16600: Multicultural Multiple Choices.

Advertising Age published a lengthy report spotlighting debates about the best label for non-White advertising and marketing. The top choices include:

 

Multicultural Marketing

 

Cultural Marketing

 

Inclusive Marketing

 

Cross-Cultural Marketing

 

Total Market Marketing

 

Transcultural Marketing

 

And chip in MultiCultClassics’ original entry:

 

Multicrumbtual Marketing

 

A better way to change the conversation might involve redefining General Market Advertising. The choices here include:

 

White Advertising

 

Exclusive Expositions

 

Caucasian Communications

 

Systemic Racism

 

And chip in MultiCultClassics’ original entry:

 

Monocultural Marketing

 

Inside The Multicultural Marketing Debate—How The Ad World Is Clashing Over Culture

 

Ad Age spoke with 12 advertising execs about the state of multicultural marketing, how it’s evolving and its ongoing challenges

 

By Brian Bonilla

 

Gilbert Dávila remembers when the term multicultural marketing was coined about 20 years ago during an ANA meeting.

 

At the time, multicultural marketing represented an advance from minority marketing or ethnic marketing, as it was then called, because it embraced not just one, but many groups. Multicultural marketing, which got its name during a group conversation involving Dávila, “became an umbrella that not only housed Hispanic, African American and Asian, but for the first time, it included LGBTQ and even people with disabilities,” said the co-founder of the ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing and CEO of DMI Consulting.

 

But now, there is a debate over whether the term should be retired and if the word culture is being appropriated.

 

While no one disputes the value of reaching under-represented groups—$45.8 billion is expected to be spent on U.S. multicultural advertising this year (which is still less than 6% of total spending), according to research firm PQ Media—there is a growing clash over the role of “cultural” versus “multicultural” marketing, and discussion over whether the latter term is limited or dated.

 

Some believe that the word multicultural, which was adopted to communicate inclusion, can actually be exclusionary—resulting in multicultural marketing being siloed, or as Dávila put it, “disassociated from the rest of the marketing team.”

 

Multicultural as a word comes with “baggage that creates a challenge,” IW Group President and CEO Nita Song said. “The strength of multicultural is that it is probably the most recognized word, it is the one common word that we’ve all grown up with and clients understand it. But I don’t think it’s been supported in the best way in terms of the opportunities that are presented today.”

 

Emerging terms

 

At issue is whether the term multicultural, the widely accepted way of describing marketing catered toward diverse audiences including race, gender and sexual orientation, is too synonymous with racial or ethnic marketing. This has given birth to new terms meant to act as an evolution from the word. Agencies such as Sensis, BeautifulBeast and Lerma/, for example, call themselves cross-cultural shops.

 

BeautifulBeast’s website explains it this way: “While our DNA is Hispanic, we are a cross-cultural agency.”

 

“Cross-cultural is a broader term,” said Pedro Lerma, principal and founder of Texas-based agency Lerma/. “We believe that we can credibly address and lead with underrepresented segments of the market, so it’s not just about being inclusive within the agency, but it’s about having a real respect and being willing to lead with a perspective that is other than your own.”

 

Rob Velez, VP of inclusive network sales at music-video platform Vevo, said he saw the need for a move away from multicultural toward “inclusive marketing” around 2020.

 

“I grew up in this industry and it was always … you have your general market and then you have multicultural,” Velez said. “[Multicultural] was always the afterthought … I’ve just always seen multicultural as this separate thing that wasn’t really thought of from inception.”

 

If the term inclusive becomes adopted broadly, Velez hopes it makes marketing to diverse audiences a larger part of brands’ efforts. Since Vevo’s Inclusive practice launched six years ago, previously under the term of multicultural marketing, it has grown by double digits each year, Velez said.

 

But there are still some marketers that “hesitate to speak to a new audience that they haven’t spoken to before and coming off as inauthentic and possibly upsetting them to the point where that segment of the population will reject that brand,” Velez said. 

 

Beatriz Rojas, the head of brand advertising at healthcare company Kaiser Permanente, said she and the company adopted the phrase inclusive marketing six years ago. She said the phrase is broader and fits better with the company’s mission to provide healthcare to all types of people.

 

“We want to make sure that every deliverable we do is really appropriate and effectively connecting with our diverse audiences,” Rojas said.

 

Agencies such as Alma, which has its roots in Latin culture, interchangeably work on different types of accounts. “We don’t like to label ourselves,” said Isaac Mizrahi, CEO of Alma and author of the book “Hispanic Market Power.”

