16847: Midweek Muddled Musings On Multicultural Marketing.

 

Advertising Age interviewed the Reckitt U.S. Chief Marketing Officer for Hygiene, who advocated prioritizing multicultural marketing—in contrast to other major brands scaling back and/or abandoning DEIBA+ initiatives.

 

Herein lies an inherent issue. That is, why must multicultural marketing be categorized as a DEIBA+ maneuver?

 

The Reckitt CMO insists targeting Black and Latino audiences constitutes a business imperative for brands like Lysol and Airwick. Reaching distinct consumer segments with relevant marketing has resulted in heightened brand awareness and greater sales. Although it would be interesting to compare the White marketing budgets with the multicultural marketing budgets. Is it a case of cash versus crumbs?

 

So, why is multicultural marketing thought of as DEI marketing? Dove and Always primarily target White women—a group typically at the top of DEIBA+ prioritization lists—yet these brands’ campaigns aren’t viewed as DEI marketing. It’s highly unlikely that the advertising generated for such brands is financed with crumbs.

 

Indeed, “prioritizing multicultural marketing” might be an oxymoron of sorts, as categorizing an effort as multicultural automatically de-prioritizes it.

 

In short, White marketing—and its White advertising agency creators—receive top priority. No amount of Lysol and Airwick could affect the stink of that reality.

 

Why Reckitt Is Prioritizing Multicultural Marketing As Others Eliminate Policies

 

Gary Osifchin, U.S. CMO for hygiene, on his multicultural playbook and why it works for the company

 

By Jack Neff

 

Numerous brands have scaled back or scrapped diversity, equity and inclusion programs in recent months, including Lowe’s, Ford, Harley Davidson, Deere, Toyota and Tractor Supply. Others have pulled back on investments in diverse-owned media or content focused on Black or Hispanic consumers, at least pending the outcome of next month’s election.

 

And some brands that have stayed the course in DEI marketing and media investments are staying quiet about their strategies. 

 

But Reckitt’s Gary Osifchin, chief marketing officer of its U.S. hygiene business, which markets such brands as Lysol, AirWick and Finish, said the company is sticking by DEI in marketing because it works for his brands. And he’s not afraid to talk about it.

 

Osifchin, who sits on the board of the Association of National Advertisers’ Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing, spoke with Ad Age about why Reckitt is staying the course on DEI in marketing despite the pushback that has made others turn away.

 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

 

AIMM has recognized Reckitt for doing a good job with multicultural representation in its ads. But DEI has become controversial in the U.S. How do you deal with that pushback as you try to make your advertising representative?

 

I’ve personally been involved in reaching different audiences for over a decade now, from a brand perspective, because a source of growth for brands will continue to be reaching new audiences.

 

We will continue to reach the population that we reach today, but also bring in new consumers in different subsets of the population that are growing, whether it’s Hispanic, African American or Asian American.

 

The need to reach them from a product standpoint, but also from a communication standpoint, so that you’re relevant, is critical. I really tie it back to Reckitt’s value system. It’s not just on our website. It’s real. It’s a commitment to represent and amplify diverse communities in our marketing and in our product development. It’s part of our growth strategy globally. You take it down to my business in the U.S. and big brands like Lysol, or Finish or AirWick, it’s hugely important for me to reach those growth audiences as a source of business growth, but also to reach them in resonant and relevant ways. We need to make sure that we’re not just presenting stereotypes or trying to go after the dollar.

 

It’s important from a growth standpoint, and the right thing to do in times where things are challenged. I personally believe consistency and conviction matter, and certainly in the last three years that I’ve been in my role, the consistency and conviction as a leader that I’ve had in terms of ensuring that we instill the right insight into our product development or communications development to truly understand what will resonate with different cultures and backgrounds and the total audience.

 

Tell me about Reckitt’s multicultural playbook.

 

I very much built a multicultural marketing playbook that is now embedded in the organization. It’s tied to the full-funnel consumer engagement team that I’ve set up and lead to ensure that from insight to strategy and to product and communications through our testing processes that we’re fairly representing and authentically representing the people we want to reach. Our media investment strategy is then tied to that, in terms of who we want to reach. Our R&D and product strategy is tied to that where it matters on things like fragrance, Lysol with our Brand New Day line, or on AirWick with our Vibrant line, which over-indexes among African Americans and Hispanics and was developed to reach them from a fragrance standpoint.

