creative Equals. Did you know you were going to be a business owner? Was this something you set out to do? No, and it's one of the things I found the hardest. So I grew up in the sector as a digital creative, you know, specializing in innovation and creativity. And, you know, Creative Equals sort of become an idea about 2015, 2016.

3:55It took me a couple of years to have the courage to turn my side hustle into my main hustle. And I'll talk about that in a moment. But actually, it's been such a, you know, I had never, I had no idea that it would become a business. And so, of course, learning about business has been quite a journey. Things like payroll and insurance and tax and accountants and everything that comes with being a business owner is just something I have found pretty challenging. You know, particularly as someone who is a creative and likes to sit in that space of, you know, innovation and an idea, etc. To actually sit back and go, what does it mean to be a leader of a business, to be a leader of people, to be a leader of a vision?

4:38set a strategy and then follow it through. It's been something that hasn't come easily. I've got to be honest. Yeah, and it is tough. Having now done it myself, it is tough, especially when for me it's like I wanted to become a coach and then I realised that 80 % of my time was actually marketing, accountancies, pay off taxes. It's like I'm actually only coaching 20 % of my time. This isn't right. So what you actually go in to do, the business side of it takes so much from you in terms of time, especially when you're setting up. People listening to this now going, oh, you know, I've got all these ideas, I'm thinking of doing it.

5:12But they are worried about how they do the business side. What helped you to get your head around it? What did you put in place? And what are some of the learnings you could pass on? Yeah, I think the key is getting a really good team around you. And I'm lucky enough to have an incredible senior leadership team. And actually, there was a moment about three years ago, Jo, when I was just like, I'm really out of my depth. I really need some help. and I hired a growth consultant actually, a guy called Dan Egerton from Actors who really helped me begin to shape the business. And I think also one thing I had found that wasn't working was you can't underestimate the value of good operations.

5:50And actually ops is sort of like the wind that sort of flows underneath and through the business. And actually having strong ops was something that we took, I think, a little bit too long to get in place. So we were quite messy when we first started out so it's like a really messy startup to begin but yeah I think good ops processes practices structure all those things that creatives naturally you know aren't that don't lean that I was 20 years as an operations director so you're now talking my language you must be so orderly and structured in your business and I would imagine spreadsheets and charts and things but I think it's interesting because this is where maybe we're quite different is that side comes very naturally to me.

6:31But the visionary side and setting the strategy is where I really need to work hard on. I think the vision strategy for you is a bit, is that a bit more natural for you? Yeah, it feels a lot easier. And I think also it's been quite fun, you know, having, or not fun, it's probably the wrong language, but it's been a really compelling journey to take everything that I've learned and known about building up a great brand to apply that to our business as well. So to think about, you know, the way that we speak, the kind of things that we speak about, the kind of events that we host, the kind of people we want to have leading those events, the kind of conversations we want to have, all of that is my natural sweet spot.

7:08And so I really enjoy that side of the business. Signing off payroll, sitting down, doing all of that kind of stuff. That's got to be done. But it's nothing that I don't love that side of it at all. And what inspires me so much is the action and the follow through you had. Like you've had this idea and then you went around because I remember I was at McCann when you came into McCann. You went around all the agencies. You know, you need to listen. You need to come on board. And you've got everyone behind you on this course. And there was something about you that people were like, I believe in you.

7:43I trust you. We're going to follow you. Where do you think that's come from? Where's this energy to stand for something come from in you? I think actually just to click into the double tap on the agency piece. I think for me, one of the things that we did at the outset is we started collecting the data. And also, as I'd freelanced around the sector and had many jobs within the sector for the last 20 years, I knew a lot of people that I'd worked with. And actually, one of the challenges that the sector has is back in 1999, when I first started, just 3 % of creative directors were women. So everybody intrinsically knew that it was a challenge.