 

“With the Latino population at the threshold of crossing 20% of the population, or a much higher percentage of millennials and Gen Z consumers, you don’t have to pick sides, you can be both a great agency and a great multicultural agency,” he added.

 

Culture versus pop culture

 

These younger audiences are now more culturally diverse in how they identify themselves and the types of content they consume, making multicultural expertise more necessary for brands and agencies.

 

For example, Peso Pluma, a regional Mexican music artist, is one of the hottest artists right now and was YouTube’s most-viewed artist in 2023 over big names such as Drake and Taylor Swift. Pluma’s popularity speaks to how multicultural is ingrained in culture; to be sure, this is not a new premise, with hip-hop influencing advertising since the 90s.  

 

Moreover, Gen Zers are more openly diverse in their sexual orientations.

 

A recent report found that 28% of Gen Z adults in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. That compares to 16% of millennials and 7% of baby boomers who identify as LGBTQ+, according to the same report.

 

As a result, some brands are broadening the multicultural term and embracing the term “culture” instead to fit their specific target goals. Over the last several years, the term culture has significantly grown as a way to describe assignments, positions and business units within agencies and brands.

 

TBWA opened a cultural intelligence unit in 2016 called Backslash, which is focused on reporting on industry trends. And in 2019, The Martin Agency set up the Cultural Impact Lab, which is centered around brand activations, PR, talent sourcing for projects and other topics. These remits and practices can often straddle the line between pop culture, subculture and at times multicultural work.

 

There’s also been a move for brands to hire so-called culture agencies. Chipotle works with influencer and social agency Day One as its “culture agency,” while Patrón and Taco Bell have assigned MTW agency and Cashmere, respectively, to culture agency of record remits. (MTW connected Patrón with Becky G for a campaign created by M Booth last summer.)

 

But all three agencies are different: Day One specializes in influencer and social marketing while Cashmere and MTW have roots in multicultural marketing. This raises the question of which types of agencies should be charged with leading marketing around culture.

 

Understanding subcultures

 

McDonald’s is an example of a mass-market brand that has been successful in understanding different subcultures—in February, the burger chain introduced its own anime. It has long used marketing that hits on different cultures, while also resonating with a mainstream audience.

 

Much of that work has been done by Wieden+Kennedy, but the chain also works with agencies that specialize in reaching market segments—such as IW Group for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders marketing, Alma for Latino marketing and Walton Isaacson for African American and LGBTQ+-focused campaigns.

 

Similarly, Hyundai Motor America has separate agencies of record for marketing to Asian, African American and Hispanic audiences. Last week, the automaker’s African American agency of record Culture Brands launched a new campaign called “The Drop.” 

 

Daniel Maynez, a manager of multicultural marketing at Hyundai Motor America, said the automaker’s multicultural marketing encompasses African American, Asian and Hispanic marketing efforts. How “multicultural” is defined depends on how each organization defines it, he said.

 

“That’s not to say that we don’t have additional efforts that support diversity, equity, and inclusion, LGBTQIA+, or other ethnic and culturally diverse groups,” Maynez said. “It just means something different to everyone.”

 

Team Epiphany, which was acquired by Stagwell in January, calls itself a culture-first agency because of its diverse staff and ability to connect brands to different communities, co-founder Coltrane Curtis said.

 

“The agency also specializes in decoding culture—not only understanding what’s trending, but where those trends are coming from, why they are trending and forecasting where they will go in the future,” Curtis said. “This leads to a term that we use called ‘aspirational multiculturalism’ that meets your target consumers and communities where they would like to be and what they are working towards. It takes into consideration their hopes for family, friends and community versus leaning in on traditional, outdated or stereotypical beliefs about the target.”

 

Not just anyone can be an expert on specific cultural segments, according to Aaron Walton, CEO of Walton Isaacson, which works with clients such as McDonald’s, American Airlines and Lexus. “You can’t just create a title, create a department and not have the history, the passion or the depth of understanding for that particular culture,” Walton said.

 

After working with American Airlines as its multicultural agency, Walton Isaacson was brought on as the carrier’s creative AOR in 2022 and launched its first spot for the brand the following year. The spot featured diverse travelers utilizing the airline’s different services.

 

“Whether it’s segment-specific work or a broader work order, the segments are included in the broader work,” Walton said. “Whether it’s American Airlines or whomever we’re working with, we make sure we are accurately reflecting a culture and not playing into stereotypes or a perceived understanding of who they are based on a notion that people that aren’t in the segment have about the segment.”

