There are fewer wellness campaigns designed for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC)

The argument

Fewer campaigns within the wellness industry are designed for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC). Often wellness brands, and organisations only represent white or light-colored heterosexual people in their imagery and branding, and centre only on white stories and experiences of trauma. The lack of sufficient representation in the industry means that BIPOC and ethnic minority groups may feel excluded and unwelcomed in wellness spaces. This problem has been an indication that ethnic minorities "do not matter" for the wellness industry, and that the sector's priority is for white and fair-skinned individuals.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Skewed marketing imagery is a real observation, but the inference drawn from it does a great deal of work. Campaign imagery is built from commercial judgements about which segments a brand believes it can reach and which it believes will spend — judgements that can be lazy, unexamined and self-fulfilling without being animated by racial hostility. Describing an entire industry as racist requires more than showing that its advertising has narrow casting, since by that test most consumer sectors would qualify, and the description would lose its force. The empirical claim is also unquantified. 'Fewer' is comparative without a baseline, and the picture it describes has been changing: a substantial number of wellness brands, studios, publications and campaigns founded by and aimed at Black and other minority-ethnic consumers have entered the market, which complicates the conclusion that the sector's priority is fixed on white consumers. The inference from exclusion felt to intention held is the weakest link. That people are made to feel unwelcome by an absence of representation is a genuine harm and is worth remedying; it establishes an effect on the audience, not a purpose on the industry's part. The sibling position — that the problem is commercial homogeneity and a narrow beauty ideal that excludes on several axes at once, including body type, age and disability — accounts for the same imagery without the stronger claim.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Narrow casting in advertising reflects commercial segmentation decisions that can be unexamined without being racially hostile, and the pattern has been shifting as brands founded by and for minority-ethnic consumers have entered the sector. [Rejecting P2] Feeling excluded establishes an effect on the audience rather than a priority held by the industry, and the same imagery is explained by a narrow commercial ideal that excludes on body type, age and disability as well.