Doing Good and Looking Cool: The Impact of Disability Representation in Fashion Marketing

Journal of Marketing Research Scholarly Insights are produced in partnership with the AMA Doctoral Students SIG – a shared interest network for Marketing PhD students across the world.

People with disabilities make up about 16% of the world’s population, yet they are rarely seen in fashion marketing. When brands do include them, they often worry about how audiences will react. Will they respond positively, or will the campaign seem performative, distracting, or off-brand?

In their Journal of Marketing Research article, Jiaqian Wang and Chuang Wei set out to answer that question. Across multiple studies, they find that featuring people with disabilities consistently improves fashion marketing effectiveness. Consumers responded more positively to the ads, felt better about the brands, and reported stronger buying interest.

When brands feature models with disabilities, consumers tend to perceive the brand as warmer and more approachable, as well as cooler. According to the researchers, warmth is about having good, worthy intentions, and coolness means deviating from the norm in a way that still feels appropriate for the category. In one A/B test, an ad featuring a model with a prosthetic leg generated higher click-through rates and a lower cost per click, dropping from $0.49 to $0.35. The 28% decrease indicates that inclusion can drive effectiveness while also improving cost efficiency.

Wang and Wei emphasize the value of brands conveying sincere intent. Disability representation is most effective when it feels authentic and not a decision made under pressure. The research shows that the impact is greater when brands proactively lead with this approach, rather than following competitors. Companies risk appearing less genuine when inclusion appears reactive or opportunistic, which significantly weakens performance. How well a campaign works also depends on whether the disability is recognizable to consumers. The authors note that many campaigns rely on visible physical disabilities because they are easier for people to notice and understand. However, the effect is not just limited to physical disabilities. If consumers can recognize the disability, either visually or with a bit of context, the performance improves in similar ways.

“Inclusion can drive effectiveness while also improving cost efficiency.”

What does this mean for managers? Disability inclusion performs best when it corresponds to the brand’s identity and long-term goals. It is most effective when the brand leads with a distinct perspective rather than following other brands. It also performs best when the representation is clear, while still treating the disabled model as a person rather than a symbol. Hence, while disability representation can offer a competitive edge, its impact depends just as much on how well it is implemented.

We reached out to Wang and Wei to learn what sparked the project and what they would tell teams who want to apply these insights to real campaigns:

Q: What motivated you to study disability representation in fashion marketing, and why was this an important question to study?

A: When we initiated this project several years ago, diversity and inclusion had already become a prominent theme in both discourse and practice. Many companies had begun to feature people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community, signaling a broader shift toward inclusive representation. However, the representation of people with disabilities, who constitute 16% of the global population, remained notably underrepresented in fashion marketing. 

Even when brands did feature models with disabilities, such as the Gucci and Victoria’s Secret examples discussed in our paper, they did not reveal a consistent pattern of consumer response. This inconsistency raised a fundamental question: Does disability representation help or hurt fashion brands—and under what conditions?

From a theoretical standpoint, predictions were also unclear. On the one hand, inclusive representation might signal warmth and social responsibility. On the other hand, the fashion industry has historically celebrated ideals of perfection and beauty. It was therefore uncertain whether featuring models with disabilities would align with consumers’ aesthetic aspirations. This tension between emerging inclusive values and entrenched industry ideals made the question both theoretically intriguing and practically urgent. We were motivated to investigate an issue with significant implications for marketing practice, consumer psychology, and societal inclusion.

Q: For brands that adopt disability representation later than their first-mover competitors, what concrete actions can rebuild credibility and generate strong marketing effectiveness?

A: Costly signaling theory suggests that credible commitment requires actions that would be irrational for insincere actors to undertake. Our data suggest that for late-moving brands, surface-level representation will be dismissed as imitative or performative. Credibility emerges from costly, verifiable commitments that separate genuine from opportunistic actors.