8:21And then actually by 2014, that figure had gone up to 12%. So it had taken an entire decade to move in 9%. And not only just looking at gender, once you also go into intersectionality and you look at women of colour, etc., the numbers are just so low. So actually going around and knocking on doors and saying, we have a challenge because the real challenge is we have this phrase, who makes the work, shapes the work. and if you don't have diversity at your creative table, you don't have a range of different types of thinkers from different types of backgrounds, the work can be really stereotypical and stereotypes can be really harmful.

9:01They can really limit the kind of people that we, you know, portray within society and I truly believe it's our job to really reflect all the different types of audiences that we serve. So I think actually going around like, you know, because it's actually quite a small industry and I think of it as like a big village and, you know, once you sort of know a few people who know a few people. It was quite, you know, it was just became a mission for me to go around and see every executive creative director, every HR director, and then think about also presenting them with the data behind it as well.

9:32And then of course, one of the things we first set up was what we called the creative equality standard, which was a data model that could really look at, you know, how not just a creative department was shaped up, but the whole business. and once you could sit on the data of who gets access to opportunity, who gets access to the new business pitch table, who gets access to training, all of those kind of things within a business, you could really understand what kind of levers that you could pull to make a change. And I remember you from McCann and I remember going to see, was it Rob? Rob and Ollie.

10:08Yeah, Rob and Ollie, yeah. And they were right on board. Immediately. Immediately, immediately. And I remember talking to their team and, you know, everybody had known it was a challenge, but it was actually labelling it and then thinking of the actions that we were going to take to actually make a positive change, not just on gender, but on all types of diversity. Just a quick reminder, if you haven't already, to please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel. It's a small action that makes a big difference. You'll be the first to know when new episodes drop and your support helps us create meaningful content for leaders like you.

10:45I'd also love to hear from you. So if you have any thoughts, questions or ideas, pop them into the comments. And if you're curious about how my leadership coaching or training could support you or your team, just drop me a DM and we'll set up a call. Thanks so much. Now let's get back to the episode. For me, that takes courage. It's one thing to have an idea, but the courage then to go and really get the stats and the effort and the time to go and let me actually go and find that data to prove what I'm noticing. And then the courage to go, can I have a meeting with you and I need you to listen to me and we need to do something about this.

11:23where where is that in you because I know I've got some ideas bubbling but I know they're just ideas at the moment and I've got this thing of how do I cross that line into making it a thing that is it is a it becomes a cause to actually take action on you have done that how did you do that I think it is when you see the thing that you want to change it can make you feel so frustrated it and all the feelings and it quite angry but then there's no point having those feelings unless you're going to actually translate them into positive change and then off the back of it you have to really think about what are the actual levers that we can pull to make the change so one of the first things and actually one thing I'm I think was quite a courageous moment for me by the way is I saved up 5k and actually what happened was the government equalities office put out a grant that you could apply for to set up returners programs.

12:20So back in 2018, a government equalities office fund got put out and I saved up 5k and applied for a grant. And I won the grant, which was a£65 ,000 grant. And off the back of that, we set up the first returners program for the sector called Creative Comeback. Then Diageo were incredible. They came in and match funded it and they still match fund it today or they still fund it today. Actually, we're the only program still going off that 2018 Government Equalities Office program. And we've run the program in New York and Mumbai and the UK even again this year. And we've been able to, you know, I think influence the lives of over 300 plus women and get them back into careers that they really, that they've, you know, that they've missed out on having.

13:16Because one of the big challenges we have with our sector is there's this phrase, you're only as good as your last piece of work. So if you drop out for a couple of years, then it's just almost impossible to get in. And the other group that we saw there was massive challenges on is in the disability space. And that actually came from this one woman who came on our program back in 2020. And she was deaf and she had been unemployed for three years. And she was unemployed just because nobody would, you know, once they found out that she was deaf, there was every other excuse not to give her an interview.

