Multicultural marketing is a strategy that focuses on different cultural audiences. The best way to coordinate multicultural marketing for your business is to build your ideas around the targeted ethnic group’s cultural traits such as celebrations, customs, and traditions. Also consider diverse communities such as people with disabilities, neurodiversity, or LGBTQ.
The main aim of this marketing strategy is to help your marketing campaign resonate with potential customers across diverse cultural audiences. When executing your campaign it helps to educate the audience that your brand is also catering to different cultures.
Moreover, applying multicultural marketing methods will open new paths for your brand engagement with all consumers, including those outside the “majority audience.” This marketing will also help you build a secure emotional connection to increase the chances of conversions.
Strategy is essential, how do you get started? Before we can delve deeper, let’s learn how to approach multicultural marketing.
How Do You Approach Multicultural Marketing?
It is essential first to know there are different cultures, and their consumer behaviors are different. So, you have to come up with various advertising campaigns for your brand. Also, the message in your brand should attract and be relevant to consumers from specific cultures. Therefore, you don’t necessarily have to translate your message into another language.
However, when you create a marketing message with a limited understanding of a specific culture or based on stereotypes, it will not work as expected. You can not also include a token to represent a unique cultural group in your campaign.
What you need is to customize a message that will perfectly suit a specific target cultural group. Getting cultural nuances right is extremely important.
If the message is misunderstood or misinterpreted, it will alienate your target group instead of bringing engagement with it. You have to; therefore, conduct research carefully to avoid misrepresentation by historical or modern-day cultural references based on context.
There are a few approaches to this strategy, you must connect with all target groups. By including fair representation it is highly based on visibility, actions, and speaking parts. Another option is customizing the campaign for each targeted group. Consider their perceptions, preferences, and needs because they are all crucial. Know what the customer needs and desires, you have to converse with them. Besides, it also helps you or your team garner knowledge regarding the way your brand will fit into the target cultural groups.
Allow your multicultural marketing to be offered by people residing from your target audience or ethnic groups. It means your marketing team should be diverse. If they can directly identify with customers, it means they can truly empathize appropriately with them.
There is a need to have representatives of various diverse groups in your marketing team. A diverse team can bring life experience and practical knowledge to the table.
Lastly, in your approach, consider the accuracy and authenticity of your multicultural marketing strategy. That is through sharing with those minority groups that represent your target audience and getting various opinions before the start of the campaign.
Which Tips Should You Consider While Creating Multicultural Marketing Strategies For Your Brand?
If you’re selling your products globally, considering the multicultural campaign is among the best way you can build relationships. The strategy has helped smaller companies to strengthen their value proposition with unique knowledge about the different cultural groups they target.
However, when you want to launch a multicultural campaign, consider these tips:
- Proper Planning Of Activation Calendar And Channel Selection
An inclusive marketing campaign’s success will depend on the channel you use. For example, print media can effectively work with consumers who are aged above 60 years. However, using interactive platforms such as TikTok or Snapchat, it is suitable especially for the current Generation Z.
The channel of choice you choose should be from the research you have conducted. For instance, in a study conducted by Neilsen in 2019, they reported that African Americans aged above 35 years surpassed by 2% of the total age group in terms of owning a smartphone. It indicated that conducting mobile campaigns in this group can be effective for companies manufacturing smartphones.
However, during engagement timelines, a frequency for targeted consumers, preferred days in a week, and the activation calendar should be considerable factors.
- Analyzing CRM And DMP Platforms Data
You should analyze data management platforms and customer relationship management data. The two usually carry a vast respiratory of data gathered from different consumer segments.
If you consider this data using advanced analytics, it helps you identify targetable segments and move a step ahead.
You also have to ask yourself some of these questions.
- Are there correlations between cultural groups and a specific CRM channel?
- Is there a right time for engagement in the day?
- Is there a key product trait required for repeated conversions?
When you analyze both DMP and CRM data, you can quickly answer the above questions. It also helps you form a foundation for your multicultural marketing technique.
- Analyzing Constantly & Re-launching At The Correct Moment
If you consider choosing this strategy, it should not be considered as a one-off marketing technique. You have to focus on multiple communities and consider their needs as a consistent theme in identifying your brand.
You have to analyze the performance of your campaign in varying languages or geographical locations. It will pinpoint the challenges experienced in those areas. When doing that, tweak your message slightly, and after an opportunity has presented itself, relaunch immediately.
However, you should embed analytics on the whole omnichannel landscape to help analyze performance at that moment. This should give you an actionable and accurate report.
- Bolstering Your Data With Focus Groups And Third-party Research
Internal data analysis for both CRM and DMPs are not enough for consumer sentiment and preferences. Therefore, the results you get, you can not use to highlight opportunities not present in your existing customer base. To succeed, you need third-party research together with A/B experiments.
Further, look at customer insights present in different regions and cities relevant to the targeted cultural group. It will give you the next step, where you have to conduct A/B tests to help figure out the product traits, visual elements resonate, and messaging with different groups.
- Considering Diversity And Inclusions To Make A Decision
Last, when you are launching a multicultural campaign, this practice is critical. For example, a message that has been directed to a single consumer group can’t be termed as offensive in another group.
