Inclusivity as a Hype Phenomenon in Advertising
Inclusivity is a major sociological trend, pre-empted by advertising into an inescapable paradigm surrounded by a certain frenzy.
Inclusivity is duplicated without any reflection on its strategic relevance for the brands using it.
What is the core nature of the inclusivity as seen in brand communication?
Is it a temporary « right of access » to advertising - as photographic models only - for certain categories of persons hitherto excluded from the advertising imagination?
Or are we witnessing a real shift in the behavior of brands?
From use value to the use of values
With the use of values, brands have made an ideological shift, changing the meaning of « value », previously linked to use and concrete characteristics of the product, to introduce a new discourse about values with a capital "v": aesthetic values, ethical values, etc.
Inclusivity is one of this values.
A pragmatic fiction
Through inclusivity, advertising refers to the myth of living together.
We pretend to believe in these ideological discourses of brands, or rather we half-believe them.
Samuel Coleridge defined this ambiguity as « suspended disbelief ».
3 typologies of inclusivity, by opposing expression [the communication of brands] to content [materiality of concrete acts]
Added value(s)
Brands, by offering values such as inclusivity as a free supplement also offer an « extra being », an extension of Self that individuals can make their own.
Products are no longer mere commodities, but real dispositifs, aimed at creating continuity between their material nature and some abstract properties, the supplements of meaning they confer on us.
The Have-Be dispositif
Possessions take on a prosthetic function, by making us augmented subjects, Über-mensch, Over-human in the Nietzschean sense.
Brands emphasizing values such as inclusivity sell a transmission of these values to buyers, by a sort of capillarity.
Like a billiard stroke using a rebound effect, brands propose an object, a product, now including a supplement of being likely to enrich, to augment the subject acquiring it.
Life cycle of sociological trends applied to inclusivity
1 - Weak signals the trend appears in a confidential manner, mainly in alternative culture. The term « weak signal » was coined by Igor Ansoff in 1970.
2 - Paradigm propulsion and spreading of the trend which becomes inevitable. All the organizations try to stick to it, consequently generating an acceleration of the phenomenon. Golden age of its expansion, without yet having to justify itself with any kind of proofs. Potential accusations of « washing » will come later.
3 - Saturation the age of reason for the trend. It can no longer feed on novelty alone and must provide proofs of its reality. A sign that we’ve reached this stage is the recycling of the trend itself, to maintain its interest.
4 – Regulation the trend is no longer a trend. It has exploded like a speculation bubble. Its residual part will be less active, and scrutinized by the public. If the word « inclusivity » gradually disappears, it means that the level of change is deemed satisfactory by the society.
This French advertising campaign in favor of the consumption of fruits and vegetables is recycling inclusivity by drawing a parallel between the diversity of human beings and that of vegetables [3 - Saturation phase]
The consumer society intensifies the dialogue between subject and object.
To such an extent that the duality between subject and object seems to fade, to disappear, giving way to a continuity between the two.
Some brands turn against ideological discourses to return to the simple use value of products.
This return to use value could paradoxically become a point of differentiation for brands through simplicity and modesty, narrowing down their promises to the essential.
Only this is no longer the original concept of use value that flourished in the advertising of the 60s and 70s. It is a recycled, reloaded use value, which has become a metalanguage, a solicitation of our advertising culture.
An apparent simplicity, probably the most sophisticated version of a second-degree marketing.
This cream is a feat of chemistry. Result of a skillful mixture of synthetic products, it gives you audacity, guarantees the return of the loved one and will disconcert you with its moisturizing power.
