2024 Visibility Perceptions in Advertising Report Finds Supermajorities of Industry Leaders Support LGBTQ Inclusion

GLAAD released the findings of its 2024 Visibility Perceptions in Advertising, based on a survey of 200 decision-makers and marketing executives from advertisers and advertising agencies to understand perceptions, commitments, and challenges to featuring the LGBTQ community in advertising.

While GLAAD’s research on representation in advertising has historically found LGBTQ people underrepresented, our 2024 Visibility Perceptions in Advertising study revealed that an overwhelming majority of decision-makers and executives in the advertising industry want to include LGBTQ communities in their adverts and campaigns.

So, what’s stopping them?

We cannot let fear and fringe anti-LGBTQ activists dilute the work that has been done in the name of visibility, acceptance and opportunity. As GLAAD and leading civil rights organizations noted in an open letter earlier this year: “Diversity, equity and inclusion best practices are not only essential for business success, they are needed to drive the future economy.

“Abandoning DEI will have long-term consequences on business success — ultimately shirking fiduciary responsibility to employees, consumers, and shareholders. Businesses that fail to include women, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ people neglect their financial duty to recruit and retain top talent from across the full talent pool and limit their company’s performance overall.”

Visiblility Perceptions In Advertising PR Feature

Key Findings:

• The study found increases across the board on whether advertising industry professionals felt it was important to represent specific LGBTQ communities in advertising:
• The importance of transgender representation in advertising among industry leaders increased by +71% compared to 2021.
• The importance of bisexual representation in advertising among industry increased by +69% compared to 2021.
• The importance of nonbinary representation in advertising among industry increased by +34% compared to 2021.
• The study found the industry is more fearful of facing backlash due to LGBTQ inclusion, as opposed to facing backlash for lack of LGBTQ inclusion.
• This, despite the fact that consumers – and especially younger consumers – are +51% more likely this year to say the industry is not doing enough to represent the LGBTQ community appropriately, according to GLAAD’s soon-to-be-released Advertising Visibility Index.
• The study found that 90% of the industry says it’s very important to feature the LGBTQ community in advertising.
• The study revealed an +80% increase in the industry saying the LGBTQ community is very important to their business, compared to 2021.
• The study found that 69% of advertisers and agencies have funds specifically allocated to targeting our community, up +17% from the prior survey in 2021.
• The study found that industry is +55% more likely to say they don’t have the expertise and knowledge to get LGBTQ representation “right” compared to 2021.
• The study found that nearly half of the industry completely agree that companies must be prepared to stand by their decision to support or include LGBTQ people in advertising, and this grows to nearly 90% among those in the industry that agree completely or agree somewhat.
• The study found that companies that have faced backlash are up to 1.6x more likely to increase their commitment to feature LGBTQ people compared to companies that have not faced backlash.
• The study found that partnering with nonprofits to provide guidance is the top action item industry leaders mentioned needing to be more committed to this work.

To download report, CLICK HERE.