According to Neurodiversity Media CEO, Rachel Worsley, people who are neurodiverse – that’s individuals who have dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and Tourette’s syndrome, as well as a whole host of other ways of learning and thinking differently, too – make up 1 in 8 people in Australia.
Worsley – who has autism and ADHD – thinks that the current marketing landscape is falling woefully short when it comes to neurodiverse inclusivity. “It’s a no-brainer that businesses should be marketing to us. Day to day, it would be great to see more visual representation of people who are neurodiverse. The number of people who have said to me that they feel alone is tragic- because there’s so many of us,” she said, chatting to CMO Magazine. “When it comes to marketing brands, and when it comes to improving the bottom line, you want to get your message across in an inclusive way. If you’re not thinking about those things, you are missing out on people engaging with your brand. Good marketing is about engaging with people in the way that they want you to.”
Worsley also highlights that whilst they’re not the norm, a lot of the best ways to make marketing inclusive for everybody are relatively quick fixes. Using captions in video is a great way of making sure that people who struggle with the format are able to take in the information they need. Some people with ADHD and autism can struggle with taking in information from moving images, with variable lights and flickering – so if the majority of your information is contained in a product video as opposed to being written down on the page or available as audio, many people could end up missing out. The same goes for page design – whether it’s online or print media, people with all kinds of neurodiversities can struggle with bright colours, moving text, banner ads and busy pages – so it’s best to keep things pared back and simple, or at least offer a widget that can strip a page back to bare text and a blank background.
On the flipside, it’s also important that people who struggle with their literacy have the option to receive information in video or audio form – it’s all about creating an inclusive strategy from the start, where consumers can receive the same information in a number of ways, so that they can find the one they respond to the most. It’s only then that people can focus on what you’re saying, and what you’re selling.
There are other ways to create neurodiversity friendly marketing – something as simple as switching out your traditional font for one that’s dyslexia-friendly can make world of difference. Fonts with serifs- that’s the little flicks that come at the end of the stroke, like in Times New Roman or Garamond- can make the reading experience a little more difficult for someone who has dyslexia. Using fonts without serifs, like Arial or Calibri in your marketing can make everything a whole lot easier to understand – or even better, there are a whole host of specific dyslexia-friendly fonts like OpenDyslexic or Dyslexie specially designed to make the reading experience even better.
CamelCase is also a great way of making sure that people with dyslexia and literacy differences can access your marketing. It’s nothing to do with camels - it's simply a way of constructing hashtags on social media that means each word is clearly visible to screen readers and text-to-speech devices that people might be using. Instead of reading the whole hashtag as one big, mushed-up mess of a word, it makes technology able to read distinct words, and relay then via audio accurately. It’s super easy to do: #barrysqualitybuildingsupplies simply becomes #BarrysQualityBuildingSupplies.
And for brands willing to go the extra mile, Worsley is sure that the rewards are high. Not only are you creating a more inclusive world that neurodiverse people can interact with in the same way as their neurotypical counterparts, you’re also taking steps towards being a great advocate for the neurodiverse community – and it can help you reach bigger and better markets, too. People who are neurodiverse want to engage with media that’s comfortable, inclusive, and that caters for them – and they’re more likely to want to engage with you on a product and purchasing level, too.
Marketing is one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors, and with more and more people the world over realising that they’re neurodiverse, it’s an important thing to consider when we’re thinking about the direction we take or marketing in next. It’s a vibrant and evolving field that offers a great scope for creativity – and it’s important that we use that creativity to explore new ways of making things more accessible and inclusive, as well as more interesting and engaging too.