Walmart projects that 100% of its sales growth will come from multicultural customers. They are doubling their multicultural advertising spend.
Marketers can’t ignore the demographic trends. In the US, 93% of population growth is multicultural, nearing 40% of the population, and one in four babies born is Hispanic. To grow, marketers clearly need a strategy to drive penetration with multicultural consumers.
Yet in many organizations, multicultural marketing is an after-thought. It is managed as a silo, given lip service, or handed off to summer interns. Despite the statistics, organizations can be reluctant to invest in multicultural marketing because ROI is low and because marketers think they’re reaching these audiences in their general marketing plans.
Walmart is doubling down on multicultural marketing. One of the main shifts is making multicultural part of everything they do, rather than projects in silos.
Walmart’s Tony Rogers described three levels of multicultural marketing:
“The first level of ‘getting it’ is not doing anything. The second level is recognizing its importance, but keeping efforts pretty siloed, like spending some money during Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month and considering the multicultural box to be ticked off. The next step is where we are — making multicultural part of everything we do.”
I would love to hear any great examples, misfires, or missed opportunities of multicultural marketing. Many thanks to my old friend and mentor Helen Kurtz for suggesting this topic.
(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away a signed print of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post by 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)