Advertising Age published a report titled, “US Multicultural Media Spending Expected To Surge In 2024—But Still Lag Behind Total Spending.”
Market research firm PQ Media predicts political and sports advertising targeting Latinos will account for the multicultural marketing spike.
No need to bother reading the details, as the story is a familiar scheme.
In short, multicultural media can expect extra crumbs, although nothing like the cash collected by White media. The perceived “surge” is no cause for celebration, as more crumbs is still crumbs—or systemic racism.
Appropriately enough, Ad Age illustrated the content with a royalty-free stock image (depicted above) featuring a presumably Latinx family eating—and enjoying crumbs.
Here's what it's like living through it: the white agencies get all the big assignments, even the multicultural ones. Especially the multicultural ones, now that there's more money and attention being thrown at it.
ReplyDeleteSo you have a room entirely full of Todds and Jessicas pitching and creating ad campaigns about Chinese New Year, or lowriders (OMG how they love lowriders) or Black hair salon or barbershop culture, except no one (except maybe one junior copywriter and a Diversity VP who isn't present for anything except the pitch to client) working on them is from any of those communities.
Then the white agencies put out press releases about how diverse they are and how much they celebrate diversity. They might credit the multicultural agency that got them the contract, but they don't get any of the real money or first billing, because they're treated just like a skin tag or afterthought.