The thing about representation is that you don’t recognise the complete lack of it unless it’s you who feels unrepresented. If your life experience is one of continuous inclusion then how can you understand what’s missing?

Last year, a member of Tesco staff spotted a Tweet which subsequently went viral where a black man wrote about how emotional he felt to finally discover a plaster that matched his skin tone. An idea formed so, working alongside the internal BAME network at Tesco, the supermarket giant decided to launch their own brand plasters in three different tones: light, medium and dark.

To mark the launch, BBH London have created a striking print campaign to run in press and digital out of home, featuring the tagline, ‘About bloody time’. For despite the fact it is 2020, no UK supermarket has ever stocked plasters in a range of skin tones before.

Tesco’s network of BAME employees helped in the development stage of the product, contributing to the testing, feedback and final design. The brand hope that with the launch, other retailers will choose to follow suit.

Truly representative design is vital to fostering a feeling of inclusion, which is particularly important in children and young people. For some, the experience of using a plaster that doesn’t match their skin tone will be the first time they experience the micro-aggressions of a non-inclusive society.

A product like these plasters demonstrate the power that can come from listening to a community and understanding their everyday lived experience. A brilliant example of how a brand's own employee network can play a vital role in a creative process. 

There is little choice when it comes to diverse plasters in the UK; those that do exist can be difficult to find and expensive. Tesco are making the diverse choice easy and accessible for everyone. They chose to understand difference and to make it mainstream and that’s what makes this campaign so powerful.