Have brands changed their approach to South Asian Heritage Month?

Media companies have been doing more internally to mark South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM), but consumer-facing campaigns remain harder to find.

Inspired by Black History Month, SAHM was founded five years ago by Dr Binita Kane and Jasvir Singh to commemorate, celebrate and educate around the experiences of the South Asian community in the UK.

SAHM runs from 18 July to 17 August, with eight countries included: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Singh told The Media Leader that there had been “a noticeable change” in brand involvement over the last two years, but there was “still huge room for improvement”.

While South Asian media companies have started to use SAHM as a “hook” to promote their work and many companies are organising internal events, Singh explained, mainstream brands are “still finding it tricky” to make the jump from internal initiatives to external outreach through advertising and promotion.

Members of Media for All (Mefa) also highlighted a rise in internal events compared with external activations compared with last year. Companies that have launched Internal SAHM initiatives this year include Fremantle, Banijay, All3Media, News UK, Channel 4, Interpublic, Microsoft and Ogilvy.

Meanwhile, companies such as TikTok, ITV and Amazon’s Audible have engaged with SAHM this year to celebrate and promote South Asian artists and musicians or programming relevant to the diaspora.

However, Singh and several media executives who spoke to The Media Leader felt that some brands had “gone backwards” in their engagement, citing Spotify as an example — the music platform had a strong SAHM push in 2022 and 2023, but appeared to have “overlooked it entirely this year”.

Singh added: “There is still so much work that needs to be done to make sure there is better engagement across the board, but things are slowly getting better on that front.

“We just need to remind ourselves that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that it may take a few more years yet before we see involvement from brand and media owners to the level we would expect for other awareness months.”

Lack of senior diversity

So why are mainstream brands not engaging?

According to Mara Hafezi, a member of both SAHM and Mefa, most internal events had been employee-driven. This has meant that they were “more often than not” handled by junior staff members who do not have control of budgets.

She said: “Not many companies have been doing campaigns, events or activities externally for SAHM, although the number of employee-engagement internal activities has been wonderful to see.

“I think part of this is due to the lack of diversity at the top. There is still some education that needs to be done to show senior leadership the significance of the month and the potential positive impact it could have for both them and their clients.

“We have been trying to get some big consumer brands to do external campaigns, but this has proven tricky.”

The same issue occurred with PR, marketing and ad agencies that had been approached to create campaigns, Hafezi continued, which either “went cold” or “said no”.

She argued: “From a marketing, advertising and PR point of view, SAHM is giving these agencies an additional campaign theme for clients — they don’t need to think about the theme. As soon as the theme is announced in advance, agencies would be able to spend time to build creative campaigns that explore the theme for their clients. It’s a good way to target a different group of consumers and do something a little bit different.

“Personally, I love to see household names take part in consumer-facing campaigns next year, like John Lewis, which has done some brilliant in-store campaigns around Vaisakhi and Eid.”

One successful example is period underwear brand Wuka, which launched an ad campaign during SAHM 2023 about experiences from South Asian women called “#DesiPeriodStory”.

Restricted budgets

Another potential barrier is budget constraints.

One Mefa member explained that budgets are currently “massively restricted” and usually they would have seen more bookings for both SAHM and disability Pride month in July, but it has been “very quiet”.

Nimmi Shah, freelance consultant and another Mefa member, also highlighted timing as an issue, as SAHM coincides with the school holidays and follows many advertising festivals that brands will have been involved in.

Spring would be better, Shah suggested, as budgets “often get slashed” in Q3.

The timing of SAHM was chosen to tie in with anniversaries of the Indian Independence Act and the publishing of the Radcliffe Line, which partly set out the border between India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

Lack of proper representation

Maninder Paul, director for paid media at Hotwire and member of Mefa, told The Media Leader that she “struggled” to find any recent external campaigns from brands around SAHM, apart from the “#iamnotatypo” campaign that ran across OOH sites to highlight how many non-Western names are autocorrected or misspelt.

Furthermore, Paul said, most brands view Eid and Diwali as the only ways to speak to or represent South Asian communities.

She continued: “The lack of proper representation of the South Asian community in advertising is a significant issue. Too often, ads rely on stereotypes, showing everyone celebrating Eid or Diwali and loving henna. This only captures a small part of the diverse South Asian diaspora.

“South Asians come from a wide range of cultures, languages and traditions. Sticking to clichés misses the richness of our experiences and keeps outdated views alive.”

This “invisibility” is particularly felt by women from certain South Asian backgrounds, as their stories are often left out of mainstream ads, affecting both societal perceptions and their self-image, she added.

The advertising industry “must embrace South Asian diversity” to create accurate and inclusive portrayals.

Paul concluded: “Brands need to be challenged to go beyond these stereotypes and engage with the South Asian community authentically. Celebrating the full diversity of cultures and experiences within it will create more inclusive ads that resonate with a broader audience.”

Are brands missing a trick? South Asian Heritage Month three years on