 

It’s tied to Reckitt’s growth strategy, and therefore it’s important for all of my marketing team to understand, so it’s not just me as a leader championing it, but I really have it hardwired in the thought process.

 

It starts with deep understanding of insights. If you think about Finish, the way Hispanic consumers think about dishwashing and auto dishwashing is, different than the general population. Hispanics, we found, from an insight and data mining standpoint, actually think that doing the dishes by hand is an act of care and part of the family cooking and preparation and cleanup experience, and that a dishwasher won’t do as good of a job as I will hand washing. That comes [in home visits] and ethnographies and diving deep.

 

Our consumer engagement full-funnel team, who are responsible for all of our media investment, planning, strategy and execution across touchpoints, is wired into the insights and analytics team and wired into the brand team. If we know reaching a Hispanic audience on Finish is important, which it is, and we have an insight, we need to create content and communications to do that. Then media investment needs to follow that, and then the right measurement needs to follow.

 

We formalized the creative development process to ensure early on, at the briefing stage, when we want to do Hispanic specific, or we want creative to be informed by African Americans or others, that in the brief we’re clear on it.

 

We’ve been using CIIM [the Cultural Inclusivity Insights Manager developed by AIMM in cooperation with member companies]. It’s helped us [with] pieces of creative, both ones that were intentionally done for a specific audience and ones that were not, just to get a benchmark. And we see that on Lysol, where we were intentional in a Hispanic or African American insight, that we outperform our other creative. So it shows me that it’s working.

 

If I’ve been in a pitch of agencies, I put CIIM in as one of our metrics early on, and then we use Link from Kantar for measurement. And then we have our positive portrayal panel, which is unique at Reckitt. [We] have set up a process so that folks in [employee resource groups] are trained on how to evaluate creative and what to look for and watch out for. We also have embedded it with our big agency networks, their own use of their own equivalents of positive portrayal panels, so that they have their eyes on it.

 

There have been times when it’s worked exceptionally well. I’ll tell you, there are times where it worked so well that it stopped me from putting forth some creative, because all of us in the process missed stuff, but when the consumer spoke up in the quantitative and told us, “no, that’s off, or that’s presenting a stereotype,” we listened and didn’t move forward.

 

We set up a process, I call it multicultural closeness … where we can do virtual conversations with consumers of different backgrounds and diverse cultures, and it’s available to everybody from marketing to R&D. We run it with our C-suite and our leadership team in North America, where they have access to have interviews, to just talk about topics … to just get better intimacy and closeness to our consumers from a multicultural perspective.

 

Media at the end of it is so critical for us to ensure that we’re investing in reaching diverse audiences and minority-owned media companies.

 

For influencer content, we have over 250 diverse creators. Some 80% of my creator influencer content is from diverse creators, and that’s a way for us to ensure that we are reaching audiences with voices that they trust.

 

Then, on the back end, it’s marketing metrics [such as] household penetration, buy rate, category growth, market share, looking at that from Hispanic and African American perspectives and understanding are we moving the needle. And our equity trackers are doing that too.

 

How is it different from how you used to do marketing?

 

It’s like what we knew as I grew up in marketing, 20-plus years ago, but applying then a very nuanced approach along the way to ensure that you’re presenting authentically to the people you want to talk to.

 

If you’re Hispanic American watching content in English that everybody else is watching, and I reach you in that, well, then, don’t talk to me in Spanish. Talk to me in English, because I’m receiving my content in English. That’s very different than when I actually am immersing myself in a Hispanic podcast or a piece of content online through an influencer, then talk to me in Spanish, because that’s the world I’m in at that moment.

 

Have you seen any evidence of DEI pushback, either comments or direct communications, based on the work that you’ve done? 

 

I go back to consistency and conviction, conviction that it’s the right thing to grow my businesses for Reckitt and our brands. The process I talked about has prevented missteps and ensured that when we’re doing communications to a specific group, or when we’re launching things like Lysol Brand New Day, which is very much meant to appeal, from a fragrance standpoint, to African Americans and Hispanics, that we’re testing product with them, so that it actually delivers against what we want it to.

16846: Exclusive Vintage Advertising.

