Informing the debate, measuring the outcomes
In 2020, we delivered a number of projects to bring our I&D commitments into our clients' organisations. Kantar's specialist Inclusion & Diversity offer includes inclusion insights to better understand under-serviced populations and the issues that matter to them; inclusion marketing to identify how to engage with target populations and build the right marketing capacity, and inclusion metrics to measure and monitor progress across stakeholder audiences.
Kantar developed The Inclusion Index with a mission to enable organisations to understand, track and measure their own progress in developing an inclusive and diverse workplace on a global scale.
This unique tool was created by harnessing the power of 88 million research-ready respondents within an award-winning survey design to gather truthful answers of how people feel about their current roles, responsibilities and workplaces. In doing so, Kantar has built a vast normative data set that covers over 24 different industries with over 18,000 respondents across 14 countries, which will progress alongside society as it evolves.
The Inclusion Index offers access to a tangible metric that can help identify gaps in a business and understand what needs to be addressed. Kantar is uniquely positioned to support business in this space, through leveraging our years of experience and understanding of people’s behaviours and implicit responses, along with our methodology that includes Factor Analysis modelling and our consulting capabilities that help organisations to understand the implications of the results and create a roadmap towards a more inclusive company.
The latest data shows:
Spotlight on: Mental Health in the Workplace
Spotlight on: Racial Equality in the workplace
Spotlight on: Disability in the Workplace
In a report published in collaboration with the VEA (association for creative agencies), Kantar Netherlands analysed 475 Dutch ads from 2019 to give an objective review of how gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and disability are portrayed in advertising. The report has helped to grow our knowledge of discrimination and unconscious bias and to partner with our clients to better understand stereotypes in advertising.
Kantar has also proudly joined a coalition of 28 leading UK advertisers, broadcasters and creative agencies to launch the Unstereotype Alliance UK National Chapter. Convened by UN Women, the United Nations entity for women’s empowerment, the new advertising coalition aims to tackle harmful stereotypes in UK advertising and media content. The initiative will focus on encouraging diverse, inclusive and non-stereotypical representations of marginalised groups, initially focusing on the experiences of women of colour.
Kantar is delighted to support this important initiative that will be pivotal in landing change within the UK championing the advertising industry to act as a force for good. This is a reconfirmation of Kantar’s commitment to gender equality, building on the What Women Want initiative that Kantar launched in 2018.
We have been developing our ad testing database to look at inclusion and diversity and can now support FMCG brands to measure the inclusiveness of their advertising by incorporating inclusion measures into our Link ad testing.
'What Women Want?' pop-up in London at the beginning of 2020
How comfortable is society with female leadership?
That is the central question that the Reykjavik Index for Leadership looks to answer. The annual study, which was launched in 2018, measures the extent to which men and women are viewed equally in terms of suitability for positions of leadership.
The Index is scored out of 100; a score of 100 means that across society, there is complete agreement that men and women are equally suited to leadership in all sectors. Any score of less than 100 is an indication of prejudice. Our explicit goal is a world in which an Index score of 100 is the norm; this would be a world where men and women will have an equal opportunity to lead. In 2020, research was carried out in the G7 countries as well as India, Kenya and Nigeria, asking about leadership across 23 sectors, from childcare to engineering, pharma to banking. The 2020/2021 report, published in partnership with Women Political Leaders, found that as society grapples with the devastating impacts of COVID-19, society has not become more progressive in how it views equality in leadership. The most recent research also found that there is enduring dissonance between the views of men and women across society – in every country measured, women were more likely than men to perceive women and men as equally suited to lead. The report also showed new findings in the views of younger people, specifically younger men that are much less progressive than their female peers, or older people in the populations. Young men (aged 18-34) in Italy and Germany, in particular, have Index scores significantly lower than young women and similar findings were shown in the US, UK and France.
As part of the UK’s inaugural Lesbian Visibility Week, Kantar, in collaboration with DIVA magazine, launched the biggest ever study focusing on the lives of LGBTQI women. The research, for which Kantar spoke to 1423 women living in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland and Germany, unveils insights into the opportunities and challenges faced by LGBTQI women.
For the fourth year of our partnership with Campaign Asia, Kantar investigated perceptions and experiences of equality in media and marketing workplaces across APAC between July and August 2020. 345 adults from 18 different countries working in the industry participated anonymously in the study.
We looked beyond gender issues to understand the broader inequalities that are holding people back in the media, marketing and advertising industry in the region. The report is a bleak insight into the frustrations many in the industry face around gender, race and mental health.
The industry has seen very little diversity and inclusion progress in Asia Pacific since the last four years, with gender inequality continuing to rise and racial bias still prevalent with many still feeling they must conform to certain ways of working and behaving. This has been further exacerbated by the pandemic, with mental and physical well-being a big concern.