 

Jason Campbell, chief creative officer of Translation, said in a February interview that the word “culture” is being “co-opted” in the industry. “Most of the people using the word don’t know what the word means or are mistaking popular culture for culture,” Campbell said.

 

Steve Stoute, who founded Translation 20 years ago, recently told Ad Age it was initially hard to sell the idea of creating work through a cultural lens because it was considered niche.

 

“Whether it was culture or diversity, those topics back then meant nothing, and now they mean everything,” Stoute said. He added that many agencies now lie about their cultural expertise.

 

Joe Anthony, the founder and CEO of Hero Media and the Hero Collective, called what is happening in the industry “cultural appropriation in the absence of cultural fluency.”

 

If you don’t have people of color being empowered through budgets and C-suite positions to influence the work a brand does, the work won’t be “authentic,” Walton added.

 

“You can’t have cultural insights without it being underpinned by Black and brown insights, because Black and brown culture drives popular culture,” Anthony said. “The problem right now is that culture is becoming the new “Total Market.”

 

“Total market” refers to a phenomenon in which the industry shifted from targeting particular multicultural segments to strategies that appeal to a multicultural nation.

 

“‘Total market’ was like the dark days of multicultural,” Velez said. “The promise of ‘total market’ had very good intentions; it’s actually where we kind of are today. But it was hijacked by the general market to mean that you don’t need to focus on these diverse audiences because the bigger sort of traditional linear general market networks can reach them in this passive way. It took the multicultural marketplace a few steps back, decreased the investments and multicultural experts were no longer being contracted to do some of the work.”

 

Pop culture and culture are very different things, and pop culture is often used to appropriate culture, according to Anthony.

 

“Culture is the contribution that a collection of people make to society based upon their traditions, their backgrounds, etc., and if you don’t understand the origins of people and how they self-identify and why and how they create the cultural offerings to society and the reasons behind it, you’re always just going to be chasing trends and calling that culture marketing,” Anthony said.

 

“Access to these people determines who gets to be the purveyors of culture, and because I’m a small agency, I don’t have access to the CMOs of XYZ, I can’t counterbalance or counteract the cultural BS that somebody else is feeding to this person,” he added.

 

Dove and Beats by Dre. are among the brands that have launched campaigns with a clear “cultural point of view,” according to Anthony.

 

“Dove doesn’t sell soap, they sell self-confidence. That’s their cultural currency,” Anthony said. “They want to add value to women’s lives by changing a cultural standard that has perpetuated the way that women feel, which then makes women feel good about themselves,” he said.

 

“If you’re not utilizing your campaign, to invest in a cultural point of view that adds value to society in some material way, then you’re not doing cultural marketing,” Anthony added. “You’re creating cultural campaigns that leverage people with other cultural equity that you’re trying to attach yourself to.”

 

Measuring influence

 

While many industry leaders don’t agree on whether or not the term multicultural should change, most agree it has less to do with the terminology and more about the intent of marketing to diverse audiences.

 

IW’s Song said marketing should evolve to where it should be measured by influence rather than ethnicity or size of a population.

 

“I’m not married to the word,” Walton said. “What I’m committed to is getting marketers and the advertising industry to value the art and science of marketing to specific cultural segments, using specific cultural insights and getting the budgets to align with the power of these consumer segments.”

 

“If the word ‘multicultural marketing’ goes completely away, I and many of us, fear that it would leave the consciousness of marketers,” said Dávila, who helped coin the term and has worked at companies such as Coca-Cola Co., Sears Roebuck & Co. and Walt Disney. “It’s less about the appropriateness of the word to describe consumers; it’s more about the internal corporate meaning that it has.”

 

Anthony said he’s an advocate of keeping the term multicultural.

 

“There’s still the need to drill down and talk to specific sub-segments of the community, certain communities that need to be celebrated, acknowledged, called out in ways that make them feel unique and acknowledged within your targeting.”

 

Dávila said one issue is some marketers use multicultural as a one-size-fits-all term.

 

“Some companies might be only doing Hispanic [marketing] but then they still call it multicultural,” Dávila said. “When you have a multicultural marketing department, define it.”

13581: I&C BS.

Campaign celebrated the maiden voyage of its I&C Conference with a report featuring lots of commentary that was I&C—Inane & Contrived.