 

Adweek and Ad Patina are selling vintage advertisements—including framing services—for prices up to $700…?!

 

A quick view of the website showed no advertisements featuring Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, or Rastus. Didn’t spot any offerings from multicultural advertising agencies either.

 

Find the perfect holiday gift for White advertising agency fans—but don’t expect a Black Friday sale.

16845: Buckle Up, Detroit.

 

Advertising Age reported on more casualties from General Motors’ decision to partner with White advertising agencies outside of Detroit. Publicis Groupe announced plans to shutter the Leo Burnett Detroit office—which lost Cadillac, Buick, and GMC—and lay off 79 staffers.

 

Add Leo Burnett Detroit to a pileup including Commonwealth, McCann Relationship Marketing, and the White advertising agencies bound to crash and burn in the impending Stellantis review.

 

Despite the setbacks and reductions in force, Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun thinks the White holding company will continue to perform far better than rivals. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims Adland regularly adds hundreds of jobs.

 

Meanwhile, news sources report General Motors cut about 1000 employees last week—mostly white-collar workers—adding to the 5000 white-collar workers who took buyout offers from the automaker last April. It’s unlikely the 6000 included any Chief Marketing Officers. But it wouldn’t be surprising to learn Chief Diversity Officers were among the terminated.

 

Analysts tie GM’s problems to failure achieving goals with electric vehicles sales. Hey, maybe President-elect Donald Trump can appoint Elon Musk to assist.

16844: The Cost Of Cubicle Confinement.

Digiday Media’s Worklife reported on a study showing RTO costs employees $61 per day on average—that’s $10 more than last year. The breakdown equates to commuting and parking at $27, breakfast and coffee at $13, and lunch at $21 per day.

 

Applied to Adland, an industry that charges by the hour, it would also be right to add costs for time spent commuting to and from the office, as well as for dinner if employers don’t allow expensing after-hours meals.

 

Do the simple math: employees must cough up $305 per week for the privilege of sitting in a cubicle.

 

Forget cost-of-living salary increases. It’s time to request a cost-of-RTO raise.

 

Workers spending more than $60 daily to work from the office

 

By Hailey Mensik

 

Going back to the office is costing staff more than just their time. They’re spending $61 on average every day when they come in, paying for parking and gas or transit, coffee and lunch, and even breakfast or dinner on some days, a new survey found. 

 

That’s up from $51 last year, according to the survey from Owl Labs, which includes responses from over 2,000 U.S. workers. This financial burden is one factor driving ongoing resistance to returning to offices, and comes as some major employers like Amazon and Dell have announced plans for employees to return for the five-day week.

 

“If you’re being asked to go into the office five days a week, an additional $300 a week in expenses is really, really high,” said Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt. “I think that the long-term concern is employees are going to look for more hybrid opportunities and more remote opportunities,” he said. 

 

“You really need to understand the culture and the employee base within your company, to understand how you might be able to incentivize return to the office by potentially subsidizing some of those key things,” he said. 

 

On average workers are spending $27 a day on commuting costs and parking, $13 on breakfast and coffee, and $21 at lunch, the report found.

 

“What’s fascinating about this transition back to work is that I believe employers have forgotten how very expensive it is to go to work,” said Joy Taylor, managing director at Alliant Consulting. “It involves parking for many organizations, which is very costly. It’s childcare, food, gas,” she said.

 

“Those are dollars that matter to every single employee, regardless of the level, but of course hits harder for those that are at the beginning stages of their careers. And organizations need to be very aware of the impacts that those costs are undertaking to their employees,” Taylor said.

 

Workers in the survey said higher compensation would ease the financial burden of returning to the office, with many experiencing years of inflation as the cost of living has risen with no accompanying raises. But wage growth continues slowing, with raises and bonuses this year unlikely to be that generous. 

 

Workers also cited having shorter commutes, free or subsidized food and beverages, and having their parking and commuting costs covered by their employer, as ways to ease the return. 

 

According to Taylor, parking should be paid for by an employer. Providing staff with more free food, and a wider variety of healthier and nutritious food (not pizza parties) is another way to help make the return to in-person work easier and cheaper, she said.

 

Steve Sacona, founder of Top 10 Lawyers, an Australia-based lawyer comparison site, said he spends around $80 these days when he heads into the office. “Even a simple coffee run can hit $10 and lunches can easily reach $20 or more,” he said.

