Millward Brown Expands Multicultural Research Capabilities.

With five years’ experience in copy testing multicultural TV ads, and with the recent completion of an extensive U.S. multicultural TV ad copy test calibration study, Millward Brown announced the expansion of its multicultural capabilities. The recent study covered 60 new ethnic-targeted TV ads. The company now has a database of more than 50,000 multicultural respondents who have participated in Millward Brown copy-testing studies.

Ethnic-specific calibrated versions of Millward Brown’s global diagnostic copy-testing system, Link™, already used to evaluate the performance of 21,000 ads worldwide, will now better support advertisers in building and managing their brands in a multicultural environment. The recent study focused on the performance of U.S. Hispanic and African-American-targeted ads in the U.S.

“As our multicultural work continues to expand both among FORTUNE 500 and midsized clients in the U.S., we are pleased to have developed a multicultural database of this size along with a rich knowledge bank of multicultural case studies. This enables us to better understand how advertising works among Hispanics and African Americans in the U.S. and to continue to assist our clients in successfully moving their brands forward in these markets,” said Diego Bonardi, vice-president, Millward Brown Multicultural.

Several of the key findings from the recent Millward Brown Multicultural ethnic copy testing and in-market tracking studies are that:

– Targeting ethnic groups with in-language and in-culture advertising is the right thing for marketers to do.
– The use of culturally relevant icons in TV ads is not sufficient to break through to ethnic audience
-The power of the creative is key, but the ads still must: be memorable and strongly integrate the brand and the intended message, in addition to being culturally relevant.