Welcome the New Mainstream with IPG's New Multicultural Study

The plethora of datasets coming from various sources, the fragmentation of audiences and platforms and the ever advancing technology that is changing media usage are all challenging the way marketers are shaping their business plans to reach the right audiences. But there is also increasing pressure on the creative to break through viewer distraction, ad avoidance and blocking. How to do?

IPG has just released the results of a study called The State of Video which is set to release on March 4, 2019. This study maps, what Brian Hughes, Executive Vice President, Audience Intelligence and Strategy, Magna (which is division of IPG), called, “The new mainstream” where multiculturalism needs to be taken into account in creative messaging. Hughes noted that we are on the way to a multicultural majority in America by 2060 with 2044/45 as the tipping point. In addition, the way we will reach these consumers will be digital. “2018 digital ad spend surpassed TV and it will continue,” he added, “driven by mobile.” 

So there will be many opportunities for brands to connect with this multicultural population that is surprisingly similar in some ways and extremely diverse in others. Some findings from the study upset our previous notions of what certain ethnic groups respond to in messaging and even what languages best connect to content. We need a more nuanced way to spend marketing dollars that takes all of these findings into account. 

Findings:

1.       Spanish language programming does not necessarily reach a large percentage of young Hispanics. There are great differences within the Hispanic population if we look at nativity, language used at home and out of the home and the number of years in the country, with the greatest behavioral differences occurring in nativity.

2.       The majority of American Hispanics (65%) are born in the U.S. and this has always been the case according to Dr. Jake Beniflah, Executive Director, Center for Multicultural Science, who conducted the study. Most Latinos are young; 75% of those born in American are age 35 or under while foreign born are 66% Generation X and Boomers. Each group has difference language uses, preferences and habits… and will respond to advertising differently.

3.       In the case of Spanish language TV, there is a difference between native and foreign born. Older viewers prefer Spanish language content on linear. U.S. born viewers view less in-language TV than foreign born.

4.       When it comes to creative, a general rule applies. “The consumer has to see themselves in the ad,” stated, Leslie Wood, Chief Research Officer, Nielsen Catalina. It has to make the consumer feel good about themselves and be their best self. “When that happens in an ad it resonates with consumer,” she said. Further, a deft message is required. It is acculturation rather than assimilation.

5.       When it comes to measurement, Nielsen has existing data sets, according to Hughes, that “enables us to get a more nuanced set of multicultural audience, but we are not using it today.” Yet, Wood noted that, “Race matters in getting measurement right,” and added that when a product has any connection to culture and it is part of the messaging, the response is tremendous. 

The study showed that all of these nuances need to be addressed not only in the creative but also in the media mix and platforms used. When a marketer applies nativity to their campaign spend, there is an increase in ROI, according to Beniflah.  “We are stuck in same ways of doing things in general,” concluded Hughes, who added that this is the time to improve measurement and take an acculturation approach to multi-cultural marketing.