Last week I contributed to a PRWeek article, writing about feeling ‘culturally’ working-class. The resulting comments and DMs made me even clearer that our industry needs to get on top of its class issue.
Read the article here. When I say ‘culturally’ working class, I mean that growing up the way I did (housing insecurity, free school meals, living by candlelight when the electric key ran out… again) has forever shaped my experiences, preferences and consumer behaviour – regardless of my financial reality today.
I will never stop worrying about financial security. Because of that my consumer habits are relatively unchanged from my more recognisably ‘working class’ days, juggling college work with seven days-a-week shifts at a budget supermarket (the one I still shop at…). The food I like, the brands I choose, the way I approach Christmas – all stubbornly imprinted at an early age. It’s a confusing and often guilt-laced dichotomy, earning the salary I do, feeling that one mistake will take me (and my two children) hurtling back ‘there’.
I believe this ‘cultural’ working class-ness is a strength I bring to my work. People like me are shapeshifters, living a more middle-class life, learning this new audience’s wants and needs, while knowing first-hand the realities of the poverty trap and what that really means for consumer behaviour. We’re a two-for-one deal! A veritable class BOGOF.
Yet in this industry we’re scarce, despite the fact that stagnating social mobility is a moral and economic issue. Today, working-class people are still paid less, promoted less and are at their lowest level in the creative industries in a decade. Which might explain why ideas about class are so woefully outdated – image search ‘working class person’ and you’ll still get Shameless’ Frank Gallagher and Matt Lucas’ Vicky Pollard peppered with flat-capped smoking men and striking construction workers.
Evidence shows that companies made up of people with different backgrounds and perspectives are more creative and financially successful. So if you want to reap the rewards of that, act now. Assess the make-up of your agency, take advice from groups like the Social Mobility Foundation and Common People. Then start the work to rebalance the scales.
This article originally appeared on PR Week
