Many companies and brands increasingly incorporate racially diverse actors, often mixing Blacks and Caucasians in their advertising, yet not much is known about its effectiveness. New research explores how actor race and social tie strength—essentially the potency of the bond between the two actors—translate into consumer responses, with indirect effects on purchase intention.
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The ARF’s Jay Mattlin brought together the presenters from Day Two’s Diversity in Advertising track to expand on the common themes and findings from their individual studies. The panel agreed that, in communicating to diverse audiences, mere representational casting or presence in ads and content was not enough. Creative that resonates with multicultural audiences needs to incorporate elements of empowerment, appear in representative programs, and show underrepresented groups in positive, non-stereotypical ways. The following are edited highlights from the panel discussion.
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Charlene Polite Corley – VP Diverse Insights & Partnerships, Nielsen
Key Takeaways
NBCUniversal and Magid partnered to determine how diverse consumers self-identify and how that informed their life experiences in relation to representation and authenticity, particularly in their brand and content choices. Research from clients, consumers and field surveys showed that, while multi-cultural audiences are multi-faceted, they are connected by common threads from shared cultural pillars, shared success and struggle, a sense of community and the straddling of two worlds. These findings led the team to a framework for “ideal representation” as a hierarchy of four distinct levels that define what consumers consider most important in being authentic.
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Deepak Varma – Head of Neuroscience Insights – NA, SE Asia & Pacific, The Kantar Group
Key Takeaways
ARF WIDE is working to create pathways for talented college students with an interest in research and insights who come with lived experiences and perspectives not currently well-represented in the industry. Our goal is to help build a diverse talent pipeline that represents today’s consumer, filled with those who understand varying cultural backgrounds and are able to connect with them through their own experiences and ultimately be more effective at generating new research insights and outcomes. ARF Members can help make this goal a reality by helping in various ways:
On March 16, 2022, the ARF Cultural Effectiveness Council hosted a discussion on bias in the algorithms and models used by organizations, particularly those in advertising and marketing, to make selection or recommendation decisions. Speakers from Publicis Media, Twitter, Wunderman Thompson, Cassandra, and the University of Southern California shed light on why this issue arises, what its effects can be and how to contend with it. The session was moderated by Council Co-Chair Janelle James of Ipsos.
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America in the 21st century is far more diverse than it was in the 20th. In fact, the Millennial generation is the most diverse in all of U.S. history. And this trend is expected to continue. As a result, brands must increasingly appeal to diverse audiences in order to remain relevant. How can they do that successfully?
Member Only AccessThe Spanish-language TV network is focused on the shortfalls of different measurement companies when it comes to capturing its audience. “One of the challenges – or opportunities – for many of the new measurement companies is representation. That comes into light at Univision because we represent such a strong presence of the Hispanic community,” said Brian Lin, Univision’s SVP of product management and advanced advertising sales. Lin spoke with AdExchanger about Univision’s goals to make its TV advertising more measurable to marketers:
Joe Mandese argues that the marketing-word-of-the-year is not, as widely assumed, “Diversity” but “Trust.” MediaPost’s Joe Mandese concludes that Trust, not Diversity, is the “real” marketing word of-the-year, based on an Advertiser Perceptions study. The research, a survey of ad execs (both marketers and agency media-buyers), found that nearly two-thirds would likely “downgrade” or scrap a media outlet from their ad plans altogether, based on a violation of trust. While trust has always been paramount in an industry where advertisers and agencies routinely require various proofs of performance on whether their ad buys ran as promised -- pre- and post-digital -- the percentage that assert they would dump or downgrade media for violating it went up 18 percentage points over the past 18 months. That coincides with another sentiment that ostensibly grew during the pandemic: Empathy. "Two-plus years ago, we were finding things more in the 'talk, but less action' category," says Sarah Bolton, EVP at Advertiser Perceptions, who oversaw and analyzed the study's findings, adding: "But post the pandemic, the social justice movement, the trend lines are all moving toward more accountability.” "In the beginning,” Bolton said, “we were seeing it associated with things ethics of data-handling – whether that's data privacy or security: brand safety, ad fraud, trying to understand where these things stack up with performance and ROI and scale. But in the last 18 months, we've really zoomed in on brand safety and digital content safety.” She adds that the subplot here is that brand marketers and agency media buyers are becoming much more cognizant of, and guarded about, the idea that their ad budgets are financially supporting media outlets that cause direct or indirect harm to society. Source: Mandese, J. (2021, December 13). Why 'Trust,' Not 'Diversity,' Is The Real Marketing Word-of-the-Year. RTBlog, Commentary: MediaPost.
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