Insights from the 2025 SeeMe Inclusivity Index

The 2025 SeeMe Inclusivity Index highlights main magnificence manufacturers which have demonstrated constant and significant inclusivity efforts, with e.l.f. Magnificence, Dove, and Maybelline topping the listing. The index, which evaluates manufacturers based mostly on their dedication to illustration in advertising, product improvement, and purpose-driven initiatives, affords a complete have a look at business progress and areas for enchancment.

Concerning the SeeMe Index

Launched in 2023 by Asha Shivaji and Jason R. Klein, the SeeMe Index offers data-driven insights into consumer-facing DEI efforts by objectively measuring model inclusivity via accountable AI. Drawing from their expertise as former Google executives, Shivaji and Klein developed the index to handle business challenges in quantifying inclusive advertising efforts.

The SeeMe Index serves as a framework for manufacturers to evaluate and improve inclusivity in advertising and public communications. By providing benchmarks and insights, it goals to supply an evidence-based strategy for manufacturers to set and obtain inclusivity targets.

Key differentiators of inclusive manufacturers

In an interview with CosmeticsDesign, Klein shared that a significant factor that units inclusive manufacturers aside is their means to combine inclusivity all through all features of their enterprise. “What differentiates licensed inclusive manufacturers from their rivals is consistency,” he defined.

He famous that “there’s a misperception that so as to be an inclusive model, it’s important to be a model for everyone,” and dispelled that understanding as merely “not true—every model has distinctive aims and model development methods, however the checkbox train of that includes somebody ‘various’ in an advert shouldn’t be going to chop it anymore.“

As a substitute, he clarified, “these manufacturers are holistically inclusive, which means if somebody of a sure id group is featured in advertising supplies, they’re additionally thought-about in product testing and model function efforts.”

One standout instance is e.l.f. Magnificence, which has prioritized assist for the blind and low-vision group. “They’re the one model we measured to characteristic expertise in advertisements from the low-vision and blind group by way of champion swimmer Tas Pagonis,” Shivaji instructed CosmeticsDesign.

“Inside the product, they launched a ‘Magnificence for Each Eye’ bundle with QR codes that enable customers to scan to listen to product descriptions, and inside their function efforts, the Present Yours(e.l.f.) sequence showcase tales from extraordinary function fashions like Pagonis,” she continued. “There’s a consistency of their actions demonstrating they care about these communities, and in flip, customers reply positively.”

Challenges in inclusivity efforts

Regardless of progress, the report recognized areas the place the sweetness business continues to fall quick. “Probably the most regarding miss was the persistence of colorism,” Klein famous, or discrimination based mostly on pores and skin tone, favoring individuals with lighter pores and skin over individuals with darker pores and skin.

“As a result of advertisements have a shorter lead time to create versus product improvement or model function,” he defined, “we anticipated to see essentially the most enchancment in promoting versus different advertising ways, however this wasn’t the case.”

Concerning this explicit subject, he continued, “Manufacturers usually fail to contemplate the breadth of pores and skin tone variety in ethnic teams, [which] can result in casting one individual with a lighter pores and skin tone to be consultant of the complete group, and this isn’t consultant in any respect.”

As a proactive answer, Klein urged that manufacturers maintain themselves accountable. “We noticed expertise with deep pores and skin tones had been the least represented in creator content material, so it is a nice beginning place for manufacturers to carry themselves accountable.”

Different challenges famous in SeeMe Index’s report embrace a decline in model function calls-to-action, with 21% fewer manufacturers offering customers with alternatives to assist brand-led social affect initiatives, in addition to a stagnation in gender non-confirming illustration at 1.5% of screentime.

Moreover, the evaluation famous the usage of “anti-aging” ageist language has elevated, now utilized by 49% of manufacturers, in comparison with 40% in 2023.

The enterprise case for inclusivity

The info additionally strengthened the financial advantages of inclusivity. “I’d argue inclusion has all the time been an important driver of brand name success,” stated Shivaji.

“It’s one of many elementary rules of promoting that you simply personalize your model and product to enchantment to your shopper’s distinctive wants,” she defined, and developments in know-how are facilitating the implementation course of with rising effectivity.

“Accountable AI allows us to measure giant swaths of information that wouldn’t have been potential manually,” she illustrated, and by “combining this with POS information from a trusted companion like Circana, [this] offers the business the proof factors we’ve been ready for to ascertain the enterprise case.”

Rising traits in inclusivity

The 2025 index expanded its scope to investigate over 100 manufacturers, uncovering new insights into how totally different model classes strategy inclusivity. “With a broader set of manufacturers, we had been capable of uncover insights at sub-category ranges comparable to luxurious vs. mass, indie vs. legacy, or Black-owned or based,” Klein stated.

The evaluation decided that Black-owned or based manufacturers are more likely to exhibit inclusion that goes past pores and skin tone, he revealed.

Particularly, he highlighted, “these manufacturers are 2x extra prone to characteristic expertise of various ages, 1.8x extra prone to characteristic expertise with facial traits like vitiligo or facial birthmarks, and 1.3x extra prone to characteristic totally different hair sorts in advertisements, even when it’s not a hair care model.”

Because of this, “they’re actually main the business in inclusion throughout a number of id dimensions.”

The SeeMe Index report additionally revealed that general, extra manufacturers are acknowledging customers with disabilities, with an 11% improve in merchandise obtainable for this shopper demographic. Intersectionality, in addition to age and dimension inclusion, are additionally on the rise in advertising efforts.

The way forward for inclusive magnificence

Wanting forward, inclusivity will likely be much more important for magnificence manufacturers aiming to attach with youthful generations. “Within the subsequent 5 years and past, manufacturers need to win with Gen Z and Gen Alpha,” stated Shivaji, as “these generations are noticeably blacker, browner, and queerer, so ‘inclusive advertising’ is simply one other solution to say efficient advertising for these customers.”

Subsequently, she suggested, “It’s time to alter the notion that inclusive advertising is by some means along with your different advertising efforts.”

She warned that magnificence manufacturers who fail to evolve of their inclusive advertising efforts might “get left behind for those who suppose that approach, and this echoes the information from the UN’s enterprise case for inclusion that confirmed that manufacturers with out inclusive promoting will change into out of date, dropping each short- and long-term gross sales together with loyalty.”

Striving to set a brand new business commonplace

Transferring ahead, the SeeMe Inclusivity Index continues aiming to lift the bar for the sweetness business by offering transparency and accountability.

“Our imaginative and prescient from day one has been that the index turns into a standard useful resource between manufacturers and customers,” Shivaji concluded. “Our hope is that as extra manufacturers and customers take note of the index and its insights, it should elevate the bar for inclusion within the business.”