13:57And actually really all she needed was a piece of tech. So we had a real moment going, okay, of course there's lots of different groups who face obstacles and barriers to entry into the sector. And so really setting the next program up for Disabled Creators was what we've done. And actually we're having our next one in New York in November, which is going to be incredible. And it's run by, I have to give her a shout out, the incredible Emma Murphy is our communities director. and yeah we've been able to like I say you know really make sure that we can actually take that action to drive diversity at the table of course we could get frustrated by the fact that women are often you know at that critical juncture just as they're stepping up into their you know into their leadership roles life comes along it's not just children it's cancer it's caring it's all sorts of things you know make women leave their jobs and unless we give them pathways back in they don't come back in and then we lose some of our best talent and I have to tell you one thing that I feel very frustrated about at the moment is we've started to really make great uh great strides and along with She Says and Bloomin' and you know there's sort of like a whack-oil there's a bunch of you know other uh organizations within the sector you know we could really push up the number of female creative directors to uh 30 percent in 2022 but this year Joe, it's gone backwards and it's gone back down to 25%.

15:25So we've, you know, which is still, when you think about it, when you think about the entire sector in the UK, the fact that only 25 % of our creative directors, so they are the people who shape, arbitrate and create all the, you know, advertising and media that we see, are women. You know, we still have such a long way to go, you know, particularly when we know, you know, female consumers are such a large part of the audiences that we speak to. So what do you think's causing that? What's caused the step back? Oh, it's a good question. I think one of the challenges that we often see in terms of, you know, one of the, you know, let's face it, this year has been a massive, a very challenging year.

16:05There's been a lot of disruption, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of restructures, particularly in the holding companies, WPP, Omnicom, you know, with the merger, etc. So there's been, you know, a lot of restructuring going on and typically redundancy processes are biased and the way often that they're conducted and people often don't think about who's going to be left behind after they finish doing their redundancy strike you know the way that they conduct redundancies and they don't keep things like you know for example one of the things that they might look at in terms of a redundancy is contribution to the culture and you know somebody who might be working from home more than somebody who might be coming into the office might get less you know less uh isn't it less a less score yeah thank you um so so you know ultimately that will mean that they'll leave the business as opposed to other other other people so there's a lot of bias there's a lot of bias you do wonder is where we are now hybrid have other things caught up like the way you do redundancies have they caught up with the new way of working or are they still done exactly how we used to do them when everyone is in the office you just wonder how many people have adapted involved certain things to the new world of how we work now um and unfortunately and i'll put it out there so majority of the redundancy processes i've been through it's used as a clean sweep let's get rid of the dead work dead work dead wood versus actually a fair scoring system yeah it is very much of maybe this person's just had a bad month or they're just not in favor at the moment I don't I don't know if we've done the redundancy process has ever been completely fair I don't know what you think yeah I I'm gonna I'm gonna echo you and say that say that I completely agree I think putting equity into the way that we do our redundancy uh uh layoffs you know is is is a key factor in the fact that we've gone backwards this year yeah what do you think in terms of being a female creative director now do do they still feel that there is still that fight to get to the top now and that fight to have voices heard or is that space there but we just don't have enough people doing it I think there are some incredible voices in the sector at the moment there's Rebecca Roundtree who's doing get shit done I don't know whether you've met Rebecca not met her but I know she's doing some amazing work she says and Laura Jordan Baumbach you know The founder, they continue to do amazing work across the sector.

18:38I guess it's funny for me because we work less in that world now because we work more upstream in the world of brands. But one of the reasons that we made the shift into the world of brands was because we could see that if we could influence upstream in the world of marketing and marketeers and CMOs, who could then think about who they have throughout their whole supply chain in terms of diversity, then it would make a big impact on who's actually in the creative agency if you've got somebody who really wants to make sure they've got that diversity in the room as part of their core briefing and business approach.