 

At the same time, “costs meant for transportation can really add up, especially with fluctuating gas prices and the occasional need for rideshares,” he said.

 

“What stands out to me is how these expenses have changed over time. With inflation squeezing budgets tighter each trip to the office feels more expensive. It’s essential we keep a close eye on these costs as we balance the benefits of remote work with the need for in-person collaboration.”

16843: VapingIsCringe.com Is Unintentionally Cringeworthy.

This Mississippi State Department of Health anti-vaping campaign from Mad Genius is explained as follows:

 

Think back to life as a teenager. None of us wanted to be like our parents, much less caught doing something they did. This anti-vaping campaign captures that sentiment, spotlighting older adults who are unhealthy in appearance and using a vape, to show how uncool vaping actually is. To drive the point home, these adults are dressed in contemporary clothing that teens wear, and using Gen Alpha brain rot to express their excitement. The cooler they try to look, the more cringeworthy vaping becomes. We’re striking a tone so sardonic and awkward it’ll actively discourage teens from vaping.

 

Wow. Depicting parents trying to be cool in awkward, cringeworthy style—brought to you by culturally clueless creatives from a White advertising agency trying to be cool in awkward, cringeworthy style.

 

It’s enough to inspire anyone to inhale, inject, ingest, smoke, and snort anything available.

16842: On The White House & White Advertising Agencies, Part 3.

 

As previously noted, President-Elect Donald Trump regaining the Commander-In-Chief job mirrors Adland in a variety of ways.

 

Trump is selecting his Cabinet via hiring practices prevalent at most White advertising agencies:

 

• Recruiting cronies—and political sycophants to boot—with questionable qualifications versus judging people’s potential based on professional performance

 

• Assessing applicants on superficial characteristics—as reports indicate Trump is viewing videos of candidates to gauge their on-camera appeal

 

• Rejecting DEIBA+ principles—despite Trump delivering performative rhetoric to woo voters of color, it’s unlikely his talent pool would be labeled diverse, equitable, or inclusive

 

Iconic adman David Ogilvy said, “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.” No need to call out which camp Trump falls into.

 

Time will tell if Ogilvy’s words prophesy the nation we shall become.

 

16841: Performance-Enhancing Media Schemes.

 

Advertising Age published an advertorial—which feels the content of a PowerPoint pitch deck—from CMI Media Group, hyping media opportunities to connect sports and pharmaceutical marketing. The opportunistic authors gush it’s a perfect match.

 

Right, sports and drugs make a dream team.

 

Why sports are the next big win for pharmaceutical marketing

 

By Mark Pappas, Kelly Morrison and Melanie Lysaght

 

Consumers are used to watching paid actors implore them to ask their doctors about any number of pharmaceutical drugs or treatments. But when more than a third of Americans say they follow or pay attention to sports teams, leagues, or favorite athletes at least semi-closely, according to a 2023 Pew Research survey, there is a whole field of underutilized marketing opportunities available for pharma. CMI Media Group’s proprietary 2024 Media Vitals™ research across healthcare consumers and professionals showed that 2 in 3 patients/caregivers regularly engage in sports content.

 

We also know that doctors are consumers too, and in digging into healthcare professionals, we found that they have a strong affinity with sports, with 72% stating they regularly follow at least one sport or league.

 

Not only are sports fans a captive audience, but they’re a loyal and growing one. Athletes themselves are natural advocates for health and proactive health practices, but just like any other demographic, many athletes have personal backstories or causes that predispose them to promoting certain treatments or prescription drugs. And who is a better spokesperson for health and wellness than a professional athlete?

 

For the pharmaceutical industry, which is really just now able to speak directly to consumers the way over-the-counter drugs have always been able to, finding meaningful partnerships with athletes could prove to be their biggest score of the season.

 

CMI Media Group is focused on putting a health lens on a lot of the sports partnerships we work with because we believe this is an opportunity to reach both patients and providers via America’s pastime—sports. 

 

Innovation doesn’t have to be expensive

 

When it comes to speaking to sports fans, brands don’t need a Super Bowl budget to reach a dedicated fandom. There tends to be a mental sticker-shock when we mention sports partnerships to clients—the first thought tends to be NFL multi-year sponsorship opportunities that carry sizeable brand investment, which can cost millions of dollars. But there are so many partnership opportunities with professional sport leagues that come with a lower investment point of entry, especially when looking at omnichannel approaches.