Practically, this means embedding disability inclusion across multiple touchpoints such as accessible product design, inclusive hiring practices, investments in physical and digital accessibility, and sustained partnerships with disability communities. Any single action can be dismissed as performative, but a coordinated pattern of costly, verifiable efforts across representation, operations, and organizational structure becomes difficult to attribute to mere opportunism.

We suspect that authentic storytelling that acknowledges lateness may also help. Transparent narratives about organizational learning, mistakes made, and systemic changes implemented can paradoxically build credibility.

Q: How could featuring a specific disability (e.g., Down syndrome) shape consumer response and marketing effectiveness as compared to showcasing disability in a more general, non-specific way?

A: This is not something that we have directly tested, but we have some speculations. The “identifiable victim effect” demonstrates that people respond more strongly to specific, individualized narratives than to abstract groups. Thus, it stands to reason that a campaign featuring someone with Down syndrome creates a specific, humanized narrative that can generate stronger emotional engagement than generic “disability representation.”

Also, specific disability representation may signal deep understanding and genuine engagement with particular communities. It demonstrates that the brand has invested in understanding specific experiences rather than treating disability as monolithic. However, this specificity comes with trade-offs. Highlighting one disability may unintentionally exclude or alienate audiences with other types of disabilities.

Perhaps the most sophisticated strategy may be having multiple campaigns over time featuring different specific disabilities, which demonstrates both depth (specific, authentic representation) and breadth (commitment to diverse disability experiences).

Q: How should managers think about designing marketing assets that communicate warmth and brand coolness without slipping into pity, tokenism, or one-off storytelling?

A: One key principle is agency. Disabled individuals should be portrayed as protagonists driving their own stories, not as passive recipients of help or inspiration for non-disabled audiences. Narratives should center on goals, preferences, and choices that signal agency and competence. This shifts from “overcoming” disability (which implicitly frames disability as a deficit) to “navigating” life while disabled (which frames disability as an identity dimension).

It is also important to avoid making disability the center of discourse. We recommend that managers build marketing assets by representing disabled individuals as multi-dimensional and their disability as one identity facet among many. For example, show professional accomplishments, hobbies, relationships, and aesthetic preferences. When disability is the only identity dimension portrayed, it becomes tokenizing. When someone happens to be disabled while also being a musician, parent, and food enthusiast, the representation becomes humanizing rather than reductive.

Q: In your research, the recognizability of disability seems to shape consumer responses. What are respectful, practical ways for marketers to make the representation clear to audiences without overexplaining or turning the campaign into a lesson? 

A: Respectful clarity often comes from context, not exposition. Environmental and situational cues, such as wheelchair ramps, captions, assistive technology, or prosthetics, can signal disability naturally without requiring explicit explanation or medical framing.

If verbal acknowledgment is necessary, brands may consider first-person, casual language integrated into a broader conversation rather than formal disclosure.

It is also important for brands to work with disabled community members to gauge whether the representation feels clear, respectful, and naturally integrated.

Q: Where do you think these insights apply best beyond fashion (i.e., beauty, luxury, retail, etc.)? What should marketers adjust when bringing disability-inclusive representation into those categories?

A: While our research focuses on fashion, the insights should extend to many consumer-facing industries. In sectors less centered on the body, such as technology or finance, the integration of disability-inclusive representation must feel organic and authentic. Marketers should avoid positioning disability as a spectacle or an afterthought. Instead, inclusion should be woven naturally into narratives where the individual’s expertise, experience, or relevance to the context is foregrounded. This helps ensure that representation is perceived as meaningful rather than performative. For example, Apple has been very successful in disability representation. They launched several short films showcasing how their accessibility features enabled different people with disabilities to meet their needs and pursue their dreams. When inclusion is tied directly to what the brand offers and values, it is more likely to be perceived as authentic and impactful.

Source: Jiaqian Wang and Chuang Wei (2025), “Does Featuring People with Disabilities Help or Hurt Fashion Marketing Effectiveness?“ Journal of Marketing Research, 62 (4), 582–600. doi:10.1177/00222437241309310

Go to the  Journal of Marketing Research