The Pandemic That Affects Our Industry Can be Healed

By Luis Miguel Messianu Founder-Creative Chairman-CEO at Alma

As if three simultaneous pandemics (a health-related, the social tension of racism and inequality and the global economic recession) weren’t enough, over the last ten years or so, our industry has gone through a “pandemic“ of its own. This “virus” has affected mainly multicultural marketing and branding, and ultimately, companies who have suffered from sales, their share of the market, and other KPI’s declines. It is known as “Total Market” and it’s both dangerous and damaging! The main symptoms are indifference, lethargy, laziness, shortsightedness or even blurry vision, which results in overall brand weakness and connection fatigue.

The last few years this “pandemic” has generated a lot of debate around marketing “specialists.” So what’s the best treatment to do it right? It all starts with the right mindset, a commitment from the top that cascades down across all levels, and the understanding that cultures are cultures for a reason. While we all have commonalities as human beings, our upbringing, our customs and habits, our life experiences and our lifestyles establish subtle differences and cultural nuances that might go a very long way when targeting multicultural segments.

In an era of one-on-one communications, the tried (and failed) “Total Market” approach is lazy and even absurd, and many advertisers learned this the hard way. It was almost a decade wasted by marketers driven mostly by short-term efficiencies. Several credible research studies showed that if you were looking for growth (which every brand is), “Total Market” was the wrong “treatment” and the savings or pseudo efficiencies were marginal and not really worth it. Most brands that adopted that approach showed drastic declines in brand attributes among multicultural consumers who happen to be the fastest-growing segments in America—not just in terms of the size of their populations, but growth in their spending power.

Given the current context, now more than ever it’s time to stop kidding yourself if your brand efforts have been token as it relates to multicultural marketing! Brands must return to the fundamental marketing practice of audience segmentation. For the past decade, marketers have used the money-saving idea of “universal” insights to drive marketing strategies. Our industry needs to move away from “Total Market” and the one-size-fits-all approach, and truly embrace U.S. multicultural consumers as segments that, now more than ever, deserve serious attention, their fair share and serious investment levels, and, above all, the hard-earned respect these consumers should be granted.

While marketers can fall in the ill temptation to think that taking a deeper look at consumer segments is a momentary reaction to the social movements of today, truth is that very few brands enjoy a fair share of the market across these key consumer segments and even fewer enjoy leadership positions with these consumers to a degree that they don’t need to “treat” them right.

The “vaccine” starts working when the underlying belief that humans are cultural beings in that we are interdependent and influenced by our origin and heritage. We hold beliefs and attitudes which shape our experience and behavior. We are not an age, a geography or a household income; however, it is common to rely on demographic data to paint a picture of the WHO. By segmenting consumers by cultures, brands can uncover how best to connect with them. Understanding a specific segment’s mindset when engaging with your brand or category is crucial to “health” and success because it allows for more specificity in messaging. In-language and in-culture research is the key to unlocking these deeper insights. It’s not only the stories we tell, but how we tell the stories! The intangibles can play a huge role when it comes to emotional storytelling.

An ongoing universal approach is dangerous – it has caused a backlash and negative campaigns against brands and the like. On the other hand, specificity drives authenticity. Telling a specific story about a person or consumer segment that may not be EVERYONE, is the closest you can get to true, real and authentic. And that is the “vaccine” in this particular case.

The reality that we are living today in 2020 is a potential turning point in American society and deciding on how you want to emerge from this time is in your hands. People remember brands that do the right thing, especially when emotions are high. A “healing” new approach should really look at multicultural opportunities beyond token efforts just around Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and/or Pride Month. Besides, it is very important to emphasize that this new approach will not make minority segments compete against each other for a limited size of the investment pie. Instead, they will consider redistributing the whole pie according to the growth opportunity and our country’s population composition.

ANA AIMM’s 2019 “Cultural Insights Impact Measure” study found that ads perceived to have high cultural relevance doubled brand perception and tripled ad effectiveness compared to those with low cultural relevance. This held true across ethnicities. In other words, the study proved that “universally appealing” ads were less appealing than ads telling nuanced, insightful stories.

By unlocking cultural insights to inform marketing and advertising strategies, brands will connect much more strongly with consumers and prove that they care about them beyond the potential dollars they can contribute to the bottom line. Segmentation allows for this, taking you beyond the universal and into the specific and authentic.

To access the pockets of the fastest-growing consumer segments in the U.S., advertisers must go ideally through the heart, or at least through the brains or the guts. Eyeballs won’t cut it, because contrary to what most media companies led them to believe, yes they’re probably reaching them, but most likely they are not connecting.

Let the “healing” process get back on track! Multicultural marketing done right is certainly the prescription for healthy, culturally relevant and constantly growing brands!