Elevating faces of diversity in travel.
Delta and creative company Kin team up with Adobe Stock to create images and videos celebrating diverse representation in travel.
Established
1929
Employees: 75,000
Atlanta, Georgia
Kin
Established 2019
100s
Diverse travel photographs and video clips available for all
Products:
Objectives
Increase the diversity of travel imagery used across the industry
Increase representation and visibility within travel culture for people of diverse races, ages, sexual orientations, gender identities, religious beliefs, and physical abilities
Elevate new perspectives to create a more equitable world
Results
Shares a collection of more than 200 photographs and video clips through Adobe Stock
Breaks stereotypes and cliches by highlighting diverse travelers often overlooked in traditional travel photography
Embraces diversity and inclusion through production by hiring diverse teams on location
Photos by Faces of Travel/Adobe Stock
The world is a big place, and the ability to take a flight to nearly any destination can help connect us to new experiences. Ranked as the Wall Street Journal’s #1 airline in 2021, Delta Air Lines believes that everything they do should contribute to that feeling of connection.
“At Delta, we have a unique perspective on human connection,” explains Shannon Womack, Managing Director, Lifecycle Marketing at Delta Air Lines. “We can literally take two people from opposite ends of the world and bring them together. This is so important because by getting people outside of what’s familiar, we can help them expand their perspective and learn to empathize with people and cultures unfamiliar to them.”
Since joining Delta five years ago, Womack has advocated for the potential of the brand to use its platform to do good in the world. Along with Kin — a creative company founded on the desire to advance social change through culture — Delta has actively focused its creative and marketing efforts on the company values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The latest bold initiative, “Faces of Travel,” aims to increase diverse representations of travelers — not just in Delta’s marketing, but across the industry. Delta and Kin partnered with Adobe to release a library of impactful images and video as a special collection available for free through Adobe Stock. More than ever, creators are asking for diverse and inclusive content to showcase their brand values, and this collection can help brands across the industry develop campaigns to represent and connect with global audiences.
“As a leader in the airline industry, Delta is embracing its responsibility to make changes that have a positive impact on the world,” says Kwame Taylor-Hayford, co-founder of Kin. “By making such a beautiful, curated collection of diverse images openly available to everyone, we can move the needle forward and inspire change across the industry.”
The “Faces of Travel” image library will be supported by two films, out-of-home advertising (OOH), social media, influencer partnerships, and events to showcase how the image library can be used to model real world inclusion and change the face of travel for the better.
“We’ve always seen Delta as a force for diverse representation — both through our business practices and how we present ourselves. We loved the idea from Kin to do something that doesn’t just move Delta forward, but affects the industry as a whole.”
Shannon Womack
Managing Director, Lifecycle Marketing, Delta Air Lines
Reaching for higher standards in travel imagery
The “Faces of Travel” initiative was born from the close relationship between Delta and Kin. While looking for travel-related images online, Taylor-Hayford realized that all of his searches were turning up the same types of very one-dimensional travel imagery.
“So much of the aspirational travel imagery shows the same types of privileged, wealthy, and predominantly white travelers,” explains Taylor-Hayford. “But that doesn’t reflect the reality of travelers at all. All types of people love to travel: people from all backgrounds, all abilities, and all economic status. We needed to do something to make a change, and we believed that Delta would be the perfect partner for this idea.”
Delta was immediately on board with the idea of highlighting diversity in travelers. Representation matters across diverse underinvested groups. According to the Ipsos’ Audience Representation Index, 59% of ethnic and racial minorities and 49% of all participants prefer to engage with brands that represent and include different groups in society. Expanding the diversity of travel imagery would benefit Delta by helping the company better represent the travelers flying on Delta planes. But both Delta and Kin felt that this collection of images could do more — it could change the entire landscape of travel representation.
“There were so few images of diverse travelers available that we struggled to even find examples to put in our pitch to Delta,” says Taylor-Hayford. “We wanted this work to result in meaningful social change. If we really want to make a change, we need a partner. The first name that came to mind was Adobe.”
Not only does Kin use Adobe Creative Cloud apps every day, but the agency felt that the “Faces of Travel” initiative would align with Adobe’s mantra of ‘Creativity For All.’ Adobe agreed, offering to release the collection through Adobe Stock and making the photographs and videos available free to millions of creators around the world.
“At Adobe Stock, we are committed to partnering with creative changemakers who are making the world a more diverse and inclusive place through the visual stories that they tell,” explains Lindsay Morris, Strategic Development Manager at Adobe. “We are very proud of this partnership with Delta Air Lines and Kin. The ‘Faces of Travel’ collection is a powerful reminder of how it is all of our responsibilities to give diverse voices a greater platform to share their stories, because more voices, more stories, more ideas, and more art, leads to more innovation and a more vibrant world.”
Travel through the eyes of everyone
“Faces of Travel” purposefully rejects stereotypes. The collection pushes back against cliches and instead offers visual stories to open up narrative possibilities beyond the expected. Creators can choose from images such as a hijabi woman paddleboarding; a traveler with a disability on a hike; or a mature, mixed-race couple having a fun night out.
Kin designed the campaign to highlight two significant international hubs that can be flown to from a domestic Delta hub: Mexico City and Amsterdam. The locations themselves are full of very diverse people that could be showcased in a beautiful, evergreen, impactful way. Delta and Kin strove to hire diverse production teams working in each of these locales. Korean-Mexican photographer SeoJu Park led photography on the project, reflecting her unique multicultural experiences through the images.
Delta amplified the voices of the featured travelers and creators through its “Faces of Travel” media campaign through outlets that include Vice Media and Refinery 29. But the initiative took a life of its own through the “Faces of Travel” collection on Adobe Stock. As other companies begin adopting the images for their own work, Delta and Kin hope that it will start to change perceptions of what a traveler looks like.
“All types of people love to travel: people from all backgrounds, all abilities, and all economic status. We needed to do something to make a change, and we believed that Delta would be the perfect partner for this idea.”
Kwame Taylor-Hayford
Co-founder, Kin
Pushing creativity to new heights
“We’ve always seen Delta as a force for diverse representation — both through our business practices and how we present ourselves,” says Womack. “We loved the idea from Kin to do something that doesn’t just move Delta forward but affects the industry as a whole. I think that everyone has a unique perspective that they can bring to the world, and by elevating those stories, we can empower everyone to create a more equitable and empathetic world.”
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Watch Delta and Kin’s Faces of Travel campaign featured in this webinar: Faces of Travel: Delta Air Lines, Adobe Stock, and Frame.io.
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