Inclusive Digital Marketing: What Brands Can Learn from AFCAS 🌏
Australia is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, yet much marketing content is still geared toward a single audience. That's an opportunity to fill, and a not-for-profit organization in Perth, AFCAS, which supports culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) seniors, is a good example of how to do it right. When brands get it wrong, it's not only a missed opportunity; it can lead to lost customers, reduced engagement, and content that simply doesn't work in a market as varied as Australia's.
Who is AFCAS?
The Association for Culturally Appropriate Services offers training, cultural audits, mentoring and community engagement to aged care providers across WA to help organizations understand the community they serve, not just tick a diversity box.
Here are some of the lessons for Digital Marketers:
Audiences require a cultural approach to research. Demographics such as age and location only tell half the story. Search habits, platform preferences, and tone and image responses vary by people's cultural context. Research should not be limited to the basics because a campaign that works well with one cultural group can be ineffective with another, even within the same age group.
Representation builds trust. Authentic content is content that is based on real languages, traditions, and faces. Specific, not generic, is the key to the effectiveness of AFCAS' own social content, such as celebrating Lunar New Year.
Accessibility is inclusivity. Content is accessible to a wider audience, including older users and less digitally savvy users, via plain language, clear calls to action, and multilingual options when possible. Whether it's a larger font, shorter sentences, or captioned videos, these seemingly minor details can have a huge impact on how welcoming an audience is to your brand.
Conversation beats broadcasting. AFCAS is not a one-way promotion; it's a partnership. Online is not only posting and leaving, but it's also commenting and participating in community spaces.
Bringing It into Your Own Strategy
This can be used by any not-for-profit. It's important to audit your content for cultural assumptions and diversify who you're representing in your visuals in a meaningful way to expand your reach. Start small: review your last five posts and ask who might not see themselves reflected in them.
Have you made changes to your brand to make it more culturally inclusive? Share your experience below 👇 — and if you want to see this in action, look at AFCAS' work here. AFCAS's work here.
[Rada Wangmo/10635717]
Disclaimer: This content is for the sole purpose of teaching and learning at Edith Cowan University.
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