Multicultural marketing, holiday commercials, games as ads and more
Compliments of the season and a ho, ho, ho to all of you merry folx
Hello and welcome back to The Marketing Kable, where we're inspiring you with ideas, voices and campaigns we've curated just for you.
something to read
who's stirring the melting pot? Last week, I sat with my friends at a roadside café in my hometown, Kolkata, sipping hot tea and coffee from clay cups – revelling in the mild cool air that masquerades as winter in this part of the country.
As a group, we’re always on the lookout for odd stuff – hoardings and billboards with silly wordplay, shop names that are accidental (or not) innuendos, that kind of thing.
This time around, my friend noticed the outside wall of this café we were at had a mural of a group of blonde, white people sitting around a table sipping from their cups. Much like us, except - not quite.
We laughed at the café owners for depicting their customers as white folks, but this was hardly the first time we’d seen something like this. Countless flyers for schools, hospitals and other services in India rely on stock photos of white people to showcase their “clients”. It’s hilarious, but it points to a larger issue- the need to account for the cultural backgrounds of your customers.
This brings me to today’s reading recommendation, Hubspot's piece on ‘Multicultural Marketing: What It Is and How to Do It The Right Way’. Written by Clifford Chi, a Taiwanese- American marketer, the article gives you a comprehensive introduction to multicultural marketing, the creation and execution of a marketing plan that targets people of diverse races and cultures within a brand's broad audience.
It not only helps you connect to and resonate with minority groups, but it also respects their cultures and traditions and helps majority groups understand that most countries are melting pots with no dominant ethnicity or culture.
Chi goes on to draw references from experts in the field and shows us how to get it right.
Build a diverse team for marketing: Want to build an empathetic brand your customers can relate to? Make sure you have people who know what it’s like to walk in their shoes. Hire people from different backgrounds and have them take the lead in the cultural conversations. ‘
Interview more people for more insight: There are hundreds and thousands of cultures in the world, and you can’t possibly recruit employees from each. Interviews can be a useful way of gaining insider info from groups not represented in your marketing team. Reach out to people outside of your own circle and lend them your ears.
Check, re-check and check again: In the recent past, multicultural marketing fails have dominated news cycles time and time again (we’re looking at you, Pepsi and Kendall Jenner). To move beyond gimmicks and produce a campaign that is truly sensitive, run it by multiple people belonging to the communities you want to depict and have them study it in great detail to avoid gaffes.
Inspired by Chi’s article, I dug a little deeper to see what else I could find out about creating a robust multicultural marketing strategy:
Make tech your best friend: We have more access to personal information than ever before in the history of human civilization. As ominous as that sounds, you can use it to your advantage and your customers too. Use the data you retrieve from your analytics tools to find out more about your diverse audiences and incorporate this knowledge into your campaign strategy.
Don’t assume stuff about your audiences: There’s nothing more off-putting to a potential customer than to see cultural stereotypes and generalisations in your campaign. So get in there, do your research and know what you’re talking about before you green-light your strategy.
Create space for representation: No matter where you are, in the U.S., Dubai or India or some other part of the globe that is home to a heterogenous population, there are always a few majority groups who dominate the cultural space through their language, traditions, media etc. In contexts like these, your multicultural marketing campaigns can platform the voices of those that are shunned to the sidelines, helping you gain their trust and patronage.
And the most important recommendation of them all? Make sure your heart is in the right place. Your audience can always tell. Always.
something to watch
looking for magic in the mundane. Legendary children’s author Roald Dahl said “Those who don't believe in magic will never find it”.
This holiday video created by the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore follows a girl who hails a taxi and rushes to the hospital with her unicorn stuffed toy after her pet dog tears its horn (whoops). The doctors at the hospital, which is all decked up in festive lights, receive the patient with the utmost care, immediately operating to reattach the horn. The stuffed toy comes alive when the girl visits, and together they skip out of the hospital and back home. The scene fades to black, and a message wishing everyone a “Happy Healthy Holiday” pops up on the screen.
Titled ‘Caring Makes Magic: A Holiday Tale’, this campaign video evokes the most universal of all human emotions: despair at a loved one’s pain, relief when that pain is addressed, joy at their recovery, and a sense of childlike magic and wonder when all turns out to be well again. And there’s no better time than the holidays to tap into these emotions when everyone’s feeling sentimental anyway.
What I liked best about the video is that it doesn’t try to be clever. It’s simple storytelling that generates a warm feeling in the viewer’s heart, which they subconsciously associate with the hospital’s brand identity. Mission accomplished.
something to listen to
grab a cup and pull up a chair. There are conversations that take place at work about work, during meetings or standing at a co-worker’s desk, and then there are conversations about work which can only take place in public places outside the office.
The former is bound by agendas, targets and office hours. But for the latter kind of conversation, you get free reign to talk about work without having to worry about any of that. And that’s where the real meat is (the real tofu, if you’re vegetarian).
This week’s recommendation is the Marketing Over Coffee, a podcast hosted by marketers John J. Wall and Christopher S. Penn, who record their approximately 20-minute-long episodes at a coffee shop just outside Boston (at 5.30 am!).
Tune in to find tips and insights you can mine from seemingly casual conversations about classic and new marketing strategies between two experts.
something to inspire
train your brain, and make it rain. How many of you go to the gym? In my case, the trainer is surprised when I turn up. Each time I do go, he gives me a pep talk about the need for consistency and focus for better health. I know all that, but ugh.
Anyway, just like going to the gym boosts your physical strength, putting your brain through a training regime boosts your mental health – that’s what the people at Lumos Labs want us to understand.
Lumosity, a brain training programme they’ve developed over fourteen years, personalises a “brain workout” for your cognition needs once you sign up.
Their website directly leads you to the games with a CTA button (accompanied by a reassuring ‘No Purchase Necessary’, piquing your interest and holding your attention as you scroll down to find more about how the games work to improve your skills.
The copy achieves a perfect balance of gravitas and lightness, highlighting Lumosity’s research-based origins in simple, clear and conversational language- complemented by vibrant illustrations that suit a gaming website.
This is a great example of effective science communication that organically creates a demand for a product without imposing it on the customers. We can all find inspiration in this and maybe start training our own brains too!
something to learn
all-in-one. One of the best things about the internet has got to be the abundance of free and diverse learning resources. Today I’m recommending one such resource: a free online course titled ‘Integrated Marketing Management’ led by Prof. R Srinivasan at IISc Bangalore.
This 8- week course beginning on January 23rd will take you through the essentials of marketing management relevant to the Indian context. The best part? You can either audit for free or pay a minuscule fee to write an exam and get certified.
Ignorance really isn’t bliss anymore.
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