The piece opened by stating, “One year after the ad industry was shocked into action by the discrimination lawsuit filed against former J. Walter Thompson Chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez…” Huh? How was the industry “shocked into action” by the lawsuit? Sorry, but there’s been zero measurable progress made as a direct result of the legal proceedings. WPP and JWT have certainly created plenty of smokescreens and propaganda to create an illusion of inclusion, but the rest of the industry has maintained the status quo. And while the White women bandwagon has accelerated, one could hardly attribute the diverted diversity drive to Erin Johnson or Martinez.

Diageo North America VP of Corporate Relations and Constituent Affairs Marc Strachan apparently delivered revolutionary remarks. However, the Campaign report didn’t include attendance figures, so it’s tough to know if Strachan’s words fell on deaf ears or any ears; plus, were there prominent White ears in the Dream Hotel Downtown? “Advertising industry, you can change, but you need to burn down the current system of hurdles, serfdom, exclusion, and then maybe, you can change,” declared Strachan, adding that transformation could come voluntarily or “someone’s going to throw the fucking grenade.” Um, burning down the existing White industry will take more than an f-bomb and grenade. Somebody needs to invent nuclear napalm just to ignite the blaze. And who’s going to start the fire? Whites or minorities?

Campaign also wrote, “The industry stood up and cheered last year when General Mills, Verizon and HP told their agency partners to diversify or lose their business.” Huh? Did the trade publication notice what actually happened with General Mills, Verizon and HP? General Mills ultimately hired White AORs to handle its business, supplementing with women- and minority-owned firms. In short, the food client perpetuated “the current system of hurdles, serfdom, exclusion” referenced by Strachan. And HP is only riding the White women bandwagon versus revving up legitimate change. To say “the industry stood up and cheered” is about as accurate as insisting President Donald Trump greeted unprecedented crowds at his inauguration.

Strachan boldly predicted multicultural agencies will become a thing of the past. Um, multicultural agencies already are a thing of the past. “Many of them will not sustain because they just won’t be able to compete, whether it’s infrastructure, size, resources,” explained Strachan. “We’re going to have to be comfortable with that, the economic reality is going to impact that business.” Okay, but let’s not attribute the decimation to “economic reality,” as the extinction is being executed by White advertising agencies via “total market” terrorist tactics. Plus, even Strachan admitted clients fabricate excuses to avoid employing multicultural agencies as AORs. Minority firms have always had the deck stacked against them. No need to call in the CSI squad to expose how the murder unfolded.

5 vital takeaways from the inaugural I&C conference

By Kathryn Luttner

Campaign US’ celebration of inclusion and creativity included some tough words for the ad industry. Change voluntarily, “or someone’s going to throw the #!&@ grenade,” said Diageo’s Marc Strachan.

One year after the ad industry was shocked into action by the discrimination lawsuit filed against former J. Walter Thompson Chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez, Campaign US on Tuesday held its first I&C conference, a half-day summit that included frank talk about the industry’s struggles to diversity and a celebration of 16 creative teams that produced work defying stereotypes and featuring underrepresented people.

Speakers at the event, which took place at the Dream Hotel Downtown in Manhattan, included Marc S. Strachan, VP of corporate relations and constituent affairs at Diageo North America; Brad Jakeman, president of the global beverage group at PepsiCo; Tiffany Warren, founder of AdColor and SVP, chief diversity officer at Omnicom Group; Holly Brittingham, SVP, global culture & inclusion at FCB; Danielle Tiedt, CMO of YouTube; Kevin Brady, executive creative director at Droga5; Geoff Edwards, co-head of creative at Creative Artists Agency and cofounder of Saturday Morning; and Jeffrey Bowman, author, founder and CEO of Reframe: The Brand.

To see live coverage of the event, check out #CampaignIandC on Twitter. Below are five key points from the conference that warrant attention and further thought from everyone in the industry.

1. Advertising needs to burn, and Marc Strachan will light the first match

On the cusp of the 40th anniversary of “Roots” and the last day of Black History Month, Strachan declared “the time for talk is over,” and it’s time to burn the industry to the ground—so to speak.

“Advertising industry, you can change, but you need to burn down the current system of hurdles, serfdom, exclusion, and then maybe, you can change,” he said in his fiery keynote speech, adding that there are two ways to transform: voluntarily or “someone’s going to throw the fucking grenade.”

Today, target audiences are no longer homogenous, so to exclude them is to turn a blind eye to potential sales. “Change comes, driven by cash,” Strachan said. “If that’s what you’re trying to do, to hide, it’s no longer acceptable.”

He then rattled off a litany of excuses he’s heard during his 40 years in the business: “‘I don’t know how.’ ‘I don’t know where to look.’ ‘I looked but I couldn’t find.’ ‘We tried, but it didn’t work out,’” and called them “bullshit—all bullshit—hoodwink excuses by professional hoods.”