 

Pickleball, for example, is the fastest growing sport in America right now both professionally and recreationally, and it is significantly less expensive than going straight to the NFL, MLB, or NBA. The crazy rise in popularity of women’s sports dovetails perfectly with the many women’s health brands that we work on, and niche sports like surfing, racing and extreme sports all have highly marketable audiences.

 

We’ve found success working with athletes within certain leagues where we can craft condition-specific initiatives with impactful tactics that align to client objectives, like partnering with the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer program.  It's a good way to stand out in an extremely crowded marketplace right now, and we work with both clients and athletes to come up with something personal, authentic, and unique. For instance, our influencer team has been working with a number of NASCAR drivers who aren’t quite Earnhardt-level household names, but they still have a massive following on social media. These opportunities aren’t forced, rather they are germane to the athlete as well as the condition and the brand. 

 

Regardless of your brand’s budget, there's a way in with sports partnerships, and there are many scalable opportunities. We’ve even found it’s been a good testing ground for some of the bigger pharma companies that were initially a little hesitant to try sports as a channel or market for their products.

 

Athletes have personal causes too

 

Professional athletes might be great at promoting sneakers and electrolyte drinks, but they shouldn’t be limited to the obvious. And, many are able to speak about conditions or issues that are relevant to them personally without the involvement of their sports league. For instance, if a soccer player has a personal history with diabetes and can promote a new insulin pump with empathy and authority, they can do that through both their personal social media and through omnichannel campaigns without the pharma brand having to deal directly with the major soccer leagues.

 

That is one way in which we can start on a smaller scale and then scale up. We’ve found we’re able to make a much more genuine and meaningful partnership with individual athletes, as opposed to slapping a logo on an ad and just playing that everywhere. Making sure the messaging is authentic and reaching the right audience is important, but even when we focus on a targeted audience, doing it through the lens of sports offers an innately larger, broader audience.

 

Sports fandom is always in season

 

There is a strong emotional component to fandom—one that extends well beyond the sanctioned season or the team’s playoff run. Whether a favorite team has 162 games or 17 in their given season, fans will buy merchandise, discuss new recruits and follow any and all team news year-round. Fans are natural ambassadors, and aligning brands with them is the rising tide that raises all ships.

 

Not only is this true of professional sports, but college allegiances can be just as diehard. And, considering many universities either have or are affiliated with major research centers and initiatives, the link between pharmaceuticals and sports runs even deeper. (Remember which university’s clinical research lab produced the first COVID vaccine, in partnership with Moderna? Thanks, Vanderbilt! Go Commodores!)

 

Because college colors don’t bleed, we’re able to leverage partners regionally (think: Ivy Leagues, the SEC or Big 10) and target consumers nationally. There are a ton of ways to go after college sport fandoms—streaming services like CTV, in-person signage and activations at campus events and games, radio, digital buys—and they are all much more affordable than many of the other options out there.

 

Overall, while sports certainly lend a cool factor, our strategy goes beyond with data-backed knowledge that sports is a way for healthcare brands to reach their audiences. Patients, caregivers, and professionals are active in the opportunities around sporting events, presenting a channel for meaningful engagement. Considering the reputation boost that the pharma industry gained following the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a smart, strategic time to align pharmaceuticals with fan-favorite athletes. Pharma brands want to be associated with health and vitality, and that really hits at the nexus of sporting as well. Celebrating the human body, being healthy and pushing the limits of what humans can achieve is, at their core, what both pharmaceutical research and athletics are each about.

16840: On The White House & White Advertising Agencies, Part 2.

 

As previously noted, President-Elect Donald Trump’s return to supremacy mirrors Adland in a variety of ways.

 

The election victory demonstrates the power of advertising and media. Trump and his team showed that hammering simplistic messages via MAGA, er, mega-multimillion-dollar media plans can persuade major audiences to act—even when the campaign presents insane propositions and outright lies. The scenario underscores the use and abuse of propagandist power.

 

Iconic adman Bill Bernbach said, “A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.”

 

Time will tell if Bernbach’s words ultimately apply to Trump.