19:17And actually it's been quite interesting. I won't say the name of the brand but we have been measuring supply chains for one of the brands that we work with for the last five years and I think it's really fascinating when you look at what that looks like across 400 different types of agencies. And of course, some types of agencies are a lot better than others. Like PR typically is very female-centric, often quite white and middle class, however. And then you've got digital agencies, which are often more tech-focused and tech still has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality. So it's quite mixed depending on the type of agency, but creative agencies still seem to have a long way to go and seem to be regressing.

20:02And at the same time, it's super interesting because this year we're actually regressing in the way that we're depicting women. What do you mean? So this year, some statistics have come out from Kantar that show that in 71 % of our ads in the UK, women are still shown in domestic settings, doing domestic things. And of course, we can see that only 2%, or actually less than 2%, of women over 60 are actually shown in our ads. And so if we have that philosophy of who makes the work, shapes the work and shows up in the work, then again, we have a long way to go in terms of, you know, depicting modern portrayals of multifaceted women in real life.

20:47And at the same time, you know, we also have a long way to go in depicting the way that we're depicting male men as well. So on the flip side, 72 % of men are shown as financial providers, and they're shown as being emotionally distant. So when you think about the way that we're portraying gender in our advertising, well, that's going to have an impact back in society. If we believe you can't be what you can't see. And actually, what we've seen from all our work is we've also seen that when you positively portray people within ads, when you really put role model representation into the way that you're showing people within the ads, you know, marketers find they have a stronger, better next day recall.

21:36It's so much better for the work. This is what frustrates me is we've got all the proof that it makes it better, but we're not changing fast enough. And we're staying set. And hearing you just reminded me, I can't remember exactly what it's called. It's either Department Q or Department HQ, a TV program recently. It was a good show, but I said to my husband, it's so sad that we're still again doing the stereotypes. You've got the female boss, great, so you're showing a woman in charge, but she's this hard-nosed, cold sort of female boss. You've got the man who's completely emotionally detached, and then everyone else is men, and then the only other woman comes across as a bit ditzy.

22:10And another woman has to tell the group of men to listen to her. And I'm like, why is it? And then I just started noticing it's playing out in every show I'm watching. Again, these biases of the gender roles. and it's just I don't know she's getting a bit boring it's just like can we be as you said like you're really looking into creativity come on we're way more creative than this let's stop repeating these patterns that maybe years ago they that's what you got the results to show worked but you've now got the result it doesn't work anymore yet we're still doing we're not I don't think it's human beings we're not very good at change are we I think naturally as human beings yeah we're not very good at change and I think the other challenge is we're just really biased and I you know that I think the whole sector has a lot of affinity bias.

22:52And that's also why we just really desperately need to diversify. So, for example, again, you don't see disabled people in adverts. Only 4 % of ads have disabled people. When it comes to Muslim women, for example, only 19 % of adverts have ever featured Muslim women. And, of course, 87 % of Muslim women say that they would much rather buy a product if they see themselves in the ads. And then when you come to LGBT representation, it's been a really difficult year for the LGBTQIA plus community. I was reading just over the weekend how much there has been a lack of ad spend within all the publications that exist.

23:32And that plays a real rollback on the way that we're funding different types of media. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, one thing we've even seen in 2025 is the presence of a lot of racism still, you know, coming out through the work. So we've recently seen an advert from Sanex where, you know, again, the advert depicts a black body being dirty, being and then the next and the next frame, it's a white clean body. And the Advertising Standards Association called that ad out for being racist and it was taken down. also Swatch did an advert around you know slanty eyes and it's just like it's 2025 people like you know just make sure that you're actually having people from the community thinking you know looking at the ads thinking about the ads and making sure that representation is positive and portrayals you know at the very least don't do harm so you know so we're still seeing a lot of you know racism I think you know within within the work as well as you know challenges around sexism, gender equality, homophobia, you know, all the things.