2. Quotas can work as part of a holistic approach

The industry stood up and cheered last year when General Mills, Verizon and HP told their agency partners to diversify or lose their business. But are quotas really the best solution to a long-ingrained diversity problem? Does anyone even use the word “quotas” anymore?

A panel titled “Are Quotas the Way Forward” suggested that the answer is no. Caitlin Lillie, director of talent at Work & Co., argued that quotas run brands and agencies the risk of making a checklist. If you check off your Hispanics, your LGBTQ, your elderly and your females, magically, you’ve solved diversity, she said. “Then what? What sort of planning are you putting in place to make sure that you’re growing those people?”

Warby Parker’s head of people Susan Lee agreed, providing a real-life example of how her company is experiencing a high turnover rate among LGBTQ, female and multicultural employees. “We have a very young culture,” she said. “We have a really wide range of sexual orientation. We have a large transgender community at Warby; we have people of color; we have women executives. But we have very high turnover in some of these areas because people aren’t feeling like we’re moving fast enough to create an inclusive environment in the company.”

But quotas—for lack of a better term—can work as part of a larger plan, but it won’t be an instant fix, said Paolo Gaudiano, president and CTO of Icosystem. “It’s not as simple as if we employ 50 percent women, all our problems will be fixed. It is true, however, that the kind of misogyny that you see is a little bit less likely to happen” if you employ more minorities, he said. “But you also have to think about the recruitment, the onboarding, inclusion, and it’s really about the complexity of all of these pieces together that has to be taken into account.”

3. Multicultural agencies will become a thing of the past

“Some of the ‘multicultural agencies’ are now just agencies that happen to specialize in a multicultural niche,” said Strachan. Diversity in advertising has come such a long way, he said, now larger holding companies are adopting the same strategies, that will, in effect, cause many multicultural agencies to go by the wayside. “Many of them will not sustain because they just won’t be able to compete, whether it’s infrastructure, size, resources,” he said. “We’re going to have to be comfortable with that, the economic reality is going to impact that business.”

Part of the reason is that millennials don’t see “multicultural” as a silo, but as everyday life. They “interact with people of all colors, all cultures, all backgrounds just as a standard day-to-day,” Strachan said. “You don’t silo. You might go by tribe: I’m a skater, I’m a geeker. I’m an early adopter. And ergo, I think you have a greater opportunity [to] control your future destiny.”

4. Don’t confuse internet comments with public opinion

What happens when a brand produces a progressive or inclusive piece of work, and internet trolls unleash their vitriol in the comments? YouTube’s CMO Danielle Tiedt, in a panel discussion titled “Withstanding the Backlash: How to Stay Brave in the Face of Intolerance,” advised brushing it off.

“Only 8 percent of people on the total internet ever comment on anything—8 percent—it’s tiny,” she said. “And the people who do take time to comment, 70 percent of those only make negative comments ever. I think it’s important to put in context that it’s a very small percentage of people and the people who read comments are even smaller than that, so don’t get too wrapped up in that.”

5. The best idea doesn’t always win

Brands are fond of saying they only care about the ideas, and the best ideas can come from anywhere. But in practice, that may not really be true, said Strachan.

If a multicultural agency presented the best idea in a pitch for a major brand like Ketel One, “a lot of people at my shop would be hard-pressed to give them the business,” he said during a panel discussion titled “Creative Under the (Diverse) Looking Glass.”

The Diageo executives would “lose a lot of sleepless nights; they’d come up with a thousand excuses as why they shouldn’t—or they couldn’t—give them the business: infrastructure, or maybe they can’t handle it financially” he said, “and we are light years ahead of where we used to be.” But in the end, they would likely still not give the multicultural agency the business.

Mark Robinson, SVP at Carol H Williams Advertising, echoed this sentiment, saying that multicultural agencies lack the “deep pockets” of traditional ad shops, which is why they’re bought up by holding companies. “If you’re a multicultural agency whose reason for being is just that you’re multicultural and not that you are good, then you won’t survive. You’ve got to be good first and then expert in your specific subject matter second.”

Geoff Edwards, co-head of creative at Creative Artists Agency and cofounder of Saturday Morning, took it one step further. In order for a multicultural agency to survive, he said, good isn’t good enough. “You have to be exceptional.”

13572: Total Market, Total Failure…?

