Marketing to Diversity — Past and Future

Back before there was BET or Univision, there were still multicultural audiences. Thirty-five years ago, when I headed up marketing for Uncle Ben’s rice, we were very aware that much rice consumption took place among Black, Hispanic (from different cultures), and Asian families. On a per capita basis, rice consumption was several times higher than among white Americans. However, we actually had difficulty finding advertising agencies that targeted those groups and media that reached them. There were a few magazines, some radio stations, and Spanish International had started to build a modest, informal network, but most TV advertising had to be bought station by station. There were even fewer options to target Asian audiences, and it was very much a “do-it-yourself” approach. We did find a very few early agencies marketing to diversity but had to help them get started by pre-paying for media and their time. I actually effectively put two agencies into business by identifying talented people and supporting them.

Equally, sales forces barely recognized ethnic retailers. In several markets I had to personally drive around in the appropriate ethnic area to identify stores that our sales people did not service.

Today, we have a very different situation. We can target smaller and smaller groups with a fair degree of precision. We can split up first generation Hispanics from second generation ones, those of Cuban origin from those of Guatemalan. Afro-Caribbean, African American, or Nigerian-American consumers are separate groups. We can identify those of Korean origin versus those of Vietnamese.

The level of precision in reaching groups and subgroups continues to grow. Yet, this does not make it any easier. As we can micro-target, the precision of the message becomes more important when marketing to diversity. Furthermore, immigrant communities lose ties to their home countries more slowly than in the past. With email, Skype, and cheap airfares, it is much easier for U.S. born children to retain some of the familial and cultural ties to their parents’ homes.

This means that there is increasing pressure on getting the message right. Marketing to each group requires using the correct cultural frames of reference, yet we cannot afford to have specialists who are each an expert in any one group. Today, we have to ensure that those who are involved in marketing to diversity have sensitivity to all cultures even if they don’t have expertise in all of them. This need in the U.S. tracks with the growing importance of International business.

Companies and agencies will be seeking people who have empathy with a wide range of cultures and enough familiarity with languages to work at getting below the skin of many groups. So while people with Hispanic or African American backgrounds were in increasing demand twenty years ago, one background alone will not be enough in the future. U.S. business will, in general, be looking for people who can move seamlessly from culture to culture while feeling comfortable in each. Some of these people will be from minority backgrounds, some from International ones, and some from mainstream cultures.

While in the early days of multicultural marketing reaching the targets was the primary challenge, today the growing challenge is to have content that resonates with each group. Even thirty-five years ago, while Hispanic Americans accounted for a significant part of U.S. rice consumption, we were very aware of the fact that those of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and South American origins had very different attitudes and usages. So we did create different commercials and print ads for each. Now, we would probably have even more messages going to more refined targets. People who are sensitive to working in a multicultural environment will be more effective at this.

Looking ahead, marketing to diversity will become more of a set of skills and attitudes than simply looking for people who have grown up outside a mainstream Anglo environment. This is the growing professionalism of this discipline.

Marketing to Diversity — Past and Future