multicultural

Best Practices for Multilingual Campaigns

Best Practices for Multilingual Campaigns

Alexis Harris – Global Research & Insights Partner, Marketing Science, TikTok

Jaclyn Williams – Research and Insights Manager, NA & Global Functions, TikTok

Alexis Harris and Jaclyn Williams of TikTok explained best practices for developing successful multilingual campaigns. Their data came from a survey where bilingual Hispanic TikTok users evaluated different creative elements in Spanish, to see how best to positively influence brand perceptions and business outcomes. This group feels one hundred percent both American and Hispanic culturally. They prefer to see and hear things in both languages throughout the day, a desire not currently being met by brands. Done consistently and authentically, language resonance can transfer into long-term benefits like brand loyalty and advocacy. Voiceover was the number one creative element to lift upper and mid-funnel metrics. Importantly, Spanish voiceover did not turn off English only speakers. TikTok partnered with NRG to conduct this 20-minute quantitative survey. It leveraged in-context ad exposure. They analyzed 32 ad variations (such as adding Spanish voiceover, music or subtitles) across four verticals: beauty, auto, QSR dining and telco. The survey was given to 1,600 monthly TikTok users in the US: 1,200 were multilingual, while 400 were English-only speakers. They found that fluency in Spanish is diverse. Researchers put respondents into three groups: English dominant, bilingual and Spanish dominant. Thirty-four percent of respondents identified completely with Hispanic culture, 31% identified completely with American culture and 17% completely with both. Key takeaways:
  • Sixty-nine percent said bilingual ads made them feel seen and represented.
  • Sixty-three percent of bilinguals liked seeing both languages throughout their day, 59% wanted to see both languages in their social feeds and 59% wanted to encounter both English and Spanish when seeing ads.
  • Bilingual audiences are 2.5 times more likely to share ads that use multiple languages. They are also three times more brand loyal when advertised to in Spanish.
  • Seventy-one percent of respondents wanted to see more celebrities from their own culture, 66% liked ads that referenced everyday life and 63% wanted more influencers from their culture in ads.
  • Spanish voiceover was the most effective creative technique. It drove positive brand perceptions, brand connection, engagement and consideration. Captions were the second most effective technique, driving all but consideration. Music only drove brand engagement.
  • After experiencing a Spanish voiceover in an ad on TikTok:
    • Thirty-eight percent of bilinguals watched product reviews about the brand on the social media platform, and 57% watched more ads on TikTok from the brand.
    • Fifty-two percent shared the ad on TikTok, and 27% talked about it with a friend or family member.
  • Brand favorability was at 61% of non-Spanish speaking users after encountering a bilingual English-Spanish ad.

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Industry In Progress: Unlocking The Power of Inclusive Advertising

Industry In Progress: Unlocking The Power of Inclusive Advertising

Denya Chinquee – Senior Director, Audience Impact & Intelligence, Paramount Advertising

Michelle Green – Manager, Audience Impact & Intelligence, Paramount Advertising

Representation in advertising is more complicated than ever with brands getting it wrong receiving strong backlash. Denya Chinquee and Michelle Green of Paramount Advertising discussed their latest study on on-screen representation, which evaluated the state of inclusivity in advertising, consumer expectations and effective advertising strategies. They used a multi-phase research approach using mobile ethnographies, in-depth interviews, semiotics, ad database analysis, foresight analysis and a nationally representative survey of over 3,500 consumers. They also went beyond race and ethnicity to include Native/Indigenous people and people who identify as LGBTQ+, differently abled, neurodiverse and those who belong to religious minorities, such as Jewish, Muslim and Hindu. This research helped create The Content for Change Ad Toolkit, which provides guidelines for marketers to build up their inclusivity IQ. Key takeaways:
  • Representation matters in media: 85% of consumers agree that the way people are portrayed in entertainment influences perceptions about them in the real-world.
  • It’s also equally important in advertising: 73% of consumers say diversity, equality and inclusion is important in advertising.
  • The events of 2020 drove an increase in diverse representation; however, we are now seeing a decline in representation with Hispanic representation having the sharpest decline (9% in 2021 to 5% in 2022) even though Hispanics make up 20% of the total U.S. population.
  • Misrepresentation is worse than no representation, according to the majority of respondents. Negative stereotypes perpetuated by advertising impact how people of minority groups are seen by society.
  • Sixty-two percent of consumers are more likely to notice brands that represent people like them.
  • Inclusion drives purchase intent, loyalty and consumers’ willingness to pay more: 57% are more likely to buy from brands that represent people like them, 53% are more loyal to brands that represent people like them and 45% would pay more for a brand that is embracing inclusivity with their ads.
  • Inclusivity isn’t one size fits all. Consumers want storytelling that is of universal or omnicultural experiences to more unique or divergent representations.

