Reaching multicultural audiences is often spoken about separately from putting spend behind media owned by members of underrepresented groups – and when this happens, brands are missing an opportunity. For our recent research report Engaging Multicultural Audiences, we found out what Mirror Digital’s CEO, Sheila Marmon, has to say about why the two can and should go hand-in-hand for advertisers.

Q: Why should marketers’ strategies for reaching multicultural audiences also include investing in media owned by members of underrepresented groups?

A: Authenticity builds trust and trust builds brand loyalty. Marketers need consumers to believe in their message and/or products. To do that, consumers need to experience authentic representation from those marketers. As diverse-owned media operators, Mirror Digital is a part of the target audiences these marketers fight to reach. Our approach to driving client and partner success is rooted in prioritizing ad campaigns that deliver both measurable results for our clients and lasting financial empowerment for diverse and underrepresented audiences.

Q: Some advertiser and agency commitments to backing diverse-owned media haven’t lived up to promises. Why is this?

A: Those advertisers and agencies choose money over mission when the fact is, they could choose both. Despite a shared responsibility, and in some cases a publicized promise, brands who never implemented a diverse audience growth strategy may not understand the value proposition, have the capabilities in-house to get it done, or in some cases, may view the idea of diverse partnerships as something that is dispensable. Without the pressure of accountability, reneging on their commitments is easy. Those same brands will be remembered for their actions or inactions, but diverse-owned media and audiences are not going anywhere.

Q: In a landscape of tighter budgets and high demands for scale and efficiency, how can committed advertisers maintain their support for diverse media and creators?

A: We have to start with educating the market on the value of multicultural creators and media outlets. Efficiency does not always equate to efficacy. As a diverse-owned media company, we have been in hundreds of rooms and on thousands of video calls informing and educating brands on diverse growth audiences and how we can effectively connect with them. We maximize every investment because we are a proven partner who consistently yields meaningful results. Advertisers should start by understanding the opportunity and pushing for campaign budgets and programs to specifically target diverse-owned media companies, audiences, publishers, and content creators. In turn, these strategies will help propel them to deliver stronger outcomes. To gain traction, agencies need to effectively demonstrate and communicate these powerful results to brand clients’ marketing teams and leadership.

Q: Campaigns that target diverse-owned media are often considered to be tests or experiments. What’s your best advice for ensuring that they last?

A: The first step is designing and investing in tests that matter to a return on investment. Often we see some agency partners make a small investment that is not able to drive any real impact. When these types of tests are meaningful and are proven effective through measurable results, they can and should be scaled. When advertisers and agencies lean into diverse media partners for their endemic expertise and connectivity to these communities, they will see the return on investment with BIPOC consumers and move beyond a test-only mentality. Media targeting for diverse audiences is still lacking, and growth depends on reallocating resources to reach the new multicultural America. Diverse-owned media and creators must also be supported with tools that quantify their impact and reinforce their role in media strategies.

Interested in learning more about multicultural marketing strategies? Download our report, Engaging Multicultural Audiences. 

Did you know Infillion was the first company to ever build ads for bilingual audiences that allow users to toggle between languages in real time? Michael Colella, SVP and Executive Producer of Infillion’s Creative Studio, gives a behind-the-scenes look at this technology, which has been honored by the MediaPost OMMA Awards and the ARF David Ogilvy Awards.

Q: What was the impulse behind building this first-to-market technology?

A: Hispanic audiences are almost 20% of the U.S. population, and over half of them are bilingual to some degree. But some of them prefer English, some prefer Spanish, and some change their preference based on what content they’re watching, who’s in the room with them, or any other number of reasons. Empowering them to switch languages in real time, without needing to restart the ad, was a way to not just speak to them, but allow them some agency in how they prefer to be reached. So when a client, Nissan, came to us with a campaign to reach bilingual audiences, we thought it was time to take on this creative challenge.

Q: What tech challenges had to be overcome to make it work?

A: We had to pay close attention to ensuring that the technology could toggling between two audio and video assets at the exact timestamp that the user hit the toggle button, eliminating any visible lag or content shifting effect. We had to engage our engineering team pretty extensively here. But with brands increasingly challenged to gain the attention of consumers, a sense of immediacy and instant gratification is a must. 

We also faced a challenge in figuring out how to incorporate closed captioning. At Infillion, we strive to design for inclusivity, and we had two options here. We could either render the closed captioning as part of the video asset, or develop a solution where we’d leverage a transcript, allowing users to toggle closed captioning on or off. We settled on developing a transcription solution since it offered us the most flexibility and efficiency to deploy creative.

Q: Ads that toggle between two languages had been built and deployed before – including using Infillion’s TrueX format – but never with a real-time toggle. Why do this? How does it make a difference for the user?

