Marketers Do Multicultural, but Many Don’t Like Results: Survey

Most U.S. marketers are pushing multicultural campaigns, but less than half are satisfied with the results of those initiatives, according to a new survey from the Association of National Advertisers.

Conducted in tandem with marketing services firm Mktg, the survey—the ANA’s third look at multicultural efforts since 2003—found that 77% of respondents said they are tailoring some marketing to ethnic or sexual-preference minorities. Sixty-six percent also said their companies’ efforts to reach those audiences had increased over the last few years.

But among the survey audience, which consisted of 74 marketing executives from ANA member companies, only 45% reported that they were satisfied with the outcomes those multicultural marketing campaigns had produced so far. Twenty-six percent of those polled said they were either somewhat or very dissatisfied with their companies’ appeals to minority consumers.

Respondents highlighted a number of pain points and barriers:

• Only 22% said their firm had a high degree of knowledge and disciplined best practices for multicultural marketing—including the ability to integrate such campaigns into an overall marketing strategy.
• 58% cited a lack of adequate funding for multicultural campaigns.
• 45% pointed to a lack of internal support.
• 34% complained of “inconsistent’ support from top managers
• 45% said they lacked the relevant metrics necessary to measure the performance of ethnic or multicultural campaigns.

“A focused multicultural marketing strategy is vital to building brands and driving business growth,” ANA president and CEO Robert Liodice said in a statement. “Our research shows that multicultural marketing programs are growing and will continue to grow in the future. However, marketers are frustrated and concerned about program quality.”

“With multicultural consumers making up two thirds of the millennial population and Hispanics representing one sixth of the U.S. population by 2010, the multicultural market is an increasingly sizeable and influential segment,” said Frank Dudley, CMO of Mktg. “globalization has reduced the pressure on ethnic communities to assimilate, making an insightful understanding of these sub-cultures critical. And still, this study’s data suggests marketers have yet to establish standardized best practices.”

As in previous ANSA surveys, the majority of respondents (57%) still thought of multicultural marketing as a ‘narrowcasting” strategy, creating separate messages for different market segments and communicating them via media that targets those communities. However, the proportion taking this approach was down from the 78% who espoused narrowcasting last year.

On the other hand, 11% supported a mainstreaming strategy that repurposes general advertising for multicultural audiences, while 10% of survey respondents said they favor simply translating general market materials for those target audiences.

Most respondents said they favor using an agency with specific cultural expertise to execute a multicultural strategy. About one-quarter of those surveyed said they rely on their company’s agency of record.

Metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness of multicultural campaigns ranged from brand tracking studies (55%) and sales growth/volume (54%) to market share (41%), advertising research (38%) and brand equity measurement (38%). Only one respondent in four reported that his or her firm analyzes the return on investment (ROI) from multicultural marketing.

The 2008 ANA survey also showed substantial growth in the last few years in the number of marketers targeting specific ethnic groups. Ninety-five percent of those polled said they were appealing to Hispanic Americans, compared to 86% in 2003. Seventy-six percent were marketing specifically to African Americans, against 60% in 2003. And 38% of respondents said they had tailored campaigns to Asian Americans, against 35% who did so in 2003.

For the first time, the ANA survey also asked if respondents were producing campaigns aimed at the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. Almost one fourth of those polled said they were.