18 Jun 2019
UK television network, Channel 4, has found that LGBT+ individuals featured in just 3%, despite making up 6% of the population, with those that did often being portrayed in a stereotypical or negative manner – including ‘butch’ lesbians and ‘camp’ gay men.
Channel 4’s study looked into the diversity within British commercials, based on a sample of 1,000 ads. Follow-up surveys of 2,000 adults found that despite such omissions, the wider population guessed that around 22% of ads included members of the LGBT+ community when asked, but with 60% agreeing that individuals were too often handed tokenistic roles on the occasions where they were selected.
The findings were backed up by another survey featured on The Drum. Almost three quarters (72%) of the LGBTQ+ community surveyed thought the way they are represented in advertising is ‘tokenistic’.
