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 record. The index, which evaluates manufacturers primarily based on their dedication to illustration in advertising and marketing, product improvement, and purpose-driven initiatives, presents 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 supplies data-driven insights into consumer-facing DEI efforts by objectively measuring model inclusivity by way of accountable AI. Drawing from their expertise as former Google executives, Shivaji and Klein developed the index to handle business challenges in quantifying inclusive advertising and marketing efforts.
The SeeMe Index serves as a framework for manufacturers to evaluate and improve inclusivity in advertising and marketing and public communications. By providing benchmarks and insights, it goals to offer an evidence-based strategy for manufacturers to set and obtain inclusivity objectives.
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 facets of their enterprise. “What differentiates licensed inclusive manufacturers from their rivals is consistency,” he defined.
He famous that “there’s a misperception that in an effort to be an inclusive model, it’s a must to be a model for everyone,” and dispelled that understanding as merely “not true—every model has distinctive aims and model progress methods, however the checkbox train of that includes somebody ‘numerous’ in an advert shouldn’t be going to chop it anymore.“
As a substitute, he clarified, “these manufacturers are holistically inclusive, that means if somebody of a sure identification group is featured in advertising and marketing supplies, they’re additionally thought of in product testing and model goal 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 through champion swimmer Tas Pagonis,” Shivaji advised 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 goal efforts, the Present Yours(e.l.f.) collection showcase tales from extraordinary position 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 brief. “Probably the most regarding miss was the persistence of colorism,” Klein famous, or discrimination primarily based 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 goal,” he defined, “we anticipated to see essentially the most enchancment in promoting versus different advertising and marketing ways, however this wasn’t the case.”
Relating to this explicit subject, he continued, “Manufacturers typically fail to think about the breadth of pores and skin tone range in ethnic teams, [which] can result in casting one particular person with a lighter pores and skin tone to be consultant of your entire group, and this isn’t consultant in any respect.”
As a proactive resolution, Klein advised that manufacturers maintain themselves accountable. “We noticed expertise with deep pores and skin tones have been the least represented in creator content material, so this can be a nice beginning place for manufacturers to carry themselves accountable.”
Different challenges famous in SeeMe Index’s report embody a decline in model goal calls-to-action, with 21% fewer manufacturers offering customers with alternatives to assist brand-led social impression initiatives, in addition to a stagnation in gender non-confirming illustration at 1.5% of screentime.
Moreover, the evaluation famous using “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 might argue inclusion has all the time been an important driver of name success,” stated Shivaji.
“It’s one of many basic ideas of selling that you just personalize your model and product to enchantment to your client’s distinctive wants,” she defined, and developments in expertise are facilitating the implementation course of with growing effectivity.
“Accountable AI permits us to measure massive swaths of knowledge that wouldn’t have been attainable manually,” she illustrated, and by “combining this with POS knowledge from a trusted companion like Circana, [this] offers the business the proof factors we’ve been ready for to determine the enterprise case.”
Rising developments in inclusivity
The 2025 index expanded its scope to research over 100 manufacturers, uncovering new insights into how totally different model classes strategy inclusivity. “With a broader set of manufacturers, we have been capable of uncover insights at sub-category ranges corresponding 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 show inclusion that goes past pores and skin tone, he revealed.
Particularly, he highlighted, “these manufacturers are 2x extra more likely to characteristic expertise of various ages, 1.8x extra more likely to characteristic expertise with facial traits like vitiligo or facial birthmarks, and 1.3x extra more likely to characteristic totally different hair sorts in advertisements, even when it’s not a hair care model.”
Consequently, “they’re actually main the business in inclusion throughout a number of identification dimensions.”
The SeeMe Index report additionally revealed that total, extra manufacturers are acknowledging customers with disabilities, with an 11% enhance in merchandise out there for this client demographic. Intersectionality, in addition to age and dimension inclusion, are additionally on the rise in advertising and marketing efforts.
The way forward for inclusive magnificence
Trying forward, inclusivity can be much more crucial for magnificence manufacturers aiming to attach with youthful generations. “Within the subsequent 5 years and past, manufacturers must win with Gen Z and Gen Alpha,” stated Shivaji, as “these generations are noticeably blacker, browner, and queerer, so ‘inclusive advertising and marketing’ is simply one other option to say efficient advertising and marketing for these customers.”
Due to this fact, she suggested, “It’s time to vary the notion that inclusive advertising and marketing is by some means along with your different advertising and marketing efforts.”
She warned that magnificence manufacturers who fail to evolve of their inclusive advertising and marketing efforts could “get left behind in case you suppose that method, and this echoes the info from the UN’s enterprise case for inclusion that confirmed that manufacturers with out inclusive promoting will turn out to be out of date, dropping each short- and long-term gross sales together with loyalty.”
Striving to set a brand new business customary
Shifting ahead, the SeeMe Inclusivity Index continues aiming to boost 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 is going to elevate the bar for inclusion within the business.”