24:43It's a lot. It's a lot to do. And then on top of that, AI coming in. Yeah. How are you, what's your feeling towards what you're seeing with AI now in terms of the world that you're in? On top of that, I'm going to just flip around because I'm conscious that I've been talking around some of the challenges. But, you know, the opportunity is this. So if I said to you, instead of investing in an AI tool, I had an incredible tool that was going to deliver you a 3 % sales uplift on your brand tomorrow. And over the next 18 months, you would get a 16.8 % sales uplift. It would increase your pricing power by 32%.

25:25It would make you 35 % more preferred, a more preferred brand and this was a tool, you know, would you buy it, Jo? Yeah. How? Where is it? How much? Well, that is inclusive advertising. So, you know, the irony is there's this huge, you know, kind of stampede towards AI. But, you know, the reality is actually inclusive marketing is one of your best investments. And there's a great quote from Mark Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at Procter & Gamble. And he says, you know, over the last three years, one of the ways that they have been able to grow their brands, in fact, half their growth has come from including previously excluded audiences.

26:12So for marketers, you know, one of their big challenges is, you know, we think that we talk to like everybody. And actually really because of bias and the way that insights get curated, we only talk to, say, 60 % of the people, you know, who are in the middle of that bell curve. and forget about the people often on the margins and often the marginalized. But the real opportunity is to double down and bring those people in. So rather than going after your competitors, do that. But of course, and one of the big challenges with AI is it's so biased. So while everybody's sort of on this gold rush to go and bring in all these tools, the challenge that we've got is actually that the bias that's already built into our systems is just going to be perpetuated with AI.

27:00I think we were talking about this on the pre-call, that it feels like when I'm looking over LinkedIn, even in the meta AI influencers, even in a recruitment ad that I was targeted with the other day, even in the Wimbledon influencer that we saw, I can't remember her name, but we are just getting blonde Barbie cookie cutter woman coming through. So, you know, that is the bias of AI, slim, blonde, Western looking, et cetera. So teams have to really double down and think about how they're prompting for inclusion, how they're building AI for inclusion, how they're thinking about their data sets and making sure that we aren't going to lose.

27:46I mean, we've still got so much ground to gain. And yet we're at this, you know, critical inflection that unless we think about it now as AI systems come in, we could end up, you know, putting more stereotypes out into the world and the market. So yeah, it's challenging times, but you know, the opportunity is huge. Yeah. If we think about exclusive marketing and all the things that it can do, the opportunity to do, you know, incredible work, have social impact, represent everybody that we serve, you know, make sure that you can be what you can see, you know, happens for everybody and put role models out into society.

28:27That's the vision, you know, that is living out a human rights framework, you know, that everyone has the right to live free from discrimination. You know, that's how we should be really rolling in 2025. I can just see how important this is to you as you talk about it. Just a quick reminder, if you haven't already, to please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel. It's a small action that makes a big difference. You'll be the first to know when new episodes drop and your support helps us create meaningful content for leaders like you. I'd also love to hear from you. So if you have any thoughts, questions or ideas, pop them into the comments.

29:06And if you're curious about how my leadership coaching or training could support you or your team, just drop me a DM and we'll set up a call. Thanks so much. Now let's get back to the episode. This year, as you said, has been a challenge for you and within your business with all the noise that's happening in different governments and stuff in this area. For you personally, how have you navigated this year in terms of from your business point of view, probably being disheartened with what you're seeing, keeping the fight to keep going? How have you navigated this year yourself personally? I'm not going to lie.

29:43It's been a tough year. but I think with the work that we do obviously we can't control you know it's all it's that thing of what can't what's in my control I you know we can't control the fact that we've got Trump and government you know in the in in you know in the U.S. and you know actually just looking at what's going on over there it's it's you know it's it's pretty ugly and you know and you know we can't control reform and the rise of all the things that are going on at the moment but what we can control is and you know it's one thing I say to the team you know every other week is actually you know we have to redefine what we you know we're never going to be able to control the macro forces that are at play but we can control the work you know everything that we do with the work and our work you know for you know for me like where I'm off to Geneva today we're working with a team.