The future of AI personalization is inclusive, part 3: Driving business growth by being unmistakably authentic with audience representation

To truly create a resilient brand—one that people will stand by, advocate, and grow to be passionate about—you need strategies for building customer relationships that will withstand the test of time. And with AI enabling inclusive personalization in advertising, now is the perfect time to figure out which strategies will yield meaningful results, and which people are choosing not to buy from your brand and why.

For me, it starts with authenticity and examining the quality of data on audience representation within your post-purchase analytics. This powers your ability to authentically connect. You should have insights into not only who your best-performing customers are, but also your worst—or even better, who isn't even giving your brand a chance by never buying. Brands often optimize for their best 20% of customers who drive 80% of their revenue.

But if you stop there... you’re making a costly mistake.

The other 80% of your audience that may seem to have lackluster performance could be a treasure trove of opportunities. If you’re not understanding why prospects aren’t even giving you a chance or why customers have churned, then you’re likely designing an entire swath of people right out of your consumer decision journey—reinforcing the optimal experience for 20% and disregarding 80%. How can that truly be good for growth?

This 80/20 approach offers significant representation opportunities. And the right strategic fuel for AI personalization can expand your brand’s reach, improve its relevance, earn loyalty, and even resurrect relationships with lost customers.

In part 3 of this guide, I'll walk through how authentic personalized representation rooted in inclusive marketing can unlock real growth, ensuring visibility into your opportunities—and how it builds trust, love, and loyalty with all your audiences. Especially now, when the meaning of inclusivity is often muddled, a data-to-creative approach grounded in authenticity and audience opportunities can set your brand apart, stoke your growth engine, and become a true competitive advantage.

Microsoft Advertising’s inclusive marketing framework

Our key perspective on inclusive marketing started with the development of two studies: The Psychology of Inclusion and the Effects of Advertising: Gen Z and Accelerating Brand Performance Through Trust, Love, and Loyalty. These studies revealed insights into what earns and sustains trust, and builds brand love, along with the significant factors that define a strong customer-brand relationship—the holy grail of future revenue growth: loyalty.

My biggest takeaway that has withstood the test of time is:

High-quality personalization in advertising is inclusive advertising. It makes someone feel: “You’re a brand for someone like me.” Inclusion is a collection of data sets that powers high-quality personalization—it’s truly helpful to a person’s need or want.

Chances are, if people aren’t buying or if they’re churning from your lifecycle marketing program, you’re missing the bar for making them feel, “You’re a brand for someone like me.” In other words, your personalization is missing the mark and isn’t helpful.

In a hallmark research study by Microsoft called Towards Inclusive Software Engineering Through A/B Testing: A Case-Study at Windows, the results challenged the traditional A/B testing model by highlighting how it can unintentionally overlook or even disadvantage underrepresented customer groups.

It argues that when we only optimize for the majority, we risk reinforcing existing inequities in product experiences. This can be true in our advertising, or wherever we use A/B testing methods. For marketers, this means that performance metrics and experimentation strategies must evolve to reflect the full diversity of our audiences in our analytics. Who doesn’t want to earn more loyal customers?

The study advocates for inclusive experimentation practices—like disaggregating data by demographic segments and incorporating fairness metrics—so that we can build products and campaigns that resonate equitably across all communities. This can help a brand grow favorability in audiences that were once thought of as impossible to reach or resonate with.

Another example of this in action is Unilever’s “Dove Real Beauty” campaign. It was designed to expand the definition of beauty celebrate the beauty of all women, regardless of age, size, or ethnicity. Its authentic portrayal of a spectrum of real people resonated deeply with audiences. Many credited the campaign with boosting their self-esteem and confidence by showcasing diverse and relatable models.

Overall, the campaign has been praised for its authenticity and its ability to connect with a wider audience on a deeper level. By representing underserved audiences in their marketing message, Unilever was able to deliver the right message, at the right time, with nuanced context, to a much broader array of people.

And bringing this kind of inclusive representation into AI-driven marketing is essential. Here’s how Paul Longo, GM of AI Ads at Microsoft Advertising, describes the generative AI trends shaping the future of marketing:

"Personalization is evolving from general experiences based on demographics to highly individual interactions based on unique search intent, preferences, and context. And, generative AI-powered solutions can help brands deliver hyper-personalized experiences at scale, leading to significantly higher engagement and conversions."

Without inclusion in personalization, these powerful tools risk amplifying exclusion at scale, leaving entire communities behind even faster.

The inclusive marketing promise starts with a critical question: Who are we unintentionally leaving out?

Are we leaving people out by a product’s feature shortfalls? Are we leaving them out by our advertising not speaking to their needs, or even in the right language? Or are we not discovering the audience we are missing by not conducting inclusive analytics in our marketing operations?

By identifying these gaps and authentically representing excluded product needs or voices—across product development, in data analytics, and/or in creative execution—brands can build deeper, more trusted relationships with their customers and expand their customer base. These are real growth opportunities. Your big bet: Start with inclusive customer analytics.