There’s no doubt that marketing targeting minority groups has grown over the last five years. A new study from the Association of National Advertisers finds that 66 percent of respondents say their agencies have increased their efforts in multicultural marketing, or MCM, as it’s called, over recent years. But getting good results from these efforts, and finding support for them within the agency, continues to be a major sticking point. Just 45 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with MCM efforts, while 26 percent said they were very or somewhat dissatisfied. Reasons for frustration varies, with some respondents saying MCM programs lack funding and others saying they don’t have enough top-level supporters within the agency to do the types of things they’d like to do. Hispanic and African-American consumers remain the main targets for MCM, and TV and print the most-used media. Barbara Bacci Mirque, executive vice president of the ANA, talks to Media Life about how things have changed since a similar study in 2003, why MCM can be so frustrating, and how things could change in the future.

 
What did you find most interesting or most surprising about this study?
 
I’d say the frustration levels that were exhibited with the impact of multicultural activities. That was a finding that kind of struck me a bit.
 

What's the most important thing media buyers and planners can take from it?
 
I think there’s no doubt that multicultural marketing (MCM) is just marketing.

We like to say it’s not multicultural, it’s just marketing. Hopefully the info in the study will help agencies be more effective with MCM. And that was the overall intent. That’s why we have some question on what types of channels marketers are using.
 
Reading through the lines of the study, you probably have to look at the channels by the segment you’re targeting. In the African-American community, for example, there’s a lot of experiential.

For each type of target, there’s no one general tactic to use, which is a typical characteristic of marketing.

What has spurred the growth in multicultural marketing initiatives?
 
Nothing in particular, but we live in a multicultural environment, so it’s just good marketing. And the world is different than it was five years ago. You’ve got to go where the consumer is going. I’d be really concerned if there wasn’t a lot of growth.

Despite that growth, many marketers say they are frustrated with the results. Why?
 
I think it could be a combination of factors.

MCM campaigns don’t seem to have senior-level champions. Only 12 percent reported the CEO is a champion of MCM. It could be there is a low level of CEO support, and that could be a driving factor. In many things, marketing and otherwise, top-level people can help drive programs through.
 

Many cited lack of adequate funding for MCM. Why aren't such initiatives getting more pocketbook support?
 
It could be a variety of factors. It probably depends on who’s the champion within the organization. Where’s the budget held? Is it a separate MCM department?
 
One of the things we’ve seen that’s consistent is measuring the impact.

If you look at MCM as being part of an integrated marketing plan, what element drives the end result? Was it the MCM program? Was it online? TV? Radio? So I think the difficulty in measurement is still endemic to measurement as a whole, and then there’s extra pressure to justify MCM.

Why has there been a lack of relevant metrics to measure performance of MCM?
 
Measurement is tough to begin with when looking across all media tactics, let alone when you slice and dice it. It’s a tough battle. The whole purpose of integrated marketing is broad, so how do you pick out each individual piece?
 

The percentage who define MCM as narrowcasting has declined significantly from your last survey. Why is that?
 
A lot has changed in five years, and also the samples of the surveys are different. In 2003 we had a different objective, we were looking at the differences between senior marketers and the people doing day-to-day MCM. This year we wanted just the people doing the day-to-day work answering the questions.
 

Among which minority groups have MCM programs grown the most, the least and why?
 
We asked what segments you’re marketing to, and Hispanics and African Americans are the key market segments, and that hasn’t changed all that much.

Not surprisingly, the Hispanic segment has shown the most growth; of U.S. population growth, Hispanics have accounted for almost half in recent years. So of course you have to make sure you’re reaching the segment the way you need to.
 
What we also saw is that Asian-American targets, there wasn’t a whole lot of change.
 
The African-American segment is, in theory, an English-speaking segment, so at times you can reach them with general English media you may run on non-ethnically targeted TV, radio, online and print. And I think that’s why you might see more growth among Hispanics, because it’s a more discrete population.

Which medium is the most common used for MCM and why?
 
I think we saw that in mass media print and TV. We asked what’s most important and the highest percentage was 47 percent, TV, and print was at 46 percent. Events were at 42 percent.
 
I would say there’s some ease of use with TV and print.

It might get more difficult in online or social media, for example. And when you get into having to buy a particular local magazine or newspaper, it gets a bit more labor-intensive. But it also depends on the product and what its objectives are.