Mars mulls disproportionately investing ad spend around content that reflects inclusivity and diversity
Mars may start to shift ad spend to “disproportionately invest” against content that it deems to be “diverse and inclusive”, its top UK marketer has said.
Mars mulls change to media planning
Mars counts Maltesers, Galaxy and Snickers among its flagship brands and spends around £90m a year on advertising in the UK.
However, it was recently stung by the YouTube brand safety revelations which forced it to pull back spend from YouTube and Google as it grilled agencies on how it had "appeared alongside such exploitative and inappropriate content....in stark contrast to who we are and what we believe."
Speaking at the annual ISBA conference today (6 March) the brand’s vice president for marketing, Michelle Oliver, said that advertisers have by and large taken a preventative approach with regards to what content they want to appear next to.
“There’s a lot of talk about where we wouldn't’t want to be placed," she said.
"But what if what if we had a more progressive approach and disproportionally invest against content that reflects our values as an advertiser? Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our values, I want to be next to content that’s inclusive or work with content makers where the teams are inclusive.”
Though Oliver stressed it was still a strategy under discussion at the snacks giant, she believes that by doing so it could “enhance the brand, image and attractiveness to talent through positive associations”.
“Power tends to go where the money is,” she said. “There’s a lot of power in the client being more demanding and that’s a really interesting shift.”
Oliver has been leading the change at Mars when it comes to overhauling its advertising to better reflect the people buying its products. Under her steerage, it was the first to win the £1m Channel 4 Diversity in Advertising Award which put disabled people front and centre of the creative for a Maltesers campaign.
Oliver said that ad campaign has been most effective advertising for the brand in the last 10 years, with sales growing by 8.1% and brand affinity growing by 20%, and as such the theme of diversity and inclusion is front of mind for its marketers in the US and Australia.
But progress on revaluating the content it advertises against may be hampered by the global media review currently underway as it looks to consolidate the number of agencies it works with. The new structure is set to come into effect in 2019.