Campaign published a perspective and sales pitch from Jeffrey L. Bowman, who is still trying to peddle what was once dubbed Cross-Cultural Marketing and later renamed Total Market. Pepper Miller delivered detailed dissections of the direction, and White advertising agencies ultimately hijacked the notion to seize total control of marketing budgets. Meanwhile, Bowman is selling a report on Total Market that will likely be totally ignored by the total industry.

Close the gap: The state of the ‘total market’ industry

By Jeffrey L. Bowman

If we do not get the total market topic right, businesses could lose the next 50 years of market share, writes author and founder of Reframe: The Brand.

We should have gotten it right by now, but we haven’t. We’ve had the data, the tools, the observation skills and the creativity to recognize a bad plan, and yet little has changed in almost 60 years.

That bad plan could be called “Separate But Equal Marketing,” and it was introduced in the 1950s and 1960s. It was inappropriate at the time and has been ineffective since then—and with good reason. McKinsey introduced the topic of “Total Market” in the mid-1960s. At the time corporations were not paying attention to the upward and mobile black consumer. Companies started creating ethnic marketing departments to target blacks and diversity compliance initiatives for their employees in the 1960s. The marketing and communications industry created two different ways of buying services known as “general market” to focus on the “mass” consumer audience and “ethnic marketing,” which later became “multicultural marketing,” to focus on blacks, Hispanics and Asian consumers. Over the last 50 years, nothing changed.

In 2010, the topic of general market and multicultural marketing was revisited at great length and reinvented through the innovation of total market. However the topic was more relevant and it was defined as a new way of buying services from suppliers whose offerings reflected the new America. The innovation, definition and approach were met with resistance and pushback from general market, ethnic and some industry associations. Why? This required structural changes for buying services within the $350 billion marketing and communications industry. As a result, we’re still pursuing a direction that proves inefficient and ineffective. But there is a clear and better way forward.

After five years of weathering the total market topic storm, my team and I sought to uncover why there is resistance to innovation and provide clarity on the topic, while committing resources to providing educational leadership. To identify industry best practices, we conducted over 50 interviews and observations with leading brands, agencies and collected data at conferences and through many hours of desk research. With our inaugural “State of the Total Market Industry Vertical Report,” our goal was to help others truly understand and apply the principles needed for their best employee and consumer outcomes.

If we do not get the total market topic right, businesses could lose the next 50 years of buying consumption. Why? Statistics show that the entire human race is going to flip generationally, racially, ethnically, religiously and in terms of gender, creating a new marketplace and workplace. Therefore we should stop using dated service models, and companies should have new ways of creating value in the new workplace and marketplace.

What’s wrong with the way things are now? Today, a business chooses to buy marketing and communications services based on a segregated model in which general market is separate from multicultural. If you are talent or a business owner within the marketing and communications industry, your ideas and services are likely chosen or purchased based on this model and often multicultural service providers get the short end of the stick even though the multicultural consumers have the highest growth demographically.

Based on our report findings, employees within major brands are two generations culturally removed from consumers. Most big companies culturally reflect a monocultural society or a homogeneity, whereas, culturally in America, there is the debate about moving away from multicultural society to either cross-cultural or poly-cultural society.

Because of the macro cultural and population shift, accept that this is just as much of an employee (workplace) outcome as a consumer (marketplace) outcome. In order for this to work, it has to start internally and then impact externally. You have to have the talent within the organization to fully comprehend and execute the total market approach for the new marketplace and the total market enterprise approach for the new workplace. This starts with education.

This is not a quick sales lift action. If you are attempting to use the total market approach for marketplace results, focus first on strategy, then execution. Many in advertising and marketing have tried using this approach without any strategic planning or outside help. There is now a graveyard of brands that rushed into this only to have discovered their organization was not mature enough. They’ve reverted back to the old and ineffective models. You don’t have too.

Expect some structural changes. For more than 60 years, brands and their service providers have allocated resources and funding under the model of “separate but equal,” meaning mass and multicultural audiences are equal. As multicultural audiences are increasingly the mass audience, this presents a fundamental opportunity about how to restructure budgets, partnerships and departments to accelerate growth within this new marketplace and workplace.

Be honest with yourself and your organization to drive structural change and transformation. Organizations first have to identify and accept where the gaps exist in understanding and acting within the new marketplace and workplace. This requires you to assess your organization.

We are committed to transforming the work and marketplace and are partnering with Campaign US to share our findings over the next several months. Our ambition is to make a difference for the future of the work and marketplace and redirect the industry towards a better way forward. Please join us and #CLOSETHEGAP.

