The 2025 SeeMe Inclusivity Index highlights leading beauty brands that have demonstrated consistent and meaningful inclusivity efforts, with e.l.f. Beauty, Dove, and Maybelline topping the list. The index, which evaluates brands based on their commitment to representation in marketing, product development, and purpose-driven initiatives, offers a comprehensive look at industry progress and areas for improvement.
About the SeeMe Index
Launched in 2023 by Asha Shivaji and Jason R. Klein, the SeeMe Index provides data-driven insights into consumer-facing DEI efforts by objectively measuring brand inclusivity through responsible AI. Drawing from their experience as former Google executives, Shivaji and Klein developed the index to address industry challenges in quantifying inclusive marketing efforts.
The SeeMe Index serves as a framework for brands to assess and enhance inclusivity in marketing and public communications. By offering benchmarks and insights, it aims to provide an evidence-based approach for brands to set and achieve inclusivity goals.
Key differentiators of inclusive brands
In an interview with CosmeticsDesign, Klein shared that a major factor that sets inclusive brands apart is their ability to integrate inclusivity throughout all aspects of their business. “What differentiates certified inclusive brands from their competitors is consistency,” he explained.
He noted that “there’s a misperception that in order to be an inclusive brand, you have to be a brand for everybody,” and dispelled that understanding as simply “not true—each brand has unique objectives and brand growth strategies, but the checkbox exercise of featuring someone ‘diverse’ in an ad is not going to cut it anymore.“
Instead, he clarified, “these brands are holistically inclusive, meaning if someone of a certain identity group is featured in marketing materials, they are also considered in product testing and brand purpose efforts.”
One standout example is e.l.f. Beauty, which has prioritized support for the blind and low-vision community. “They are the only brand we measured to feature talent in ads from the low-vision and blind community via champion swimmer Tas Pagonis,” Shivaji told CosmeticsDesign.
“Within the product, they launched a ‘Beauty for Every Eye’ bundle with QR codes that allow consumers to scan to hear product descriptions, and within their purpose efforts, the Show Yours(e.l.f.) series showcase stories from extraordinary role models like Pagonis,” she continued. “There’s a consistency in their actions demonstrating they care about these communities, and in turn, consumers respond positively.”
Challenges in inclusivity efforts
Despite progress, the report identified areas where the beauty industry continues to fall short. “The most concerning miss was the persistence of colorism,” Klein noted, or discrimination based on skin tone, favoring people with lighter skin over people with darker skin.
“Because ads have a shorter lead time to create versus product development or brand purpose,” he explained, “we expected to see the most improvement in advertising versus other marketing tactics, but this wasn’t the case.”
Regarding this particular issue, he continued, “Brands often fail to consider the breadth of skin tone diversity in ethnic groups, [which] can lead to casting one person with a lighter skin tone to be representative of the entire group, and this isn’t representative at all.”
As a proactive solution, Klein suggested that brands hold themselves accountable. “We saw talent with deep skin tones were the least represented in creator content, so this is a great starting place for brands to hold themselves accountable.”
Other challenges noted in SeeMe Index’s report include a decline in brand purpose calls-to-action, with 21% fewer brands providing consumers with opportunities to support brand-led social impact initiatives, as well as a stagnation in gender non-confirming representation at 1.5% of screentime.
Additionally, the analysis noted the use of “anti-aging” ageist language has increased, now used by 49% of brands, compared to 40% in 2023.
The business case for inclusivity
The data also reinforced the economic benefits of inclusivity. “I would argue inclusion has always been a crucial driver of brand success,” said Shivaji.
“It’s one of the fundamental principles of marketing that you personalize your brand and product to appeal to your consumer’s unique needs,” she explained, and advancements in technology are facilitating the implementation process with increasing efficiency.
“Responsible AI enables us to measure large swaths of data that wouldn’t have been possible manually,” she illustrated, and by “combining this with POS data from a trusted partner like Circana, [this] gives the industry the proof points we’ve been waiting for to establish the business case.”
Emerging trends in inclusivity
The 2025 index expanded its scope to analyze over 100 brands, uncovering new insights into how different brand categories approach inclusivity. “With a broader set of brands, we were able to uncover insights at sub-category levels such as luxury vs. mass, indie vs. legacy, or Black-owned or founded,” Klein said.
The analysis determined that Black-owned or founded brands are much more likely to demonstrate inclusion that goes beyond skin tone, he revealed.
Specifically, he highlighted, “these brands are 2x more likely to feature talent of different ages, 1.8x more likely to feature talent with facial characteristics like vitiligo or facial birthmarks, and 1.3x more likely to feature different hair types in ads, even when it’s not a hair care brand.”
As a result, “they’re truly leading the industry in inclusion across multiple identity dimensions.”
The SeeMe Index report also revealed that overall, more brands are acknowledging consumers with disabilities, with an 11% increase in products available for this consumer demographic. Intersectionality, as well as age and size inclusion, are also on the rise in marketing efforts.
The future of inclusive beauty
Looking ahead, inclusivity will be even more critical for beauty brands aiming to connect with younger generations. “In the next five years and beyond, brands have to win with Gen Z and Gen Alpha,” said Shivaji, as “those generations are noticeably blacker, browner, and queerer, so ‘inclusive marketing’ is just another way to say effective marketing for these consumers.”
Therefore, she advised, “It’s time to change the perception that inclusive marketing is somehow in addition to your other marketing efforts.”
She warned that beauty brands who fail to evolve in their inclusive marketing efforts may “get left behind if you think that way, and this echoes the data from the UN’s business case for inclusion that showed that brands without inclusive advertising will become obsolete, losing both short- and long-term sales along with loyalty.”
Striving to set a new industry standard
Moving forward, the SeeMe Inclusivity Index continues aiming to raise the bar for the beauty industry by providing transparency and accountability.
“Our vision from day one has been that the index becomes a common resource between brands and consumers,” Shivaji concluded. “Our hope is that as more brands and consumers pay attention to the index and its insights, it will raise the bar for inclusion in the industry.”
