What Can Denny’s Teach You About Multicultural Marketing?
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November 26, 2019Spanish in Spain vs Latin America
December 17, 2020The short answer is a lot.
Hispanic marketing and multicultural marketing are essential components of any successful marketing strategy today, particularly amid changing demographics. Denny’s has done a great job of including Hispanics, African Americans and other groups into their marketing with their recent “See You At Denny’s” campaign. In fact, the television commercial, “Nos Vemos En Denny’s” (the Spanish equivalent of “see you at Denny’s”) was named among the top advertisements ranked by a new ad metric called Cultural Insights Impact Measure or CIIM. We have a clip of the Denny’s commercial and a couple of other great examples later in the post, so read on.
What is multicultural marketing and why is it important?
Multicultural marketing means prioritizing inclusion and diversity in your marketing strategy. Successful multicultural marketers take the time to understand the unique linguistic and cultural backgrounds of their different audience segments and incorporate these elements into their content.
This is particularly important to keep in mind when marketing to Hispanic audiences. Forbes reported that a 2018 study by Kantar Consulting found that Hispanics, more than other groups surveyed, feel a deep connection to their culture. In fact, the study found that 59% of Hispanics believe that their culture affects their buying decisions.
On the flip side of that, Kantar also found that Hispanic consumers do not believe that companies are doing a sufficient job of connecting with them on a cultural level. Younger Hispanics feel the most left out with 66% of Hispanics 12-22 years of age feeling underrepresented in marketing.
Multicultural marketing to Hispanics doesn’t just mean Spanish content–but that is an integral part. Regardless of English language fluency, a Pew Research report found that almost 90% of Latinos in the United States feel it is important for future generations to speak Spanish.
Measuring multicultural marketing’s impact
Multicultural marketing isn’t just culturally sensitive, it’s big business too. The advertising industry takes improving the way brands connect with diverse audiences very seriously. Recently, the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (part of The Association of National Advertisers) launched a new metric for rating purchase intent of consumers based on the cultural relevance of advertisements.
According to alliance co-founder Carlos Santiago, the metric looks at, “culturally relevant attributes including Inclusion, Respect, Cultural Values, Authentic Portrayals, Positive Reflections, Role Models, Celebration and Cultural Pride.”
Along with Denny’s, major companies like Ford, Google and Walmart scored high in the rankings. If your marketing budget isn’t quite at the same level as these players, there’s still much to learn from their examples. Let’s take a look at some top-tier multicultural advertisements.
A look at some multicultural superstars
The three television commercials below all take a slightly different approach to the multicultural message they want to convey to their audience. However, all three are excellent examples of how inclusion and diversity work in marketing.
Nos Vemos En Denny’s
This spot is part of the wider “See You At Denny’s” campaign that the company launched in 2019. The campaign emphasized the inclusion of other groups as well, with this commercial focusing on Hispanic Americans.
The commercial is predominantly in Spanish, but they include a bit of English as well. That’s so important as multicultural marketing isn’t about breaking any language barrier, but rather to incorporate the cultural elements that are important to a particular group. Hispanics, overall, have a deep affinity to the Spanish language, no matter their level of proficiency.
Quinceanera
This particular commercial by McDonald’s is entirely in Spanish. McDonald’s has a lot of great multicultural commercials targeted at Hispanics and it’s worth a quick Google search to browse through them.
In this spot, they are focusing on one particular cultural element, the Quinceanera, or 15 year coming of age celebration widely celebrated in Mexican American culture. The ad also has a strong focus on family, which is the Kantar study, referenced above, found as of central cultural importance to Hispanics.
Un Hogar Para Las Fiestas
Target is a powerhouse of international marketing and this holiday-themed commercial is a great example of how they tackle multicultural marketing.
The ad seems to focus more on selling toys to children than on Hispanic culture and identity. But that culture and identity have been infused into the commercial by the use of Spanish and the fact that it features two Hispanic children during the holidays.
The key takeaways on multicultural marketing
You don’t have to be an enormous company like McDonald’s to implement a meaningful multicultural marketing strategy. It starts with prioritizing inclusion and diversity and delivering on that throughout your marketing channels. However, looking at companies that have done an excellent job of this can help you think about how your brand can implement a more culturally and linguistically relevant approach to reach more audiences.
