Diversity strategies to enhance market-related benefits aim to achieve better market
segmentation and improved customer satisfaction. They also aim for an increase in
repeat business and referrals to potential new customers through existing satisfied
clients and customers.
Antidiscrimination and Diversity Training VT/2006/009
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Companies committed to diversity see many opportunities for expansion of their
services and products. Research for the Compendium uncovered a range of examples of
targeted marketing and product developments aimed at increasing revenue by catering
for new market segments and traditionally excluded groups. Some of these
developments aim to enable more people to access existing products and services. For
socially progressive companies, such initiatives are not driven solely by the desire to
increase revenue, but with a commitment to tackling social exclusion and disadvantage
faced by particular groups. They also contribute to enhancing the company’s image and
making them more attractive to society in general.
Examples include the design and marketing of products for visually impaired
customers, such as the Internet Driver’s License (IBM Germany) and voice texting
(BT). The Internet Driver’s License is a talking web browser that helps overcome
barriers to accessing particular technologies by enabling people with visual impairments
to surf the Internet and communicate electronically by e-mail. Similarly, the BT product
enables them to access the text function on mobile phones by allowing them to send and
receive SMS (text) messages in voice format.
Some companies like Bertelsmann have initiated and developed unique practical
working and living aids to benefit people with disabilities in their working environment.
These aids are also made available to society in general. Another such example is BT’s
Big Button Telephone. Originally designed by an employee who had arthritis, it has
found a wider customer base, attracted to its ease of use as compared to the increasingly
smaller alternatives available in the marketplace. Similarly, a Volvo car designed by
women has had wide cross-over appeal because of its many user-friendly features,
originally designed with women drivers in mind. These companies see such inclusive
thinking and approaches simply as a matter of good design that makes it possible for
everyone to use a product.
Depending on their sector of business, good practice companies also contributed a wide
range of examples of targeted marketing campaigns with strong diversity and inclusion
messages, to promote uptake of their products and services by particular groups such as
the elderly, women, gays and lesbians, and ethnic minorities. These include Tesco’s
introduction of multicultural food ranges in different neighbourhoods to meet local
customer food preferences and Deutsche Bank’s retail banking unit’s targeted
marketing campaign to increase its gay and lesbian customer base. The bank achieved a
directly traceable profit and business success with its pilot in Berlin, and is now in the
process of extending the campaign to other major cities in Germany. Other examples
include the Dove soap marketing campaign by Unilever, underpinned by a clear
diversity philosophy and message, which resulted in a 700% increase in sales of the
product line.