Singapore, 5th June 2025 – Diversity and inclusivity have become vital values shaping consumer expectations and brand strategies across many industries. With 16% of the global population living with a disability[1], fashion brands are increasingly including people with disabilities in their advertising to reflect a wider range of identities and better represent diversity.
Yet, people with disabilities remain underrepresented in fashion advertisements, and the impact of their inclusion is unknown.
To close this gap, the NUS Business School conducted a field study on Facebook using a series of advertising campaigns and experiments involving more than 2,000 participants. The research team found that featuring people with visible disabilities in fashion marketing significantly boosts brand image and improves advertising impact.
Disability representation enhances brand perception and engagement
In the field study, Facebook users were shown one of two ads – one featuring a model without a visible disability and the other with a prosthetic leg. Key advertising metrics such as click-through rates and cost-per-click were tracked to assess marketing effectiveness based on audience response.
The results showed that the advertisement featuring the model with a prosthetic leg achieved approximately 60% higher click-through rates and 28% lower cost-per-click. This suggests that consumers are more likely to engage with brands that include disability representation.
To further investigate why disability representation influences marketing effectiveness, the researchers conducted a series of experiments.
Participants were presented with the ads featuring models with a range of conditions, including visible and invisible disabilities. They were then asked how the ads shaped their perception of the brand as warm and caring or distinctive and unconventional.
The results revealed that brands featuring models with visible disabilities were perceived to be warmer and signalling goodwill by promoting inclusion compared to brands featuring models without visible disabilities. They were also seen as distinctive because they positively deviated from norms. Both findings indicated that disability representation significantly enhanced marketing effectiveness.
Explaining the results, Assistant Professor Jane Jiaqian Wang from NUS Business School, said, “When advertisements feature individuals with visible disabilities, consumers are more likely to perceive the brands as compassionate and socially responsible. Interestingly, disability representation also makes brands unconventional. In marketing, disability representation differs not only from standard industry practices but also from traditional media depictions of people with disabilities. Importantly, this deviation from norms is beneficial, as it supports inclusivity and promotes positive portrayals of the community. As a result, this departure from the norm contributes to a brand’s perceived distinctness.”
The results also found that disability representation consistently outperformed plus-size representation in driving consumer engagement. This was largely because disabilities are often seen as the result of external misfortune, which evokes empathy and admiration for the individual’s resilience.
Strategic timing and authenticity matter
Beyond consumer perceptions, the researchers also examined how the timing and authenticity of disability representation affected its impact.
Brands that proactively embraced disability representation saw the greatest benefits, while those that adopted it reactively in response to body-shaming scandals saw minimal gains. Furthermore, first-mover brands that led the way in featuring models with disabilities outperformed those that followed, reinforcing the competitive advantage of early adoption.
Assistant Prof Wang added, “Our overall findings confirm that disability representation is an important step toward inclusivity while giving brands a strategic opportunity to stand out in a competitive marketplace. Consumers tend to reward brands that take an authentic and proactive approach to disability representation. To avoid accusations of insincerity or tokenism, companies must demonstrate a sustained and substantial commitment to inclusivity, such as investing in the design of adaptive clothing or having meaningful inclusion of people with disabilities in their marketing efforts.”
Read the full paper, ‘Does Featuring People with Disabilities Help or Hurt Fashion Marketing Effectiveness?’ at:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00222437241309310
[1] World Health Organization (2023), “Disability,” https://www.who.int/health-topics/disability#tab=tab_1
For media enquiries, please contact:
Frank CHUA Assistant Senior Manager, Corporate Communications NUS Business School DID: +65 6601 2469 Email: frank.c@nus.edu.sg
Natalie LAW Assistant Manager, Corporate Communications NUS Business School DID: +65 6601 1206 Email: natalielaw@nus.edu.sg
About National University of Singapore (NUS)
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore’s flagship university, which offers a global approach to education, research and entrepreneurship, with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise. We have 16 colleges, faculties and schools across three campuses in Singapore, with more than 40,000 students from 100 countries enriching our vibrant and diverse campus community. We have also established more than 20 NUS Overseas Colleges entrepreneurial hubs around the world.
Our multidisciplinary and real-world approach to education, research and entrepreneurship enables us to work closely with industry, governments and academia to address crucial and complex issues relevant to Asia and the world. Researchers in our faculties, research centres of excellence, corporate labs and more than 30 university-level research institutes focus on themes that include energy; environmental and urban sustainability; treatment and prevention of diseases; active ageing; advanced materials; risk management and resilience of financial systems; Asian studies; and Smart Nation capabilities such as artificial intelligence, data science, operations research and cybersecurity.
For more information on NUS, please visit nus.edu.sg.
About NUS Business School
The National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School is known for providing management thought leadership from an Asian perspective, enabling its students and corporate partners to leverage global knowledge and Asian insights.
The school has consistently received top rankings in the Asia-Pacific region by independent publications and agencies, such as The Financial Times, Economist Intelligence Unit, and QS Top MBA, in recognition of the quality of its programmes, faculty research and graduates.
The school is accredited by AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System), endorsements that the school has met the highest standards for business education. The school is also a member of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), Executive MBA Council, Partnership in Management (PIM) and CEMS (Community of European Management Schools).
For more information about NUS Business School, please visit bschool.nus.edu.sg, or go to the BIZBeat portal, which showcases the School’s research.