About DE&I at NABS
Diversity, equity and inclusion doesn’t mean treating everyone in the same way. NABS is on a continuous journey to ensure everyone who engages with us can be appropriately supported and feel that they can be themselves; to feel safe, to be accepted and to be part of the advertising and media community.
Everybody has individual experiences and perceptions of what is good mental wellbeing and peoples’ experiences of good mental wellbeing will vary amongst different groups.
Everyone in our industry has the right to be their true selves, to have opportunity, to be accepted and to be part of a community. We want to use our unique insights and central industry position to help further the pace of positive change.
Some examples of work NABS has been involved in:
Diversity in Focus Research
When the All In Census results were published in June 2021, NABS committed to doing more to support and understand the wellbeing needs of people from marginalised communities working in our industry. We wanted to understand the lived experience behind the shocking stats, particularly for LGBTQ+ individuals and for Black, Asian and those from other minoritised Ethnicities, as well as those looking to join the industry from Brixton Finishing School’s ADcademy Read the full Diversity in Focus report.
All-In Census
The All In Census was the UK Advertising’s first and biggest industry-wide survey created by the Advertising Association, IPA, ISBA and Kantar. The All In Census gathered comprehensive data from over 16,000 advertising and marketing professionals and provides new insights on the representation and experience of the UK advertising’s workforce plus data to benchmark progress from. NABS sits on the All In Mental Health working Group, helping support the actions off the back of the All In census around mental health by signposting people to NABS services and support.
Read the full All-In Census report.
WACL Talent Awards
The WACL Talent Award is a training bursary awarded by WACL and supported by NABS. In 2021 we introduced an anonymous Diversity Monitoring questionnaire so we could gain deeper insight into who was applying for the award and how we could grow reach to support more individuals. For the 2022 award year we have changed the applicant criteria from ‘must be a woman’ to ‘must identify as female+’ as well as contacting networks across the industry which focus on individuals from marginalised groups.
timeTo
timeTo is the advertising and marketing industry’s campaign to end sexual harassment, launched in 2018. It was created through a unique collaboration between the Advertising Association, NABS and WACL, and is backed by ISBA and the IPA. The timeTo campaign and training material takes an intersectional approach to language and examples of sexual harassment.
Learn more about working at NABS.
“Embrace the huge opportunity we have here. Yes, it’s a commercial issue. Your bottom line depends on diversity and so debating the business case for this is redundant when ultimately we’re debating people’s right to exist.”
Lorraine Jennings-Creed, Director of Wellbeing Services and Culture Change
“The link between positive mental health and inclusion has become clearer to see and more urgent to address. Marginalised groups now feel more empowered to speak up about how their well-being has been affected by years of exclusion and discrimination. NABS’ recent research ‘Diversity in Focus’ makes clear how a lack of belonging in our industry can have terrible effects on well-being and mental health.”
Sue Todd, CEO
