Brands That Embrace This Strategy Grow 1.8x Faster—but Most Still Ignore It

Brands spend enormous resources trying to drive growth. But many are overlooking—or deprioritizing—the strategy fueling the brands pulling ahead.

Most brands default to what I call a melting pot approach. They market to the masses, largely ignoring the distinct identities of the consumers they most want to serve. I’ve worked with enough brand teams to know this isn’t intentional — it’s a default. The systems, briefs, and measurement frameworks were built around broad reach. Identity specificity wasn’t part of the architecture.

This is what I call the “glitch” in modern marketing—a structural mismatch between how brands are built to scale and how consumers actually decide.

The brands growing faster take a different approach. They understand that within their total addressable market is a mosaic—different identity communities that, when spoken to directly, engage at higher rates, convert more readily, and stay loyal longer. The data backs this up.

The numbers are hard to ignore

The SeeMe Index uses AI to identify areas of untapped growth for brands based on consumer identity. Its latest study—the 2026 Inclusivity Index for Beauty—found that brands with more inclusive marketing grow 1.8 times faster than their less inclusive counterparts.

That research covered more than 200 beauty brands, but it doesn’t stand alone. A macro-analysis from the United Nations tracked 392 brands across 58 countries over five years and found that more inclusive advertising drove a 3 percent increase in short-term sales, a 16 percent increase in long-term sales, and a 15 percent increase in loyalty.

Those aren’t marginal gains. That’s compounding growth—the kind that separates category leaders from everyone else.

According to Asha Shivaji, co-founder and CEO of SeeMe Index, the opportunity is significant: “If brands better represented these groups, they could be earning a lot more.”

More brands are beginning to recognize this—not just as a growth opportunity, but as a business imperative.

A client told me recently that half of their ideal customers were multicultural—meaning they identified as Black, Hispanic, Asian, or another non-white heritage. That awareness was the starting point. But awareness alone doesn’t move revenue.

Why most brands aren’t tapping into this yet

Some brands have made progress on representation—more diverse faces in ads, broader casting in creative. But for too many, that’s where the effort stops. And that’s the gap.

Consumers aren’t evaluating your brand at a single touchpoint. They’re experiencing it across your advertising, your product, your customer service, your content, your retail environment—and forming a single, unified impression from all of it.

When inclusion shows up in your ad but nowhere else in the journey, consumers feel the inconsistency. And once they feel it, trust erodes.

Shivaji is direct about what it actually takes: choose who you want to show up for—and then make sure you’re showing up for them across all brand touchpoints, consistently over time. Not once a year or during one cultural moment. Consistently.

That kind of commitment requires a brand-wide decision—not a campaign.

And that’s precisely where many brands stall, because sustained, cross-functional commitment at this level is genuinely hard to execute. It touches every team, every channel, and every layer of the customer experience.

As Jason Klein, co-founder and COO of SeeMe Index, put it: “It is a lot easier to stay doing the exact same thing you’ve been doing for the last 30 years. But it’s going to be a lot less likely that you’re going to be able to grow your business that way.”

That’s the tension many marketing leaders are sitting in right now. The familiar path feels safer. But the data is telling a different story.

The growth is there—if you’re willing to commit

This isn’t about optics. It isn’t about checking a box or signaling values.

The brands growing faster than their competitors have made a strategic decision about which communities matter most to their growth—and they’ve followed through on that decision across every part of their customer journey.

The opportunity is still wide open. Most brands haven’t moved meaningfully yet, which means the competitive advantage is still available for those willing to commit.

The communities are there. They are spending. They are actively looking for brands that understand them—and they reward the ones that do with loyalty that compounds over time.

The question isn’t whether this strategy works. The data has already settled that. The question is when will your brand start embodying the strategy that gets you 1.8 times faster growth.