There’s a strange feeling I get when I watch certain ads on TV — that quiet, familiar sense of not being seen. The story unfolds: happy families, trendy young professionals, a couple walking by the beach… and yet somehow, no one looks remotely like me. Not in skin tone, not in speech rhythm, not even in the small cultural quirks that make us who we are.
As a Malay actor, I’ve been in campaigns where I was told to “look more neutral.” Translation: not too Malay, not too specific. As if being recognisably ethnic might scare off a potential audience, or worse, confuse the message. It’s a peculiar kind of invisibility — one that hides in the language of “market strategy.”
And that’s where the problem begins.
The Myth of “Too Small a Market”
Many brands still hesitate to feature diversity in their campaigns. It’s not that they’re worried about backlash — it’s that they believe minority representation doesn’t “move numbers.” I’ve heard this logic before: “There are just not enough of them to make it worth the cost.”
But the data tells a very different story. In a study by Deloitte Insights (2021), 57% of consumers said they’re more loyal to brands that commit to diversity in their advertising. Another survey by Nielsen showed that ads with inclusive representation led to a 23% higher recall rate. People don’t just see themselves — they remember themselves being seen.
When you think about it, diversity isn’t about representation for representation’s sake. It’s about recognition. Consumers want to feel that their realities — whether it’s a hijab-wearing nurse, a trans man in a startup, or an older Chinese auntie doing TikTok dances — are not invisible footnotes in a glossy, “aspirational” world.
The Case for “Less Straight” Storytelling
Andy Miller, a strategy lead from the Australian agency Pollen, once suggested that the solution isn’t to make ads “more gay,” but to make them “less straight.” What he meant was: stop centring everything on one dominant experience and start showing the real variety of human lives.
That advice extends to all forms of diversity — race, gender, class, age, ability. Imagine an ad that isn’t about shouting “inclusivity,” but one that simply includes. A Malay father reading a bedtime story to his adopted Chinese daughter. A plus-sized woman leading a fitness class. A man in a wheelchair giving a presentation, without the ad being about his wheelchair.
The magic isn’t in the token image — it’s in the ordinariness.
When the Ad World Fails the Real World
Representation done badly feels worse than none at all. You can sense when it’s an afterthought: a brown hand awkwardly inserted in a crowd shot, a rainbow flag flashing for exactly 0.5 seconds, or that one “ethnic friend” who says two lines and smiles for diversity points.
Psychologist Gordon Allport’s Contact Hypothesis (1954) proposed that exposure to diversity reduces prejudice only when it feels authentic and equal. In other words, we don’t become more tolerant from tokenism — we become tolerant from meaningful, believable representation.
When I see ads trying too hard — with caricatured “lah”s and exaggerated accents — I’m reminded of that old saying: you can’t fake sincerity. You can mimic inclusion, but audiences will always smell when it’s performative.
What It Feels Like to Be the “Diversity Slot”
Let me tell you what happens behind the camera sometimes.
You get a call from a casting agency: “They’re looking for someone ethnic — you’d be perfect.” You show up, and the casting sheet says “Malay-looking, friendly, but modern.” You smile and think, “Aren’t I all those things already?”
You do the audition, get the role, and later realise you were cast to fill the “representation quota.” The script isn’t interested in your story — it’s interested in your skin tone.
And yet, here’s the irony: when audiences do see themselves reflected authentically, it resonates deeply. Research from Harvard Business Review (2019) found that consumers who saw themselves represented in ads were 2.6 times more likely to perceive the brand as trustworthy. It’s not charity — it’s good business.
Inclusion as Strategy, Not Slogan
The challenge for brands isn’t how to “avoid risk.” It’s how to build trust through relevance. Real inclusion is subtle: it doesn’t shout, it breathes. It shows people as people, not checkboxes.
In Singapore, we’re sitting on a goldmine of stories — multiracial, multilingual, multigenerational. Yet too often, ad agencies still play it safe, recycling the same “family around the dining table” narrative, where everyone somehow speaks perfect English and eats the same food.
Where are the households with three languages colliding? The aunties switching between Malay and Mandarin mid-sentence? The dads who aren’t just breadwinners but caregivers?
I sometimes imagine what a “less straight, more real” ad would look like here. Maybe it’s a kopi stall uncle teaching a barista how to make teh tarik foam, or a Gen Z hijabi teaching her ah ma how to use BeReal. Relatability is the new luxury.
The Science of Seeing Ourselves
Cognitive studies back this up. Neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that seeing someone who looks like us in media activates the brain’s empathy circuits more strongly. It’s a mirror effect — we literally feel more emotionally connected when representation aligns with identity.
So when advertisers claim that diversity doesn’t sell, they’re ignoring the most fundamental truth of storytelling: people buy what feels familiar, and “familiar” looks different for everyone.
My Reflection: The Power of the Ordinary
I once shot an ad where my character — a Malay man in his thirties — was just… a customer at a bakery. No exaggerated accent, no tokenism. Just me, buying bread. When it aired, a stranger DM-ed me on Instagram: “Bro, I showed my mum. She said, finally got Malay guy who looks like us on TV — not gangster or makcik stereotype.”
That message hit harder than any award ever could.
Diversity isn’t about being different. It’s about being ordinary in a world that keeps pretending you’re the exception. When brands realise that, they stop selling products — they start telling truths.
The Takeaway
If inclusion feels like a marketing trend to you, it’s time to reframe it as a reality check. Consumers today aren’t just watching — they’re noticing who’s missing.
And if, like me, you’ve ever been that “missing person,” you’ll know how powerful it is to finally see someone who looks, sounds, and laughs like you — not as a sidekick, but as the story itself.
Representation, at its best, isn’t a gesture. It’s a mirror. And every audience deserves to see their reflection looking right back at them.
Written by: Adi Jamaludin
0 comments:
Post a Comment