Successful Multicultural Marketing with LBDigital

Nov 10

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the U.S. population is more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before. Multicultural consumers make up almost 42.2% of the total U.S. population, an increase of 129% compared to 2010. Not surprisingly, marketers and advertisers are placing an increasing focus on multicultural marketing. Yet not all recent multicultural campaigns have hit the mark. With tales of cultural appropriation, inaccurate targeting, and cultural generalizations filling industry publications, the path to multicultural marketing success may seem perilous. But it needn’t be.

LBDigital has gathered the best advice available to ensure your next multicultural campaign performs.

Know Your Audience

The danger of pigeonholing people into groups is that you end up misrepresenting individuals, leading to irrelevant ads that fall on deaf ears. How to combat this? Before even contemplating a campaign you need to know your audience well. Carry out research on the successes and challenges other brands in your sector have faced and use those learnings to inform your own upcoming campaigns.

Target With Precision

One such learning could involve the data you use to target your campaigns. Research conducted by data evaluator Truthset suggests that brands may often think they’re targeting a particular multicultural group, but that due to inaccurate data, they could in fact be targeting consumers from a completely different cultural background. For example, they found that on average for every dollar spent targeting an African American consumer, 73 cents was spent reaching a non-African American consumer.

To avoid data inaccuracy in your next multicultural campaign, make sure you work with a data provider who can provide you with validated multicultural data. LBDigital has a proven track record of helping marketers to reach their target audience. For example, an agency recently asked us to help their client target Muslims in the US for a digital fundraising campaign. After initial testing of our data, they rolled out to 4 MM devices, and served over 21 MM impressions, exceeding the campaign’s KPI.

LBDigital's demographic data has consistently ranked tops among leading data providers for multicultural data including African American, Asian, Hispanic, and Spanish-speaking consumers by Truthset. The ANA's AIMM has also awarded us a badge for transparency in multicultural marketing. Learn more >

Be Relevant and Use Compelling Creative

If you’re using the right data, you now need to be sure you’re sending a targeted message. A recent report from ANA’s AIMM found that consumers who see ads as “culturally relevant” are 2.6 times more likely to find the brand relevant to them, and are 2.7 times more likely to buy from a brand for the first time. Moreover, they are also 50% more likely to buy again from a brand they have bought from in the past.

One example of multicultural marketing done right is Procter & Gamble which launched the 2018 Emmy-winning ad entitled, “The Talk”. It shows the universal talk African American mothers have with their children about racism and ends with “LET’S ALL TALK ABOUT ‘THE TALK’ — SO WE CAN END THE NEED TO HAVE IT”. Thanks to its relevance, the campaign helped to kickstart a national dialogue about racial bias on social media, in the general media, and beyond. This created positive change, resulting in 250 million media impressions, of which 85% of earned impressions had a positive or neutral tone. Learn more about the campaign >

Invest More In Multicultural Marketing

Given the level of success marketers can generate with multicultural marketing, it’s surprising that some companies are still focused on a general approach. According to Armando Azarloza, co-founder and CEO of the Axis Agency, a full-service multicultural marketing agency, the investment that major U.S. companies are making in multicultural marketing and advertising is only 5-10% of what they spend in the general market.

Marketers who wish to generate high levels of engagement amongst multicultural groups need to stop viewing diverse and inclusive campaigns as a cost. Instead, they need to embrace the opportunity that targeted multicultural marketing can bring them. Only then will they reap the rewards.