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Marketers Still Confused about Multicultural Marketing

Though 84 percent of marketers agree that multicultural marketing is critical to their business, nearly 40 percent say they don’t know how much minority groups contribute to their companies’ revenues, according to a Brandiosity study conducted for Heidrick & Struggles.

Asked what type of agencies they use to reach Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians, 58 percent of marketers said they use general-market-research firms; 51 percent cited multicultural agencies; 42 percent said general-market agencies; and 35 percent cited multicultural-research firms, reports AdAge (via MarketingCharts).

Among the findings cited by AdAge:

• Nearly half of the top 20 challenges that executives cited had to do with convincing management and their peers of the value of multicultural marketing.
• Asked which minority segment was most important to their company, 65 percent selected Hispanics, 30 percent said African-Americans, 24 percent cited Asians.
• Asked whether it “takes a Latino to market to a Latino,” 35 percent said yes - but 39 percent disagreed.
• Despite increased efforts in multicultural marketing, its perceived effectiveness in companies remains low. One reason may be systemic - that is, multicultural marketing is not an integral part of the organization - as 44 percent of executives say companies are not structured to efficiently conduct multicultural marketing.

About the data: More than two-thirds of the 60 survey respondents were chief marketing officers or senior VPs of marketing; 14 percent were VPs, managers or directors. Respondents represented a variety of industries, including retail, CPG, telecom, financial services, fast food and apparel.