—Jeffrey L. Bowman is an author, and president and CEO of Reframe: The [Brand] – A Business Acceleration Platform.

13476: Hypnotic Hypocrisy.

Saatchi & Saatchi is responsible for this Walmart holiday commercial featuring hypnotist chrisjones. Gee, a Black hypnotist and lots of Black cast members makes for quite a Christmas surprise from a White advertising agency like Saatchi & Saatchi. Or maybe not, given the shop’s penchant for total market strategy—which essentially translates to stealing all the crumbs from minority shops. Maybe chrisjones can hypnotize Saatchi & Saatchi executives and compel them to hire a few minorities.

13438: I&C Is B&S.

Oh, look! Campaign is seeking to revolutionize the predominately White advertising industry by introducing I&C, a discussion forum and awards show charged with “celebrating an inclusive and creative ad culture.” Yep, there’s no better way to ignite change than launching another navel-gazing gathering with segregated trophies. The email invitation for nominations is downright nasty with its references to “outdated concepts like ‘multicultural marketing’ and ‘ethnic outreach’” that apparently stymie progress in the advertising industry. Um, multicultural marketing and ethnic outreach haven’t led to a more inclusive advertising industry; however, the two are hardly the root cause of the global problem. While multicultural marketers and ethnic outreachers must own up to their contributions to the issue, they are also adversely affected by the disrespect, discrimination, crumbs and total market shenanigans from clients and White advertising agencies. Sadly, the root cause of the global problem will either not participate in I&C at all or wind up receiving a shiny object at the clichéd and contrived extravaganza.

13432: Visions Of Diversity.

Advertising Age published a perspective on diversity by Alma Creative Chairman and CEO Luis Miguel Messianu. Interestingly enough, Alma is directly tied to DDB, an agency whose alleged ambition is to become diverse. And both agencies are in the Omnicom network, which refuses to share its EEO-1 data to clearly demonstrate a commitment to diversity. Seems like associating with a White advertising agency and White holding company might mess with Messianu’s message.

Diversity Is an Integral Part of the Vision, Not a Quota

By Luis Miguel Messianu

As of late, the word “Diversity” seems quite ubiquitous in our industry lingo, and I often wonder why it took so long. Should we attribute it to the current political environment we are living in our already great nation? Should we thank a few visionary clients for bringing it up, especially during the pitch conversation? And we can certainly commend a new generation of leaders who have made it a point to bring this notion to the forefront and address it head on, even embarking on breaking bias initiatives!

As someone who has made a living in the Hispanic market (now better known as multicultural) for quite a few years, allow me to share a perspective: “Diversity” cannot be a quota, a checklist, or the politically correct thing to do. Diversity should be an integral component of a vision, a key element of the DNA of a company culture and an uncompromising commitment. And no, I’m not talking just as a Latino immigrant who had to fight hard to make sense of questions and comments like: “What’s Hispanic about it?” “Do we really need a separate campaign?” or “You don’t look Mexican.” I’m talking as an entrepreneur who clearly understands the enormous value and benefits of a wide range of cultural backgrounds, of diverse angles and perspectives as it relates to origin, race and gender.

Diversity should be a firm’s firm commitment, and clients will certainly reap the benefits of the rich currency of insights and freshness. Culture continues to be a powerful anchor to make a connection on behalf of brands, and a unique way to establish long term relationships with consumers that are more and more elusive, and that now can even block us. I find it odd (and even ironic) that while our industry is focused on one-on-one programmatic media, we still see certain clients approaching “Total Market” with a simplistic and even lazy view geared exclusively at achieving efficiencies — but at the expense of effectiveness. In this era of specialization, the marketing machine that keeps our economy in motion cannot afford to take the easy way out!

Now, more than ever, if you really want to disrupt and get noticed, you need to connect with an audience in a culturally relevant manner, and in order to do so you need to tap into powerful know-how and expertise. Think about it: would you go to a general practitioner if you had a heart problem? Or would it make more sense to visit a recognized cardiologist? The analogy works since you can look at multicultural talent as especially qualified to help your brand make an emotional connection with an elusive consumer segment.

The more diverse an agency is, the more it creates a unique ecosystem that can generate a fun environment, that will foster respect, openness and a spirit of collaboration. Today agencies can be a place where culture, creativity and technology converge, and where people are encouraged and empowered to celebrate their diverse upbringing.

Diversity is good business … diversity pays off … but above all, diversity is a mission statement and, as such, should be nourished, continuously enhanced and celebrated!

