Advertising Age reported on Nissan and Infiniti shifting its non-White marketing duties to a new multicultural agency—sans a formal review.
Third Ear—formerly known as LatinWorks—replaced fluent360, who had serviced the Nissan brand for 15 years. Both shops are minority-owned by Omnicom, so the move is likely another example of Corporate Cultural Collusion orchestrated by the White holding company. Omnicom is adept at shuffling accounts between White advertising agencies in its network, so it’s not surprising the company would do likewise with non-White firms.
The Ad Age headline for the report read: Nissan And Infiniti Make Multicultural Agency Change—What It Means For Black And Hispanic Advertising. Um, it means non-White shops 49%-owned by White holding companies can expect to stay in segregated silos, collect crumbs, and get shifted/shafted at the “minority” owners’ whim.
Nissan And Infiniti Make Multicultural Agency Change—What It Means For Black And Hispanic Advertising
Behind the ‘identities-led’ approach of Third Ear, which replaces Fluent360 on the accounts
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When luxury automaker Infiniti begins advertising its redesigned QX80 premium SUV next month, it will move beyond its marketing comfort zone. Pricing for the vehicle tops $100,000. But rather than targeting households with incomes of at least $100,000, like it normally would do, it lowered the threshold for its media plan to $75,000.
The change was spurred by advice from Infiniti’s new multicultural agency, Third Ear, which has also begun working on sibling brand Nissan.
“They came to us and said, you’re gonna miss the mark if you set your household incomes too high because these audiences will do whatever they can to get the kind of vehicles that they want. And so don’t let that hold you back,” said Shelley Pratt, director of marketing communications and media for Infiniti USA.
The approach is a preview of what’s to come from Austin, Texas-based Third Ear, which focuses on subtleties within multicultural communities that it believes can make a big difference when it comes to branding.
Third Ear, which is 49% owned by Omnicom, won the Nissan and Infiniti accounts in April and will handle Black and Hispanic marketing. The incumbent was Fluent360, which is minority-owned by Omnicom. For Nissan, Third Ear will collaborate with Nissan United, Omnicom’s dedicated Nissan creative and media agency. For Infiniti, it will work with Publicis Groupe, which has handled the brand’s global creative since 2021.
There was not a formal agency review.
“We looked at Omnicom to provide us a great solution for multicultural,” said Nissan U.S. Chief Marketing Officer and VP Marisstella Marinkovic. “And so they connected us with Third Ear and we had deep conversations. We gave them an assignment. And we decided to move forward with the relationship.”
Fluent360 Founder and CEO Danielle Austen in a statement said the agency is “proud of our fifteen years leading the multicultural business for Nissan North America. We wish both Infiniti and Nissan the best in their pursuits to win with these vital audience segments.”
Not a monolith
While Nissan and Infiniti have invested significantly in multicultural marketing in recent years—Nissan in February ran a Super Bowl ad on Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast—the hiring of Third Ear signals a possible shift in creative approach.
The agency, formerly known as LatinWorks, rebranded in 2019 in an effort to grow beyond its pure-play Hispanic agency roots. It took the name Third Ear as a signal that it listens to the nuances that make people different. It has since refined its approach to become what it describes as an “identities-led creative agency,” with a philosophy that takes ethnicity into account in multicultural marketing but goes further to recognize that individuals within a certain ethnic group can be very different.
“We think that identity transcends ethnicity,” Third Ear Chief Strategy Officer Ed Castillo said in an interview this week. “Endemic factors, like the language you speak, and the food you eat, will always have a meaningful effect,” he said. But “eventually, you will go into the world and you will proclaim a certain identity … I’m a gamer, metalhead, whatever the case might be.”
So marketing should not treat groups as a monolith, according to an agency. “One of the standard assumptions about Hispanic audiences is that they are completely focused on the family,” Castillo said. While that might be the case for some, through consumer research, “we found examples of younger, ambitious Hispanics who … will be the first to raise their hand and say, I’m willing to sacrifice time with my family to get further in my career.”
“If you show up to multicultural marketing with certain monolithic assumptions, you will miss nuance,” he added.
While it is too soon to tell how this approach will show up in Nissan and Infiniti marketing, one possibility is that it could be used to produce work that appeals equally to Black and Hispanic audiences, rather than siloing it.
“We have to find some commonalities. And those commonalities are very powerful,” said Third Ear Chief Creative Officer Serge Flores.
Growing market
The agency change comes as multicultural marketing rises in importance for automotive brands, which increasingly view multicultural audiences as a source of sales growth. General Motors, Hyundai and Stellantis are among the automakers that in recent years have added agencies dedicated to boosting affinity with Black and Hispanic audiences.
Nissan and Infiniti already over-index with Black and Hispanic consumers: Nissan is ranked eighth when it comes to sales with all consumers, but has a fifth-place ranking for both Hispanic and Black buyers, according to business intelligence firm S&P Global. Infiniti does not crack the top 10 in total sales, but comes in eighth and ninth, with Black and Hispanic buyers, respectively.
The QX80 launch will be one of the first big tests for Third Ear. “We need a partner that’s going to help us authentically show up in social with our influencers, and how we buy media to make sure that that we're relevant in this consumer base that we already overindex with,” Pratt said.
As for Nissan, the brand has been increasing its multicultural marketing budget by 25% year over year, and “we’re going to continue to increase year over year,” Marinkovic said. Nissan wants to “make sure that we’re authentically connecting not only with with that specific customer, but with culture as well, and with their interests. So in order to connect and really build your brand, you have to go beyond just your sort of basics.”
She pointed to Nissan’s recent reveal of the 2025 Nissan Kicks subcompact crossover as an example of what’s to come. In March, the brand staged an “unboxing” of the vehicle in Brooklyn outside the Barclays Center during opening round play of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The event, which featured a “virtual” reveal of the model using a 3D digital “shoebox” was intended to play into sneaker, basketball and music culture.
It's not a real win for Third Ear. All they're getting is a fraction of the money fluent360 got, because Nissan didn't want to spend more on multicultural advertising after the George Floyd era, they wanted to spend LESS.
ReplyDeleteThey're also getting less autonomy, less ability to do anything other than translation work, and a diet of crumbs and shadow versions of what the main General Market Omnicom shops get.
Anything even remotely original or with a significant budget will be radically less than what fluent360 got in the first place, and handed over to the General Market partner for actual high level execution (and payday).