What P& G learned about multicultural marketing?
Alexandra Vegas, multicultural business development organization director at P&G, shared a few case studies—and compelling reasons—for why advertisers should pay attention to ethnic minorities. Vegas, who hails from Venezuela and has worked as a beauty-care marketing director in P&G’s Latin America and China markets, discussed how multicultural marketing insights helped drive growth on brands like Charmin. The toilet-paper brand earned an Effie Award last year for a campaign that promoted a premium brand, Charmin Ultra Strong, to the value-oriented Hispanic consumer. The work introduced a new character, Gaston, a beaver who uses too much toilet paper, to communicate the value inherent in the premium-priced product (i.e., consumers don’t have to use as many sheets). Thus, P&G was able to convince the Latino consumer to “buy a more expensive product,” Vegas said.
Marketing successes like these wouldn’t have been possible if P&G just targeted Hispanics with a general-market advertising campaign, Vegas said. In some cases, a general-market approach can work, but more often than not, the most successful multicultural campaigns involve delving deeply into the needs of ethnic consumers
“Ethnic leads” applies in instances where a particular campaign or product is intended to reach a particular set of multicultural consumers. (Gillette, for instance, recently ran a campaign to get Hispanic consumers to trade up from disposable razors to grooming systems.)
Sometimes the general-market strategy leads, but even then, cultural nuances must be taken into account. When running a Gain ad, for example, the packaged-goods giant played up the idea of humor as “dry” and “self-deprecating” in mainstream media spots. A Hispanic adaptation of this spot, meanwhile, shows a woman walking outside her house to see another lady literally absorbed in the smell of fresh underwear on her clothesline. The second version plays on humor that is “much more in the face, slapstick,” and both spots work best within their respective contexts. “If you try to adapt a spot like [the first one] among Hispanic consumers, they wouldn’t get it at all. And vice versa, if you ran the Hispanic ad in the general market, consumers would think it’s over the top.
The third multicultural marketing strategy applies when ethnic insights lead marketing for a general-market campaign, and though the effort may be “important for all target groups, it’s particularly important for the Hispanic or African American market.
For those who have yet to be convinced of multicultural marketing’s power. And as Vegas outlined in her presentation, ethnic consumers comprise the majority of the population in most major U.S. cities. Also, two out of every five U.S. residents will belong to an ethnic minority by 2020.
