How to create inclusive branding that resonates with diverse audiences

“Just Do It!” I’m sure you know which company uses this tagline—yep, it’s Nike! Launched in 1988, this motivational slogan is immediately recognizable to people worldwide today.

So, how does Nike manage to reach out to such a global and diverse audience? The reason is powerful branding. Nike uses an emotional branding strategy to foster a deep connection with its customers. Through powerful storytelling, its advertisements feature elite athletes and everyday individuals, highlighting inspiring journeys of perseverance and triumph. 

Nike positions itself as a product and a symbol of a lifestyle rooted in ambition and self-belief. Its iconic logo and timeless slogan serve as a global call to action—motivating people to chase their dreams and push beyond limits.

This is just one instance of effective branding. If you’re trying to create a brand identity or want to make your existing branding resonate with diverse audiences, keep reading.

In a 2024 YouGov survey, over half of customers valued brands that create products for a diverse audience. 

Learn more about brand activism and how you can create content that speaks to your business and the causes it and your audience care about.

Diversity in branding encourages companies to acquire knowledge about audiences of different communities and groups in their target markets. There are several benefits of inclusive branding:

Businesses developing content representing their consumers’ diversity are more likely to gain and maintain a loyal customer base. Inclusive branding, which respects all individuals, enables companies to establish a favorable brand image and increase customer trust. 

One of the main advantages of inclusive branding is the potential to engage with a broader audience. Brands can establish relevance with a more diverse client base by engaging openly and inclusively.

Targeting a diverse audience requires brands to include creative and innovative strategies for marketing. For example:

75% of people recognize a brand by its logo. Thus, a brand logo is a unique identity that creates a powerful first impression on a customer. Also, the colors you choose for the logo, website, products, and stores convey the brand’s ideas and vision, which are the differentiation factors between several brands. 

For example, Google creates themed variations in its logo for holidays and festivals. This keeps the brand fresh, relatable, and engaging.

The font style across a brand’s website and products conveys the brand’s tone, personality, readability, and message. According to Monotype’s 2024 Font Use and Forecasting survey, 76% of designers prefer readability and accessibility, which makes sans serif a top choice for creative fonts.

You may agree or disagree with your target audience, but speaking out on global problems, raising awareness, and contributing to causes and organizations that share your brand values can attract loyal customers.

Example: Here’s a social media post by Loreal Paris on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. 

To demonstrate social responsibility, brands also design their stores and websites with the needs of people with disabilities in mind. 

Example: Apple’s iPhone and iPad come equipped with a text magnifier feature, making reading easier for users with visual impairments. Additionally, features like “Hear Their Way Around” support individuals with hearing challenges, enhancing accessibility and inclusivity across their devices.  

Zendesk stats show that 76% of customers expect personalization. For this reason, it is essential to understand your audience, who will most likely be interested in your services or products. To describe your target audience, carry out rigorous research on the various aspects of the audience: 

Demographic analysis aims to capture insights into audience characteristics such as gender, age, geographical location, preferences, and behavior. This enables brands to better understand their audience preferences, allowing for specialized content and greater segmentation.

Several organizations use psychographic segmentations, which divide the market or a consumer group into categories based on customer opinions, principles, lifestyle, social status, activities, interests, and beliefs. This gives you a more sophisticated grasp of your target market’s motivations.

While conducting audience research, brands may unconsciously impose predispositions for biased judgment and decision-making. If you’re not careful, bias may harm marketing by influencing the content, tone, images, segmentation, and other factors. 

Unconscious bias by brands may include gender, religious beliefs, age, weight/height, educational background, and many more.

Example: Powersutra offers clothes for women of all shapes.

A brand identity for a diverse audience comprises distinct brand characteristics that include tangible and intangible components like background, company name, infrastructure, logo,  vision and policies, visual appearance, and character. 

Creating a solid brand identity involves researching, designing, and implementing a collection of features with robust brand monitoring techniques so that different customers may identify the brand with its products or services.

Here are the top 3 strategies to create an inclusive brand identity:

Creating a brand ideal for a universal audience requires your mission and goals to align perfectly with the requirements of a diverse audience. So, create a vision to define your brand’s perception of its future. 

The brand’s vision guides the steps you take today to achieve your long-term goals. Whereas the mission outlines your company’s goals for both customers and employees, your brand mission should clearly communicate the objective and how you plan to serve your customers.

For example, IKEA’s vision-driven mission statement—”To offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them”—clearly reflects its commitment to improving everyday life for a diverse range of customers.