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Attitudes Towards Inclusivity in Advertising: A Twelve Country Study

Attitudes Towards Inclusivity in Advertising: A Twelve Country Study

Steven Millman – Global Head of Research & Data Science, Dynata

Steven Millman of Dynata shared key findings from Dynata’s global research on attitudes towards inclusivity in advertising and why that matters. The online survey was conducted across 12 countries (U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, China, Japan, Australia and Brazil) with a representative sample of 18+ adults and a total of 12,043 respondents. The survey examined attitudes and feelings of various minority groups (including LGBTQIA+, women, seniors, people with disabilities). Race was only considered for the U.S. sample, as race couldn’t be asked in certain countries or it was challenging to get sufficient diverse samples by race in non-U.S. countries. Overall, the study found that members of minority groups generally feel somewhat less authentically represented in advertising than do others. With the exception of racial minorities in the U.S., marginalized groups also tend to feel less satisfied by their portrayals in advertising. The presentation also delved into cross-country trends and differences, as well as a deeper dive into the impact of political affiliations and gender on attitudes and purchase intent in the U.S. along issues of inclusivity and diversity. Key takeaways:
  • Across countries, members of minority groups generally feel somewhat less authentically represented in advertising than do others. However, most people do not across the board.
  • Marginalized groups, especially LGBTQ+, are also less likely to be satisfied by their portrayals in advertising. The only exception was underrepresented racial group in the U.S.
  • In general, people think inclusivity in advertising is important, especially among younger groups. However, the exception was seniors, who only ranked portrayals of people over 65 as highly important.
  • Portrayals of equal representation of women and men and people with disabilities ranked the highest in importance across different age demos.
  • Portrayals of the LGBTQIA+ community ranked the lowest in term of importance across all age groups, and the portrayal of LGBTQIA+ was important to less than half of non-LGBTQIA+ respondents.
  • The majority felt that we are going in the right direction in terms of whether things are getting better or worse with respect to inclusivity in advertising. This satisfaction was overall lower in the U.S., similarly between racial and non-racial minorities.
  • In the U.S., Democratic men were much more likely than Republican or Independent men to say that they would be more likely to purchase from inclusive advertisers. There were similar differences among women along party lines, but the gaps were much closer.
  • Among countries, Brazil reported the importance of the portrayals of marginalized groups as the highest.

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Political Opinions Drive Media Perceptions

  • Posted: February 14, 2024

Research by Ipsos reveals that political party affiliation is an important driver of most Americans’ views about movies and TV – leading to the stunning finding that Black Americans are now more likely to say they see “people like me” in entertainment than White Americans.

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A Guide to Diverse & Inclusive Terminology, Including Definitions and Best Practices

A Guide to Diverse & Inclusive Terminology, Including Definitions and Best Practices

  • Cultural Effectiveness Council

How can we more effectively understand and communicate with the diverse audiences of 21st century America? The ARF Cultural Effectiveness Council has created a guide to help accomplish this. It contains the latest information about diversity and inclusive terminology—an ever-evolving subject—specific definitions and best practices. This guide helps researchers and media and marketing professionals to recognize and understand preferred terms that are used to identify members of these audiences, to show proper respect and connect with them more effectively.

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Does Having Multicultural Marketing Mean Your Brand is Inclusive?

Does Having Multicultural Marketing Mean Your Brand is Inclusive?

  • MSI

Multicultural marketing is popular today. Its aim is to increase inclusion through consumption. But does propagating such marketing make a brand inclusive? An inclusive brand is one that creates, communicates and delivers offerings that serve underrepresented communities, say researchers in this Marketing Science Institute (MSI) working paper. In this way, such brands enhance lives through increased equality, acceptance, respect, belonging and empowerment.

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Improving Inclusive Advertising

  • Posted: October 20, 2023

A new study by Paramount looks at the current state of inclusive advertising and offers six tactical strategies to improve advertising for the benefit of consumers and brands.

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The Future of Qual

  • Posted: July 11, 2023

In 2022 the ARF Cultural Effectiveness Council conducted 18 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with senior research executives via Teams and Zoom to understand how the ‘Future of Qual’ would evolve with rapidly changing qualitative methods and the urgency across industries to understand cultural shifts. Council members Chloe Stromberg of LinkedIn and Anne Kaplan of Paramount, who worked on this project, presented what the Council learned from these interviews. Their presentation was followed by a panel discussion with a mix of Council members (Tony D’Andrea of General Mills and Tristan Marra of GLAAD) and culture-savvy researchers outside the Council (Danie Hemsley of Cassandra and Kendra Clarke, former Senior Director, Head of Experience Research and Design, Core Technologies at Twitter), led by Council Co-Chair Janelle James of Ipsos. The presentation and discussion focused on how qualitative research is evolving, how it can overcome its challenges —particularly those related to diversity and cultural understanding—and best practices for conducting qual research, moving forward.

Diversity (or lack thereof) in TV

  • Posted: July 6, 2023

Samba’s research study on the lack of diversity in TV sought to understand the state of representation in popular TV by asking who was watching content with diverse casts, whether the show actors were representative of the U.S. population, and if people were more likely to watch TV shows where they see themselves represented.

Although the results proving TV shows’ lack of diversity were not surprising, the value of diverse audiences is growing in tandem with these populations, putting advertisers on notice to improve the status quo.

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