A: One study after another says that consumers like choice in their advertising, and that can extend to the language that the ad is served in. This kind of ad technology is technically challenging, but it’s worth it. But the more exciting outcome was developing a solution that could be consistent across all devices, especially on CTV. The future possibilities here are.

Q: What kind of insights can a brand gather from a real-time language toggle ad?

A: The main insights brands can gather from real-time language toggle are the nuances of users’ language preferences. Maybe they always prefer English, or always prefer Spanish, or prefer one on mobile and one on CTV – where, presumably, they might be watching with others who aren’t as multilingual as they are. By determining a user’s preferred language of communication, brands can tailor their content and targeting accordingly. Especially as advertisers look to target bilingual audiences who speak languages beyond Spanish, the possibilities are endless.

Interested in learning more about multicultural marketing strategies? Download our report, Engaging Multicultural Audiences. 

Over the years, multicultural marketing has frequently overlooked Asian audiences. Hailing from over 70 different ethnicities, Asian-Americans are diverse and frequently misunderstood. Can they even be considered a single demographic for advertisers? For our recent research report Engaging Multicultural Audiences, we spoke to S. Mitra Kalita, CEO of URL Media and publisher of Epicenter NYC. Here’s what she had to say.

Q: Marketers used to think pretty much exclusively about Black and Hispanic audiences when they thought about multicultural marketing. Was there a turning point when they began to address and cater to Asian/AAPI audiences as well? What made this happen?

A: First, it’s important to understand why marketers often excluded us. Asians have been a tiny percentage of the pie chart in polls, market research, trends reports. That kept us ignored and invisible. A few things changed: one, our population has grown; two, we are overrepresented on platforms such as smart speakers and the latest technology; and three, our community got louder and more rooted in coalitions serving all people of color. There’s #StopAsianHate, sure, but we’ve also been a part of pushes to diversify Hollywood and corporate America. 

Asian-Americans are part of the growing diverse consumer purchasing power that also includes Black and Hispanic, so our inclusion is not only a sound business practice, it is important to ensure you’re reaching a growing demographic. Some suburbs – like the one I was raised in outside Princeton, NJ – are not just so-called majority minority but majority Asian.

Finally, I think the treatment of Asian-Americans at the height of Covid forever changed our community. The businesses that “get it” leaned into supporting Asian employees AND consumers. Some good examples from Peloton, for instance, are the rides they did to center Asian culture, the donations they made to #StopAsianHate, and allowing Asian instructors such as Emma Lovewell and Sam Yo to talk about their identities.

Q: There are dozens of distinct nationalities and ethnic identities encompassed by “AAPI.” How do marketers reach them authentically?

A: We have similar narratives in the Latino community, which is not a monolith. This applies for AAPI, for hyperlocal engagement, niche audiences. In my work, I try to be clear on who I am writing about and trying to serve, and how I will make efforts to reach that audience. Sometimes, when it comes to dress or food or culture or holidays, the term “Asian” can actually be committing a form of erasure; not all Asians celebrate Diwali, for example, but an organization that has an AAPI affinity group might want to think about what it’s doing for Diwali or Eid. 

The word “authentic” can be fraught because the serving of these communities cannot be afterthoughts or “over there.” The best way to be authentic is to be honest and true to the diversity and inclusion of Asians as core to your business mission and strategy. Also, it’s okay to connect consumption and community – not everything has to see DEI through the lens of charity.

Q: To what extent should marketers be segmenting even further into addressing subsets of AAPI audiences? How would you assuage concerns that this might limit scope and reach?

A: When it comes to Asian-Americans, more is more. Segmentation can help marketers achieve deeper engagement and also customize messages appropriately. When Epicenter worked with the Asian American Federation to promote a mental-health directory, we had specific and separate strategies for Bangladeshi, Nepalese, and Chinese communities, to name a few. Another time, reaching out to a Tibetan influencer opened up a brand-new segment to us; she decided to go live on Facebook and Instagram from our table and within minutes, dozens of her followers came by. In my experience, the narrower the messenger, the more trusted the messenger. 

You need to be able to meet people where they are AND be culturally relevant. This creates opportunities to provide information that some people may not know they needed or wanted. 

Q: What’s one thing about AAPI audiences that marketers tend to think is true, but isn’t?

A: I think it’s time to retire the tropes about our community being affluent, good at math, and strivers. Sure, some of that is true, but we are a diverse population of artists and creatives, rich and poor, city dwellers and suburbanites. I’d say marketers would do best to home in on whom they are trying to reach and work backward, relying on a mix of data and on-the-ground research, instead of starting with assumptions.

Interested in learning more about multicultural marketing strategies? Download our report, Engaging Multicultural Audiences.