Discussions around the multicultural market are nothing new. Reaching and engaging customers across a vast tapestry of ethnic backgrounds have long been great challenges for marketers. How do we localize and personalize messages to engage our customers at the very core of who they are and what makes them unique? Sadly, many of these campaigns have been relegated to one-off strategies that primarily focus on translated advertising or surface alterations of images and graphics. The reality is that while marketers have long looked at multicultural markets as prime engagement grounds—not only for size, but also for wallet share—we have failed to truly understand the individual markets and points of opportunity.
According to new research from Geoscape, a leader in business intelligence across the multicultural market, the multicultural market is growing in unique and powerful ways, with individual ethnic markets demonstrating key behaviors and attributes that, if understood by savvy organizations, can mean the difference between total irrelevance and customer advocacy and loyalty. Consider these key trends from Geoscape:
- The number of Hispanic-owned businesses is expected to grow to more than 3.22 million this year, representing a staggering growth rate of 43 percent since 2007—more than double the growth rate for all US firms.
- These business owners are managing their dollars quite differently. Hispanic business owners are 56 percent more likely to conduct online banking with their primary banks and 83 percent more likely to invest in the stock market.
- Multicultural markets are not only doing business differently, but their household buying behaviors are also different. Hispanic households across the U.S. spend 17 percent more than the average household on cellular phone services. Asian households spend approximately 12 percent more.
Once called a specialty segment or market, the multicultural consumer has really become the “new American mainstream,” complete with buying and influence power. And now, brands are feeling the pressure to make multicultural marketing a priority. But with this new reality comes the need to better understand just who this new mainstream consumer really is and what moves this powerful buyer to engage. Marketers require new insights and intelligence to target, reach and better engage this powerful market, pulling one-off novelty campaigns into a more comprehensive and holistic marketing strategy that is shared and embraced across the organization.
The CMO Council, in partnership with Geoscape, will delve into the issues and complexities of the new American mainstream consumer to highlight where and how organizations can maximize strategies and right-size allocations to best engage America’s culturally diverse business environment. Kicking off this thought leadership initiative will be an exclusive executive roundtable event hosted in New York, NY on Wednesday, November 12th to discuss and debate the key issues and challenges facing marketers as they engage across an increasingly diverse consumer population.
Key areas of discussion will include:
- Pairing big data analytics with on-the-ground knowledge to identify cultural markets with great potential and develop culturally relevant creative
- Examining the benefits and pitfalls of implementing a total market strategy that moves multicultural marketing beyond silos to a more holistic, integrated, strategic imperative adopted by the entire organization
- Defining the key differences between multicultural and multilingual strategies, as well as identifying how savvy leaders are incorporating culture-sensitive localization—not just simple translation—into their marketing strategies
The CMO Council will also be conducting a focused audit of marketers to better understand the opportunity, issues, challenges and outlook for bringing multicultural marketing out of a silo and into the core marketing strategy. The audit will investigate how multicultural marketing strategies are developed, embraced and implemented across the organization, as well as the levels of commitment to multicultural engagements by marketers and critical stakeholders across the organization.
