Inclusion at the heart of business transformation
The expectations of brands have changed. Our mission is to empower businesses to expand their market reach but also to enhance their social impact by embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion in their marketing strategies.
We work in partnership to guide your brand in identifying, understanding, and effectively engaging with these diverse consumer groups, thereby driving growth and promoting inclusivity.
What’s your challenge?
Brands and businesses have challenges with inclusion, and we co-create solutions, embedding diversity, equity inclusion into the marketing value chain. Create a ‘return on inclusion’ with a tailor-made inclusion programme.
What is our brand point of view and permission in the DEI space?
How do we embed inclusion into strategy and not leave until execution?
How can we differentiate and own a space within the DEI conversation?
What can we check for DEI sensitivity early on in process before we invest too much in production and media?
How do we ensure we localise our campaigns to take account of the cultural contexts?
How can we call out bias in our comms. development process processes?
How do we represent diverse audiences in an authentic way, without stereotyping?
How can we mitigate against risk of backlash?
Sound familiar? We can help. Create a ‘return on inclusion’ with a tailor-made inclusion programme.
Why partner with us?
Each journey is unique
We know everyone is at different stages of their journey. Our team at Creative Equals ‘meets you where you are’ to wherever you are to understand what’s going well, where your challenges are and where you’d like to accelerate. We’ll next tailor an DEI strategy that works, shaped around your organisation, KPIs, vision and goals.
Experienced professionals
With a mix of skill sets and deep experience in EDI in brands, businesses and across sectors, our experts bring our wealth of know-how to every project. Our work is rigorous, evidence-based and action orientated.
We start your project journey with our 4-step process: Immerse, Design, Deliver and Embed.
Effective Impact:
While we can start with ‘quick wins’, but the truth is transformation takes time. ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’, as the quote from Pete Drucker goes, so to embed your marketing strategy, we work with you to build the culture around it to make sure DEI change is embedded with tangible, measurable results. We’ll set out joint goals and ways of working at the start of every project journey.
Conscious inclusion = strategy and systems
Inclusive Brand strategy
Strategy advisory at the intersection of Sustainability and DEI
Inclusive Innovation strategy and project delivery
Inclusive audience insights/analytics strategies; CX strategy review and development
AI Policy, strategy and tools through an DEI lens
We work with your team to develop or integrate DEI specialist strategic thinking into Brand, Marketing, Sustainability, AI and Comms strategies and processes. In areas where system thinking is required we apply our proprietary ‘Applied bias’ methodology to ‘design for all’ in customer journeys and product and service development. This is an unlock for social impact and growth.
What we cover:
Case Study: Philips
Since 2020, we have worked as a strategic partner to Philips embedding EDI as part of a global transformation project, embedding EDI into their brand and marketing divisions. We consulted with a range of teams from employer brand, HR, I&D, Procurement, and ensured Brand and E-Commerce comms connects and aligns with the wider business.
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‘Creative Equals has been an invaluable strategic partner
to us over the last four years’
- Nathalie Lam, ESG Brand Marketing Lead, Supervisory Board Member, Lead I&D Marketing Transformation, Philips
Conscious inclusion = capability and toolkits
Inclusive leadership programmes for senior marketers
Full scale L&D programmes for senior marketers to deliver best-in-class DEI
Toolkits Inclusive playbooks and guidelines (review existing or build)
Applied bias training for marketing teams
Workshops on topics like backlash, creative excellence and future-proofing brands (please enquire)
L&D internal Marketing Academy
Build your inclusive muscle in-house. We design and deliver best practice toolkits for your business and inspiring L&D programmes for inclusive cultures upskilling your senior leaders, ERG networks, mind managers and colleagues in everything from mindful conversations to inclusive leadership. The key to long-term capability building is in operationalising inclusion throughout your day-to-day processes with training to embed.
We can provide:
Case Study: Teleflex
We worked with Teleflex, to co-create a framework and tools to build a consistent approach to DEI communication for their global employee base as a central source of information on DEI, driven by Teleflex’s unique needs coupled with industry best practice.
STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS | EDI STRATEGY WORKSHOPS | Expert input on DEI Strategy Proposal | DEI PLAYBOOK
Conscious inclusion = creative effectiveness
Full inclusive Comms Review for gaps and opportunities
Inclusion Clinics for fast-turn around projects (qual and quant feedback)
Cultural movements analysis
Process review and and embed training for teams
Creative Stewardship and Creative Councils
Social media training
To deliver creative excellence and effectiveness, we build positive portrayal and authentic inclusion into your communications, activation and socials throughout your creative process. We can give you an expert objective DEI check on where you’re at on our ‘Authentic Inclusion’ scale for gaps and opportunities or give a quick check on your work in progress.
What we cover:
Case Study: Bayer
We ran an DEI comms review across a selection of Bayer’s brands and markets and were able to identify the baseline and recommendations for how to move forward. We gave them a clear map of where they stood at the beginning of our journey which provided us the perfect launch pad to develop a strategy and appropriate actions.
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“Working with Creative Equals has been a very insightful and rewarding experience. I have now initiated a project with Creative Equals to develop an approach on how to evaluate our agency partners in this area which will be a key component for us in our collaborations.”
- Philippe Schuster, Agency and Marketing Partnerships, Bayer
Company Cultural intelligence
Co-creating internal cultural shifts, to build and embed inclusive working cultures within your organisation - informed by the experiences, ideas and recommendations of your people internally with the paired with DE&I best practice . We can provide a cultural baseline of where your company culture sits and a roadmap to get where you want to be, supporting your external DEI campaigns and providing legitimacy and permission as an organisation that walks the walk.
What we cover:
Establishing DEI Initiatives, frameworks, tools and guidelines to support your internal teams and drive external change
Raise awareness and educate your teams on DEI to create a shared culture of inclusion
Bespoke and context-based training and skills building (so your staff feel more confident in their day-to-day )
A suite of inclusive leadership learnings, to building trust and confidence in leadership through DEI
Regular ‘talkshops’ building a understanding of DEI to signal internal inclusion acceptance and celebration
Partner: Kinetic
We’ve partnered with Kinetic to run the Equality Standard and to champion internal change within their organisation culture. The results were significant - staff turnover more than halved to 11% YOY - reducing churn and saving £0.9million. Inappropriate behaviour dropped from 37% to 25%, 2/3 people claim the company is MORE inclusive over the last year and stress at work has dropped by 11%.
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”Everything we gained from Creative Equals’ robust audit has been used to inform our inclusion and diversity strategy going forwards. The ROI has been reduced sick days, less turnover and churn, happier staff, and more reports to HR - and that’s in 7 months.”
- Stuart Taylor, CEO, Kinetic Worldwide
Community Impact
Our creative programmes are a core pillar of what we do at Creative Equals - where we support and deliver growth through inclusion within various underrepresented and unheard communities. We do this by sourcing funding and sponsorship from changing making brands and agencies to run and deliver upskilling programmes, talks and events. This sector of our business is run like a non-profit, with funds being reinvested back into initiatives that work with communities we support so Creative Equals’ can continue making a positive impact
Partner: Diageo
We’ve partnered with Diegeo to run all our CreativeComeback and Disabled Creatives programmes, championing disabled creatives and providing women and gender-nonconforming people bridges back into employment after a career break. These programmes sets the standard for global talent regeneration
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“As part of our commitment to creating an advertising and media environment where, from script to screen, everyone sees themselves represented, we are proud to have supported the Creative Equals Returner schemes for the sixth year running ”
- Eileen Hanna Yague, Head of Gins (Gordon's, Tanqueray, Aviation, Chase Gin) at Diageo