Your team will require contributions from various voices across cultural, economic, locational divided, age, and gender to make a decision.
However, if you don’t have adequate diverse decision-makers in your team, it is recommended you partner with an agency. It helps ensure that you have content that is not close to cultural prejudice or any stereotype.
Best Multicultural Marketing Campaigns Inspirations
We have looked at the best impressive examples to help bring you to the top campaigns. Most companies have already launched their multicultural campaigns and proved to be a working marketing strategy.
Here are the award-winning multicultural campaigns examples that have struck a chord:
- Coca-Cola
Juan Pablo Gonzalez, a Senior Brand Manager at Coca-Cola, claims that multicultural marketing has increased their brand loyalty, referring to it as a “total market.” It has allowed the company to share resources and establish relevant multicultural market connections.
Coca-Cola introduced the Super Bowl ad in 2014, where a choir of Americans was singing “America the Beautiful.” The company utilized the “Total Market” mindset by singing the song in seven different languages. The ad was also aired again during the 2017 Super Bowl to help the company continue with its multicultural market.
It has tried to monitor demographics because there was controversy with the Super Bowl ad. Coca-Cola, therefore, changed the marketing technics, where it targets different demographics using one global campaign. It has a slogan it features “taste the Feeling” in its global campaigns.
In its attempt to focus on the multicultural markets and maintain a sense of unity, the strategy has become sufficient to brand perception for this soft drink giant.
- Toyota
Toyota is yet another company venturing into a multicultural marketing strategy. In their advertising, it is of a father and daughter who drive home after baseball practice. There is a momentary glimpse because of a peacock, the Queen song singing ” Don’t stop me now,” and an ignored call from mom.
These are among the marketing campaigns of Toyota’s new Camry. However, the commercial you’ll see depends on your ethnicity.
For African Americans, it is of a black man driving featuring a peacock’s image and centered on “strut” as the theme. The entrance music is John Cena – a wrestler.
In Hispanic, there is a Latino man who enjoys his driving experience such that he even declines his mother’s call. That is a move to show rebellion.
In an Asian American ad, a father will pick his daughter after baseball practice. This ad is a casting decision suggesting Camry is a model that brings affection to Asian-American fathers.
Toyota has, therefore, unveiled numerous ads for its car with several designs that resonate with Hispanic, Asian-American, or African-American audiences.
- Chevrolet
Chevrolet partnered with NNPA – National Newspaper Publishers Association – to help portray African American students can also achieve suitable journalism careers.
During the campaign, the theme was to “discover the unexpected.” NNPA did select six students to offer them educational scholarships. For each student chosen, he or she could access Chevrolet vehicles to help find and capture new stories where they could share their experiences via social media.
Therefore, the six selected students were able to find their new roads and explore their career pathways in Chevy Blazer.
- Chase
J.P Morgan Chase is among the leading financial services firm across the globe. This company’s asset ranges up to $742 billion. It operates in many countries – more than 50 countries worldwide. Chase is a leading firm in asset management, investment banking, private equity, private banking, transaction services, and custody.
In its multicultural market, this company focuses on Hispanic consumers. In their campaign, it relays essential and relevant cultural messages that have been developed specifically to showcase its brand. It also has to array its broad product offerings.
The ad campaign is about Hispanics improving their lives. The commercial is of a young couple who gets engaged and looks forward to their future. Another ad is of an architecture that expands his business with the help of chase’s expertise and product offerings.
Google launched “Grow with Google” in October 2017. The main aim of its multicultural marketing is to help serve job seekers, small-business owners, teachers, and educators who are in underrepresented communities. They can, therefore, access digital training education and skills.
Aisha Taylor, who worked in Google’s business inclusion team, but is currently the community engagement manager, was heading the multicultural marketing program. She claimed that before they launched their multicultural campaigns, the inclusion team had conducted both qualitative and quantitative research. Their focus was on diverse small businesses in the county.
Overall, Google might not have the best reputation compared to other technology companies in terms of inclusion and diversity. The multicultural marketing strategy is, therefore, helping them to reach more diverse audiences through authentic ways.
Final Thoughts
If you consider the above multicultural marketing examples, they show that there is a vast possibility of your brand also succeeding. In this time, you can deep-dive your brand into existing consumer segments to find meaningful ways in which you will strengthen your relationships.
Multicultural audiences’ projects are expected to grow by 6% before the end of this year. It is, therefore, upon you to utilize this excellent marketing strategy and campaigns. By practicing recommended tips and taking inspiration into account, it is easy for your brand to pave through for success.
With that in mind, your multicultural marketing campaign should shed light on the challenges the minority are facing and prove a benefit to society. It will not only help your brand loyalty grow, but you can also make the group feel genuine.
Hire a Fractional Diverse Marketing Consultant
If you are looking to improve your marketing strategy through a multicultural or inclusive marketing strategy, invite Line 25 Consulting to come in to help your organization. One of Michelle’s favorite topics is Knowing How Diversity Drives Revenue training. She will guide your marketing team through a 5-Point Framework on inclusive marketing. Schedule an easy 15-minute consultation.
