AICP’s demographic reporting initiative expands categories to reflect client and agency requests

AICP has announced that an updated template for its Demographic Reporting Initiative is now available. 

Originally launched in October of 2021, the Demographic Reporting Initiative allows production companies to provide their advertiser and agency clients with insight into the demographic makeup of the people on the crews of their commercials and brand content.  

As with version 1.0, the 2.0 iteration was prepared in cooperation with a consortium of industry payroll companies. This updated version of the Demographic Reporting initiative has greatly expanded the listing of gender identity categories, and added the ability for production staff to include their veteran status in the U.S. Armed Forces. These reports will provide AICP member production companies with anonymous and voluntarily provided breakdowns on these demographic categories, which can in turn be shared with agencies and advertisers upon request. More information on the Demographic Reporting Initiative can be found on the AICP website here. 

The updated Demographic Reporting Initiative framework was revised as a result of a continued push from marketers for this information, noted Sheila R. Brown, AICP’s Vice President, Equity & Inclusion. “The demand for demographic information from marketers directly and their advertising agencies continues to grow,” Brown notes. “As our communities become more diverse, the yearning to know the make-up of the production crews increases. And in our continuing goal to be more inclusive, we also wanted to offer our production crews more options to self-identify. The addition of more gender identity options, and the option to indicate whether an individual is a veteran or not, provides more of the desired details.”  

Regarding gender identity, the updated initiative reporting format has been expanded from female, male and non-binary to include gender classifications such as pangender, transgender, gender fluid and gender neutral.  

As noted when the Demographic Reporting Initiative was first rolled out, AICP member companies were informed that this effort was legally vetted and standardized, resulting in an effective methodology for reporting employment demographic data. It should be noted that filling out the report should not be perceived by employees as a condition of employment. AICP is not privy to any of the data that comes out of the reporting efforts, and aggregated data will only be issued by the payroll companies to their clients, which are the employer production companies, upon request.