Tailored Communications Strategies for Multicultural Communities Will result in a huge Impact
The number of ethnic minorities is growing rapidly in the UK, and yet most of the companies and organizations fail to reach those groups through their communication campaigns. Ethnic communities are almost 20% of UK’s population with 42% just in London and almost similar percentage in Birmingham, Leicester, Peterborough, Bradford, Wolverhampton and Manchester. The Office of National Statistics predicted that the population would exceed 70m by 2029*. Another study by University of Leeds reveals that UK’s ethnic minority numbers will rise to 35% by 2025, and the population will reach nearly 78 million*.
According to a recent study from King’s College, compiled by professor Chris Hamnett, 53% of the secondary pupils in the capital are from ethnic groups. These compelling findings reveal that in every borough of London there are more than 50% of pupils of ethnic backgrounds *. It shows that London has got minority–dominated secondary school system. This is partially because, most of the immigrants that come to the UK, particularly the recent ones are more likely to be of child-bearing age, which results the baby boom in the UK. It is already obvious that multi-cultural communities will increasingly become visible and more influential.
All the researches demonstrate, that targeting diverse groups for public and private sector can be an immensely effective practice, however the UK public as well as businesses are quite slow to respond firstly because they do not have relevant insights on how to connect with those groups on emotional level and understand their behavioural economics. During the recession, the marketers and organizations had to work even harder and receive far more for a penny, but most of them are still missing out an opportunity to reach ethnic groups more effectively.
If companies and organizations cannot communicate effectively to these changing demographics, soon they will find themselves losing market share. Ethnic communities include those from Central and Eastern Europe, India, Middle East, Africa, China etc. In times of financial hardship it is not forgivable to miss out these opportunities.
It is one of the UK joys is the offering cosmopolitan and multi-faith experience, with more than 300 languages spoken for which London is crowned as ‘capital of the world’. If 42% of London is considered to have ethnic background it means most of the marketing budgets are targeting only 58% of the population, in this case the mainstream population which companies can not afford to continue doing?
The CEO of Mediareach Advertising Saad Saraf said, “In campaign planning and management it is vital to have the right psychological and cultural insights which most advertising agencies do not offer. The understanding of the culture, religion, and consumer behaviour has to be taken into consideration to really strike cords with multicultural groups. We have been in this industry for a very long time, and I see huge opportunities that public and private sector miss out as they try to talk to racially diverse groups through generic messages that is not relevant to the audiences targeted”.
Tailored Communication Strategies can bring maximum engagement and awareness as well as return on investment when communicated to the audience with the messages they can relate to. This whole approach is about planning and delivering cost effective and high impact campaigns.
