Inclusive Campaign Spotlight- #MakeMoneyEqual

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Source: Starling Bank and Lensi Photography 



What do you do as a brand when you see your target audience being misrepresented in media? What if that is 50% of your target demographic? Or your key demographic not being spoken to using the right language or images in the wider media? Would you just let things be as it is currently and only post something on one day of the year. (Hint: #IWD) and ignore the issues women face the rest of the year.
The theme for "International Women's Day" in 2022 was #BreakTheBias, where you might have seen plethora of brands posting on social media with the break the bias pose to support the campaign. The theme this year was to help create a gender equal world free of bias, stereotype and discrimination. 

And how do we plan to achieve that? Well done to everyone who posed and used the relevant hashtags on social media. But will those images/hashtags help to identify the real challenges women face or provide a solution?  

Here is a brand which truly celebrates #IWD every single day of the year. Starling Bank launched the #MakeMoneyEqual campaign in 2017 to tackle the problem of how women and men are spoken to differently about money in media and how there is bias in promotional images.

The main objective of this campaign was to tackle the issue of how women were being represented both in print/online media with money. Women were portrayed to be shown handling small amount of cash and incapable of managing financial matters. Whereas men were depicted more in control and confident. They worked alongside researchers at Brunel University, the team analysed a total of 600 photographs used for articles related to finance, money, banking & loans. The summary of the finding from this research concluded that men where shown to be making the financial decisions & women were shown counting pennies and clutching to piggy banks 

And why do you think they choose to analyse images? This is aptly answered in the report

"You know they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? - Starling Gender Representation Report"

Following on from the findings of this study Sterling Bank worked along with Lensi Photography team to pull together a refreshed image library which better represents the world we live in today and consists of images which are more inclusive towards women, men, people of colour and different age groups. 

Starling Bank are aware that creating this brand new image library is not going to solve this challenge over-night. This misrepresentation of women in media images will take time and this initiative is one step closer to help them achieve financial equality for women all around the world. They are offering these images royalty free and are expecting brands, creators and businesses to use these on their websites, ads, newspapers, magazines and social media.

This campaign will also help highlight the misrepresentation and stereotypical thinking in the wider media and for various other sectors and products. It will help challenge businesses & brands to overcome the unconscious bias which influences use of these images.

Starling Bank not only identified a problem, but also came up with a solution to overcome this challenge. Hence making this campaign more trustworthy and genuine. They showed their target audience that they "care" for them and wanted to do something to bring about real changes in perception and behaviours.

How is this campaign being measured?

Like any other campaign, this campaign would have it's usual metrics it measures itself with.
- Brand Awareness
- Reach of the story
- Backlinks to this story
- SEO
- Use of the images online by other brands and businesses
- Image Library Downloads
- Image Library Visit Numbers, Bounce Rate, Heat-Mapping
- Brand Mentions
- Email Open Rates/ Click Rates


Campaign Performance stats include:

- From the time of launch this story has reached closed to 10m
- More than 250,000 people have interacted with this campaign on social media
- Thousands of downloads of the image library
- Numerous local and national press covering this story

How you can get involved?

- Download this free image library from here.

 -Use these photos on your websites, social media posts, ads, banners, campaigns and posters if you think these images speak to your target audience/product/service. Or even to just raise awareness about this campaign. 

- Use the hashtag #MakeMoneyEqual in your post to speak about fairer and equal representation of women in the financial world

- Usage terms for the photos can be found here

- Watch & share the video here 







Sources:

https://thirdcity.co.uk/behind-the-campaign-makemoneyequal/

https://www.starlingbank.com/campaign/makemoneyequal/

https://www.starlingbank.com/news/changing-the-way-women-are-pictured-with-money/

https://financialit.net/news/money-transfers/makemoneyequal-campaign-urges-change-way-women-are-pictured-money

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/money/starling-bank-women-and-money-24156119

https://www.starlingbank.com/docs/reports-research/StarlingGenderRepresentationReport.pdf

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