Making Zero-Party Multicultural Data Accessible to DSPs

As the number of multicultural consumers in the U.S. continues to grow, so does their influence. According to the Selig Center, African American, Asian American, and Native American consumers have increased their purchasing power from $458 billion in 1990 to $3 trillion in 2020. Combined, this represents 17.2% of the nation’s total buying power compared to 10.6% 30 years ago.

Hispanic buying power has also grown substantially over the last 30 years, from $213 billion in 1990 to $1.9 trillion in 2020, accounting for 11.1% of U.S. buying power in 2020, up from only 5% in 1990.

And yet when we look into digital media targeting, programmatic platforms are not providing media buyers access to the data needed to reach these increasingly influential consumers. Often, multicultural data is limited to Hispanic-only targeting, excluding Black, Asian, and Native American consumers and consequently $3 trillion in combined purchasing power.

Driven by our mission to demystify diverse communities through data, our team partnered with digital programmatic platforms to empower digital media buyers with the tools to access diverse audiences while using their favorite demand-side platforms (DSPs). As a market research firm, it was a gamble to throw our hat into the digital media ring, but the gamble paid off. Within our first month, ThinkNow Multicultural Audiences were activated by some of the world’s largest media companies and agencies.

For example, among our financial and sports targeting, Black, Asian, and Hispanic consumers ranked among the top 10. We expect activations to continue trending in the upcoming months, further validating multicultural targeting as a viable and worthwhile effort.

Marketing that engages multicultural consumers can help drive business growth, according to the ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM). Compared to the general population, multicultural media revenue under-indexes significantly. Although multicultural consumers now account for almost 40% of the population, multicultural media investments represent only 5.2% of the total advertising and marketing budget.