Brand identity is the company name along with the visual and verbal elements that constitute the brand. Think visual symbols such as logos, color palettes, and design aesthetics, as well as verbal elements such as brand personality, brand image, and values. Put them together in an inclusive brand, and you can create an emotional bond with your customers.

Example: Oddbox has crafted a unique brand identity through its playful, vibrant color scheme and distinctive typography. These visual elements draw attention to the logo and cleverly reflect the brand’s mission of delivering “odd” yet high-quality fruits and vegetables.

In simple terms, stereotyping is creating generalized behavior about your audience. To ensure your brand does not support stereotypes in your branding efforts like advertisements, products, and marketing campaigns, use inclusive materials on websites and avoid ethnic, cultural, and gender stereotypes. 

Example: Huda Beauty, a makeup company, values representation and offers products for different skin tones.

If you embrace inclusive branding, your marketing must also be inclusive. Follow these marketing practices that ensure your brand caters to a diverse audience:

Connecting your audience through multichannel engagements is one of the top strategies to attract a diverse audience.

According to Statista, 4.95 billion people use social media worldwide. So, clearly, using the power of social media is an effective way to extend your brand’s reach while engaging with customers. Through social channels such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn, businesses can create and post content for all segments of society to enhance their brand. 

Another way to interact with your audience is through interactive media such as quizzes, polls, webinars, virtual summits, chatbots, and customer surveys. Additionally, e-commerce brands looking to tap into a diverse audience can leverage emerging marketplaces. For instance, businesses can sell on Temu, a fast-growing platform that caters to budget-conscious consumers worldwide, offering brands a unique opportunity to reach a broader demographic.

Example: An interactive quiz by Nykaa engages the audience with dynamic questions about finding their perfect fragrance and helps the brand interact with users.

Cultural branding is a brand and marketing strategy involving the values, traditions, and principles of a particular cultural segment. However, companies must embrace diversity through a multicultural brand strategy if they are to reach a diverse client base. 

This method allows significant interactions with customers from varied cultural backgrounds and leverages the enormous potential of rapidly developing consumer segments. 

To stay in touch with what resonates with your audience, periodically distribute marketing assessments. They help you gather valuable insights and can be used for lead generation. 

Communication extends beyond branding. Whether internal within your employees or with consumers, it conveys a strong statement about your brand, and language plays a vital role in establishing communication within your team and with customers. 

Multilingual branding tailors your promotional strategies to reach a varied audience that speaks different languages. However, to ensure effective communication, consistency, transparency, and authenticity across all communication channels. 

Example: Sodexo hires people from different backgrounds and languages to foster an environment where everyone feels appreciated for their identity and language.

Inclusive branding that resonates with a diverse audience also requires maintaining strong customer relationships throughout the branding strategy.

By including different communities, such as social, cultural, and religious, in its branding process, your brand can achieve great success in the marketplace and give its members a sense of belonging. 

Also, creating your brand community and connecting with followers can help you gain insights into diverse customer requirements, likes, or dislikes, which you can use to create personalized branding strategies for diverse audiences. 

An effective way to enhance branding among diverse audiences is to collaborate and partner with organizations, social influencers, companies, or people who share similar objectives and beliefs. These partnerships can establish a deep emotional bond with customers when executed correctly.

Example: Adidas and Allbirds collaborated to produce the ‘Futurecraft footprint sneakers’—one of the world’s most sustainable sneakers, with a footprint of only 2.94kg of CO2 emissions per pair. 

You can develop a strong brand identity by taking feedback and listening to what your audience wants. Connecting with people of diverse backgrounds helps companies understand people’s choices and where the brand needs to improve.

According to a 2024 Digital Media Trends report by Deloitte, 81% of multiracial consumers prefer watching shows and movies that help them learn about different cultures. 

Listening to customers helps you identify changing demand among your target audience and offer new products to meet that demand.

Example: To meet customer expectations based on their feedback and preferences, Coca-Cola has offered drinks with less sugar and more nutrient benefits.

Creating a brand that caters to a diverse audience may seem overwhelming. However, by performing thorough market research involving extensive strategic planning and implementing the right branding practices, you can create a powerful brand that brings constructive social change and leaves an enduring mark that appeals to your audience. Be sure to make that part of your brand promise.

So, are you ready to start your journey to build a successful brand that resonates with a diverse audience? See how Envato’s unlimited assets of images, videos, graphics, fonts, music, and templates can help you reshape your brand strategies and master inclusive branding and diverse design.