Glow Images Blog

Multicultural Consumers: Getting The Imagery Right, by David Morse

Posted on 28. Jul, 2009 by Glow Images in Guest Blogger, Multicultural

Today’s guest blogger is David Morse, author of “Multicultural Intelligence: Eight Make-or-Break Rules for Marketing to Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation”:

"Multicultural Intelligence: Eight Make-or-Break Rules for Marketing to Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation" by David Morse

This month, General Motors’ Chevrolet brand sponsored a video on YouTube featuring the “Bumble Bee Boys in Briefs” — two buff “go-go boys” wearing Speedos with the word CAMARO stitched across the rear. In the video, they are washing a Camaro.

According to USA Today: “The video was produced to promote Chevrolet Gay Days at the Movies in Los Angeles, part of an ongoing outreach program to minority groups and the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community. The movie was a screening of the new Transformers movie, chock full of GM vehicles, including Bumblebee, a Camaro. Dave Barthmuss, a General Motors spokesman, said the promotion might surprise some, “because you don’t see it in the mainstream.” The video was deemed to “make sense for this particular audience.”

But then GM pulled the ad, after a single day, for being “tasteless.” GM’s Dave Barthmuss told USA Today that “the video was not appropriate and not in good taste.” The only problem was that (apparently) nobody at GM had actually seen the video. The spot has been yanked from YouTube.

GM was coming from the right place. According to Packaged Facts, there are 15.3 million gay and lesbian adult consumers in the United States, whose buying power exceeded $660 billion in 2006. They represent a consumer group that, until very recently, never saw itself represented in the media. But they did it wrong.

When targeting multicultural consumers, getting the imagery right is an absolute imperative. Multicultural people – be they gay, Hispanic, African American, Asian American, or anyone else in the minority – have grown up not seeing themselves represented in the media. And when they do, it means something.

But so many marketers, like GM, make mistakes. They lack what I like to call MQ, multicultural intelligence. Because representation is scant, when ads do appear with multicultural imagery, it becomes so much more important that the ads be well done, because they are so few and far between. They need to be tasteful, positive and devoid of stereotypes.

Of course, how you portray multicultural people varies by group.

African Americans have a long history of being ignored or stereotyped in the media. Now we have BET, a black president, and numerous black faces on television. It’s a similar story for LGBT Americans, who for years were portrayed as swishy queens and butch lesbian vampires. That history, the memory of that kind of destructive imagery, doesn’t go away.

Selection of multicultural images from Glowimages.com. Photo Credits - clockwise from top: Royalty-Free/Corbis, Pixtal, Jed Share/Kaoru Share/Blend Images, Amit Somvanshi/India Pictures

Hispanics, now the largest multicultural group in America, pushing 50 million strong, get to see themselves all the time on television, though primarily on Spanish language television. The difficulty from an imagery perspective is that Hispanics don’t constitute a race. Sometimes Creative Directors can get away with “Hispanic looking” models but that doesn’t always work, given the physical diversity that Hispanics represent. Asian faces, which are easily distinguished, still show up rarely in ads. To an Asian American, being included in an ad campaign sends a clear signal that he or she is being recognized.

Multicultural consumers represent big numbers and big bucks. Hispanic-, Asian-, and African-Americans make up over 30 percent of the U.S. population – 40 percent if you look at the under-18 population. It is estimated that by the year 2042, white non-Hispanics will drop to less than half the population. Combined, these groups make up $2.2 trillion. Add LGBT consumers to the equation and you’re up to nearly $3 billion. That’s larger than the GDP of every country in the world except China, Japan, India, and of course, the United States.

Still, they are minorities, particularly if they live outside cities with large ethnic populations. Unlike Caucasians, they’re not used to seeing themselves. When a company takes them into account, when it makes the effort to include them, it’s noticed. And usually appreciated.

Article submitted by David Morse author of “Multicultural Intelligence: Eight Make-or-Break Rules for Marketing to Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation”. David also serves as President and CEO of New American Dimensions, a full service marketing research and consulting firm helping advertisers capture the rapidly expanding market opportunities represented by Hispanic, Asian American, African American, Youth, and GLBT Markets. Email David at david@newamericandimensions.com