Haleon creates AI-powered tool aimed at making advertising more inclusive

Haleon has developed an AI-powered tool aimed at improving inclusivity and representation across its digital advertising content.

Pointing out that 83% of global advertisements fail to meet basic accessibility standards, and 4% of consumers saying they don’t feel culturally represented in online advertising, Haleon said this tool is a positive step forward in addressing this inclusivity gap.

Haleon’s Health Inclusivity Screener is a data-driven tool that analyzes digital advertising content for both readability and inclusivity metrics. 

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The tool assesses creative content against the following criteria:

• Health Literacy: Message simplicity and comprehension – how easy it is for consumers to understand and interpret Haleon’s healthcare messaging.
• Accessibility: Text legibility, text captions and sound – how accessible Haleon’s advertising is for people who have visual or hearing impairments.
• Representation: Demographics of sex, age range, skin tone and situational settings – to allow Haleon to understand whether its casting choices are representative of all consumers.

Haleon said it will use the new tool to enhance its digital advertising through greater accessibility, simpler messaging and content that better represents a diverse range of consumers. It will drive improved brand performance and ROI through campaigns that resonate more strongly with consumers–including those who are more vulnerable to exclusion–while supporting Haleon’s ambition to achieve greater health inclusivity.

Working with its Panadol pain relief brand, Haleon has successfully piloted the tool in nine markets: Australia, Colombia, Egypt, Malaysia, Saudia Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, UAE and UK3. The company intends to extend the tool to other markets and global brands over time.

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Tamara Rogers, chief marketing officer at Haleon, said, “While many brands have taken positive steps in inclusive advertising, we see a huge opportunity for Haleon to set the standard in the consumer health sector. We’ve already taken action to improve the accessibility of all our marketing assets, but we know that we can go further. Message comprehension has a key role to play in improving the performance of our campaigns and building greater health literacy, helping people take better care of their everyday health. This tool is truly unique in measuring this alongside other inclusivity metrics, allowing us to enhance our advertising to make sure it’s seen, heard and understood by all consumers.”

Haleon developed the proprietary tool in-house in partnership with CreativeX, a technology company that helps brands power their creative decisions with data. By using AI and machine learning, CreativeX can extract creative data from individual assets, assessing the age, gender, skin tone and situation of individual characters. This data is combined with an AI application and analyzed to provide data on message comprehension. All components are combined to create a health inclusivity performance dashboard.

“The launch of Haleon’s Health Inclusivity Screener sets a new standard for how brands can systematically improve inclusivity in their creative work through always-on measurement," Anastasia Leng, founder and CEO, CreativeX, said. "This ushers in a new era for creative data, demonstrating its ability to help brands not only lift the floor of creative quality but raise the ceiling to creative excellence. Thank you to Haleon for being brave and curious enough to continuously push the boundaries of how data can enhance creative execution and effectiveness.”