Luis Miguel Messianu is creative chairman and CEO of U.S. Hispanic agency Alma, Miami

13389: USAA Picks Less-Biased Partner.

Advertising Age reported USAA handed its business to White advertising agencies from Publicis Groupe, replacing White advertising agencies from IPG. The move started when USAA dumped White advertising agency Campbell Ewald following a racist email fiasco involving the C-E office in San Antonio. At one point, IPG hoped to retain the business by erecting a standalone White enterprise within its White network to exclusively service the client. Instead, USAA opted for White offerings from Publicis Groupe. According to Ad Age, Razorfish Global CEO Shannon Denton said the new relationship “is part of Publicis and USAA’s goal to transform the industry. [Denton] added that USAA members are diverse and noted that Publicis Groupe believes the work on the account will be better and more creative if the team is also diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, race and ways of thinking.” Okay, but the White advertising agency in the Publicis Groupe mix is Saatchi & Saatchi, a place routinely executing total market tactics that ultimately marginalize minority professionals in the field. Plus, Saatchi & Saatchi’s former chairman sparked controversy with his clumsy remarks regarding White women in the industry. So USAA has not moved significantly closer to connecting with partners that reflect the USA—or even USAA, for that matter. Only in America.

Publicis Groupe Agency Team Wins USAA Account

By Lindsay Stein

USAA has selected a Publicis Groupe team, including Razorfish, Saatchi & Saatchi and others within the network, to handle all integrated marketing, communications and media after a competitive holding company review.

Publicis Groupe landed the business after what USAA referred to as “several months of rigorous interviews, on-site visits and in-depth discussions with several companies.” For the pitch, the holding company implemented its so-called “Power Of One” strategy by bringing together agencies and services from Publicis Communications, Publicis.Sapient and Publicis Media. In addition to Razorfish, the team includes Saatchi & Saatchi, MSLGroup, Mediavest|Spark and Prodigious. The team will be responsible for creative and content development, marketing, advertising and media buying, social media, corporate responsibility, PR and issues and crisis management.

USAA Chief Marketing Officer Roger Adams wouldn’t identify the other holding companies in the hunt but said though they all had integrated models, Publicis stood out, with its “spot on” examples of integrated creative across all marketing communications and social functions. Each company leader involved in the selection process—across all areas of PR, creative, marketing and social—unanimously chose Publicis Groupe, he added.

Publicis Groupe also rose above competitors because of its focus on diversity, which includes a pledge to hire 30% of new staffers on the team from diverse communities and backgrounds.

While the diversity aspect was called out in the RFP, Mr. Adams said Publicis Group “went well beyond what they were asked for and demonstrated how they would deliver diversity by turning it into a program.”

Shannon Denton, global CEO of Razorfish, who ran the pitch and headed up the team integration for it, said the program is part of Publicis and USAA’s goal to transform the industry. He added that USAA members are diverse and noted that Publicis Groupe believes the work on the account will be better and more creative if the team is also diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, race and ways of thinking.

The five key components of the diversity program are education, recruitment, onboarding, retention and recognition of talent, said Sandra Sims-Williams, chief diversity officer of Publicis Groupe. The holding company will also work closely with USAA on the program.

All work being done by USAA’s previous agency partners will be fully transitioned to Publicis Groupe by the end of the first quarter of 2017, except for WME/IMG, which will continue working on sponsorship-related activities, such as the Army-Navy Game presented by USAA.

USAA began working with MullenLowe in March after it parted ways with former agency partner Campbell-Ewald because of a scandal related to a racist memo. MullenLowe and Campbell-Ewald are both part of Interpublic Group, and after the insurance and financial company dropped Campbell-Ewald, IPG said in a statement that it planned “to transition our USAA team into a standalone, purpose-built entity over the next few months.”

Though IPG said it would create a standalone entity, USAA said it had not signed an agreement with IPG regarding the work terminated with Campbell Ewald and said it was working with IPG on a transition plan as it searches for a new shop. IPG’s Initiative was the media agency on the account, Fleishman Hillard previously handled PR and Merkle worked on USAA’s social business.

Mr. Adams said all of the former agencies “have done a great job in the past,” but the company has to “reorganize for the future and put a premium on integration.”

“We thank USAA for the opportunity over the past eight years to help their members experience the benefits of financial readiness,” said IPG in a statement. “IPG employees across this country have felt pride in sharing the stories of military members and their families with the rest of America and in seeing USAA grow their membership base by over 50% during this time.”

Representatives from MullenLowe, Initiative, Merkle and FleishmanHillard were not immediately available for comment.