Currently, diversity marketing is employed by any business seeking to reach new customers in different racial, ethnic, cultural, or social groups. It is particularly important when interacting with the global marketplace, as audiences in different countries rarely respond to the same message in the same way.
African-Americans were the first group identified as requiring a different marketing approach. In contrast, Asian-Americans have been historically lumped into the “general market” category, as they were supposed to have been more acculturated and not that different from whites. Only recently have marketers been using diversity approaches to Asian-Americans, who as a population tend to be more educated, have higher incomes, make more technology purchases, and participate more in social media.
Hispanics currently represent the fastest-growing of these populations, and now outnumber African-Americans in the U.S. market. However, they do not represent a single consumer group. Spanish-speaking first-generation immigrants, for example, respond differently to advertising messages than their bilingual and English-speaking children. Additionally, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and various other subgroups (including White Hispanics) differ from one another; so any diversity marketing towards Hispanics must actually be further diversified into smaller component markets.
The LGBT community may be a small segment—perhaps five to seven percent of the general market—but communication among members contributes to high returns in terms of referrals and loyalty purchases. Difference in family structure affect their buying patterns; also, those in this demographic tend to have more disposable income than do consumers with large families.
Effective diversity marketing means adapting the message to the market, instead of trying to adapt the market to the message. A poor attempt to reach diverse customers would be to develop an ad campaign first, and then try to tack on a multicultural aspect (for instance, by using the exact same advertising, only with pictures of African-American or Hispanic individuals). The effective diversity campaign starts with the multicultural context in mind. Market research is done on the target consumers—not just their buying habits, but their values, ideals, perceptions, and methods of communication. Today’s diverse consumer base is fairly advertising-savvy; they can spot the difference between an authentic message and a copy-pasted message with a new color palette.
- McDonald’s has done extensive market research on ethnic perspectives, and how such insights impact mainstream communication. Their “I’m Loving It” campaign is one well-known product of their investment.
- Proctor and Gamble has invested a great deal in the black community, and commercials for products such as Tide, Oil of Olay, and Pantene regularly feature black families (and fathers, particularly) that resonate with African-American consumers.
- Target similarly has released commercials that show black families according to their own values and ideals, as opposed to stereotypical or pop-cultural depictions.
- Saturn has reached out to the LGBT market, sponsoring LGBT events and developing advertising specific to that community (“Does your ride reflect your pride?”) that resonate with its values.
- Harley Davidson started marketing to women by creating classes to teach women to ride.
- AT&T finds marketing to diverse racial and ethnic groups important enough to have an executive position (vice president of diverse markets) devoted entirely to such campaigns.
Resource provided by http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/diversity-marketing.html