Top 10 insights for reaching multicultural consumers in 2016
There is no doubt that the ethnic market is growing and increasingly important for brands and retailers. For those looking to reach multicultural consumers with money to spend in 2016, below are ten important thoughts to keep from the leading authority on multicultural marketing experts.
1.Sponsor brands that promote ethnic techies and technical bloggers.
According to Ofcom industry research, ethnic consumers are the largest groups using mobile devices and gadgets, ethnic people have the largest amount of transactions on mobile from mobile banking to watching movies and videos, with the Chinese leading on ecommerce.
2.Multicultural consumers will demand more from your brand
Ethnic consumers are demanding more from brands and feel they are being under served and have expectations from the brands they follow or buy from. It is like being invited to parties, initially you are delighted to be invited but later you ask if the host cater for my taste in food, speak my language and play my favourite music, Relationships are everything to these consumers and are impossible to establish without understanding, respect and reciprocity. Brands will have to stop tossing a proverbial bone to ethnic consumers and welcome them to the dinner table not as guests but as partners in building a future.
3.Mobile targeting will allow for better targeting of messages to ethnic audiences. Mobile will dramatically improve marketing and targeting of multicultural consumers in the UK and globally, with better actionable data and targeting, mobile advertisers with clear understanding of multicultural marketing and behaviours can segment the ethnic audiences to pockets and regions, faith and shopping patterns that may vary from one community to another. We are able to target the mobile consumer with relevant creative messages that reaches them and motivate them to buy.
4.Online video is most effective medium to reach ethnic Millennials
Ethnic consumers and Millennials spend considerable time watching video and content that is relevant to their culture and faith rates extremely important for them. Aside from ethnic TV are more likely to utilise online video streaming for content consumption.
5.Total marketing approach is the only way forward for marketers and innovative advertising agencies for the future, which agencies and marketers currently lack.
6.The ethnic population in Europe is expected to grow to 40 million supplemented by more than 2-3 million immigrants from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan which will pose an opportunity for marketing and brand managers to reach and market their brands to a new customer base and increase their market share.
7.The next decade of UK and European growth is going to be hinged on Multicultural Millennials and Gen Z. As we see an aging population in Europe and acute skills shortage and lower fertility rates within the next 2 decades.
In essence two trends will converge
1) There will be fewer workers to produce and buy products
2) More older people with lower incomes than they have today.
This brings us to the multicultural Millennials (representing 36% of UK Millennials now) aged 18-34 who is on average 8 times younger than their mainstream counterpart and higher birth rate. Gen Z is the largest group in the UK since the baby boomers. Amongst generations, Asian, African, East European and Chinese as well as mixed race population makes 36-40% of Millennials and Gen Z respectively.
The growth in the UK and Europe will depend heavily on how we invest in these two generational groups so they are educated and prepared for the new global economy so we stay on top of the tide. I do believe that the future of the economy and well being will depend on how we raise and educate the new generation and prepare them for a new connected world to ensure we retain our leadership position in the world for decades to come.
8.Creative and media-buying teams have adapted to these new trends. Marketers can slice and dice their messages for each individual as never before. But as audience segments become more granular, the ability to understand what’s working and what’s not becomes increasingly complex. That’s why marketing measurement needs to adapt to the new realities, too.
9.Not every marketing tactic will be effective for a given advertiser so It’s important that advertisers are able to test and measure new tactics using the same currency they use to measure the rest of their advertising.
10.Advanced measurement technologies enable marketers to measure the effectiveness of every dimension of their advertising, including device type, location, audience segment, creative version, ad format, and more. Multidimensional measurement even as new channels and tactics are introduced into the mix.
