Growing up in the 80’s, I like to think that I was well-primed for exceptional style. When I was a kid , everyone, and I mean everyone, wore the same Benetton rugby shirt. If you were anything like me, pair that bad boy with a set of EG socks and Capezio shoes you were ready to take on Long Island.
Across the pond a few years before a Korean-American kid wore the rugby to breakdance in the mall, a family in Italy founded Benetton. Originally known for their brightly colored sweaters, the brand quickly established itself. Within a few years, the Benetton developed an international presence, producing millions of garments each year.
In 1984, Benetton hired award-winning photographer Oliviero Toscani to lead the brand’s advertising efforts. Toscani was given free reign with concept and budget and in the launch of his first campaign in 1985, he adopted the tagline “United Colors of Benetton” to guide the artistic direction of the brand. Toscani employed heavy use of photography to highlight social issues and featured a spectrum of ethnicities dressed bright Benetton.
In his report “Benetton’s ‘World Without Borders’: Buying Social Change,” cultural critic Henry Giroux explored the implications of campaigns like Benetton’s in a broad cultural sense as references to the denigration of traditionally held conceptions of race, ethnicity, and a traditionally dominant homogeneous culture.
Advertising to a multicultural audience has come a long way since Toscani went rogue. His work at Benetton not only left a legacy of the brand’s involvement in social issues, but more importantly it represents advertising’s first stab at multicultural marketing.
I recently had the pleasure of joining a panel for the American Advertising Federation (AAF) in Seattle to discuss diversity and multiculturalism from the perspective of driving brand engagement from an agency and brand standpoint. During the panel, I focused on audience insights and the role of analytics in targeting a diverse and multicultural audience.
Businesses have long struggled with marketing to multicultural audiences. Traditional multicultural marketing relied largely on the unsophisticated approach of adding representations of an “other” to an otherwise homogeneous vision of an audience, resulting often in crude translations and uninformed, out of context, content. The approach is based on an outdated, bifurcated view of the general market: a “mainstream” American culture with distinctive “ethnic” identities on its fringes.
In the thirty-plus years since Toscani’s campaign, the volume of information brands and agencies have access to has empowered advertisers to formulate strategies that appeal to customers on a more personal level.
The concept of ethnicity is a grey, and for marketers, misleading way to segment consumers. The term suggests validity in sweeping generalizations based on shared ancestral or national experiences. Rather than relying on outdated notions of ethnicities, brands need to become more sophisticated–responding to nuanced interests and psychographics in efforts to reach audiences on an individual level at scale. Insight-led segmentation will enable marketers to touch consumers with campaigns that are simultaneously culturally relevant and broadly accessible.
In May 2013, Cheerios launched the “Just Checking” campaign, garnering media attention for featuring an interracial family. Based on the reception, the brand followed up with its first Super Bowl spot, “Gracie,” in 2014. The storyline of this loving, relatable family was a huge win for Cheerios. In a single week, AdWeek reported that “Just Checking” increased Cheerios digital presence 77%. In a comparison against competitive brands, the campaign beat the average content views by 137%. In addition to a measurable spike in views, the campaigns won the brand intensely loyal new fans. As father to bi-racial children myself, the campaign struck a personal chord.
The impact that both “Just Checking” and “Gracie” had on the Cheerios brand transcends brand awareness and represents greater changes within modern mainstream culture. The ads’ success stems from viewers’ ability to see normalcy of the family depicted in the spot, and further, to relate on an emotional level to characters depicted, regardless of race. Cheerios’ success represents a broader shift in cultural acceptance and understanding of race as a “bundle of sticks.” The perception of race is no longer defined by history or background, but rather is an amalgamation of characteristics, traits and affinities.
The shift in marketing based on interests rather than ethnicity or race has changed in the way brands interact with consumers. The broadcast model is the product of a bygone era, and with it the conception of a passive audience. Instead of dictating norms, marketing messages should offer audiences the tools to define their own identities. While Benetton’s 1985 campaign set the wheels in motion, advertising and cultural relevance have evolved beyond primary colored cottons set against a human backdrop of black, white and little in between.
Consumers want flexible, authentic relationships with brands that invite participation — so marketers should employ a bottom-up approach that builds affinity among diverse groups of consumers by incorporating multiple cultural influences. Brands that do multi-cultural marketing the best will:
- Distinguish themselves by speaking to consumers as individuals, not sterotypes
- Constantly researching new multicultural market trends and optimizing campaigns to speak directly to these groups.
- Through their extensive research and knowledge, these brands have created an authentic message that multicultural groups can relate to – a critical but challenging task
After the AAF panel, I thought a lot about my old Benetton rugby shirt and eventually found a “Rare, Vintage” match on Ebay. No joke! In 2015, United Colors of Benetton is among a handful of socially conscientious, mid-market retailers that push the envelope with content. The success of campaigns like Cheerios’, Chevrolet’s “Find New Roads,” and Procter and Gamble’s “The Rukavinas,” represents an exciting cultural litmus test to remind us that multicultural marketing has come a long way since 1985.
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