Bridging the gap: diversity marketing within Flemish government communication

That is the challenge that many organizations, including several government organizations and services, face today. In our super-diverse society, it has become impossible to approach the 'traditional Belgians' and the 'non-' or 'new' Belgians in a different way. Firstly, the group of immigrants has become too diverse to be approached as a whole. On the other hand, these people often do not want to be regarded as 'different'. However, when we look at the way in which they process messages, we notice that the campaigns aimed at 'white Belgians' are often less effective with this target group. The importance of diversity communication, which seeks inclusion and similarities in order to reach the largest possible target group in a diverse society, is therefore increasing.

The aim of this project is to support government organizations that develop communication messages

1) raise awareness of the importance of diversity communication, 2) formulate guidelines and recommendations for diversity communication within the government and 3) provide communication professionals with insight into the most important pitfalls related to diversity communication and how to avoid them. The main goal here is to stimulate the shift from ethnocommunication (the principle used until now, based on tailored communication for each target group) to diversity communication within Flemish government communication.

Valorisation

The Flemish government communicators who have to communicate for and with a very diverse multicultural target group? Not an obvious fact, as it turns out. In the first project year of our PWO 2016-2017, we focused on the first step in communication, namely understanding the target group. It immediately became clear from our survey that the knowledge of the target group appears to be a major problem. 45% of the respondents indicate that their organization has little or no knowledge of the target group. Subsequently, the problem of one's own frame of reference also clearly emerges. Communications officers rarely come into contact with people who are not, which makes it difficult for them to break free from their own frame of reference and to get in touch with a target group that is different.

These two pain points indicate very clearly the need for the creation of a tool with regard to the knowledge of the target group and breaking through the own frame of reference. The developed tool will consist of a website with a dashboard template on which persona will be published. Based on search criteria that the communication officer can enter, he/she can have a filter implemented and therefore only digitally call up the persona for the intended campaign. This persona allows the communication officer to break through his frame of reference and to take concrete stories/persona into account when drawing up and testing a campaign (image).