Despite recent challenges to DE&I progress, the demand for inclusivity in digital media remains strong. Advertisers are waking up to the growing influence of underrepresented and marginalized groups and are looking to allocate portions of their digital media budgets to diverse-owned media platforms to better engage these groups. This approach has several benefits, like giving minority-owned businesses a seat at the table and ensuring that media dollars contribute to more equitable representation in advertising.
But here’s the challenge. While a growing contingent, the number of diverse-owned media platforms is limited, making it difficult for buyers to fully achieve their diversity spending goals. This is where diverse-owned data can step in to bridge the gap.
The number of diverse-owned media platforms has surged in recent years, driven largely by the momentum of social justice movements like Black Lives Matter in 2020. Yet, despite the industry’s growth and well-earned recognition, demand for programmatic is outstripping available inventory. The shortage has led to bottlenecks, frustrating media buyers eager to invest.
Additionally, some diverse-owned media platforms, while culturally rich and authentic, lack the scale needed to accommodate large programmatic buys. This often forces buyers to look for alternative ways to meet their diversity goals without compromising the reach and impact of their campaigns.
Diverse-owned data, on the other hand, offers a scalable and efficient solution to this supply-demand imbalance. Unlike media platforms, data has no cap on inventory. It can be applied flexibly across multiple campaigns, regardless of the media channel, ensuring that diversity goals are met consistently.
By investing in diverse-owned data – data collected and owned by diverse entities – programmatic buyers can enhance the cultural relevance of their campaigns and precision in targeting specific hard-to-reach demographic groups. More importantly, it ensures that media budgets earmarked for diversity are spent effectively, overcoming the challenges posed by platform scarcity.
Diving deeper, diverse-owned data enables advertisers to incorporate cultural sensitivity into campaigns at scale. Diverse audiences are far from monolithic, possessing unique preferences, behaviors and beliefs that demand a nuanced approach. Diverse-owned data is more likely to reflect these nuances, offering insights that are both deep and actionable.
For instance, using diverse-owned data, a campaign targeting Hispanic Millennials in the U.S. can be tailored to reflect the specific cultural touchpoints that resonate with this audience, such as language preferences, cultural identity and media consumption habits. This level of specificity would be difficult to achieve through platform-based buys alone, especially given the limited number of diverse-owned media options available.
Moreover, diverse owned data facilitates continuous optimization. As more campaigns are run, the data becomes richer and more refined, allowing for even greater accuracy in targeting and messaging. This iterative process helps build stronger connections with diverse audiences over time, leading to more effective campaigns.
While the political appetite for DE&I may be waning, consumers are steadfast in their expectations of brands. In response, the advertising industry remains committed to championing diversity, but doing so will require programmatic buyers to rethink how they allocate their diversity budgets. While the focus on diverse-owned media platforms is commendable, it’s clear that there are challenges in relying solely on these platforms to meet diversity goals.
Diverse-owned data offers a viable and scalable alternative, or a valuable complement, to existing services. It offers the flexibility to reach diverse audiences across any media, with the added benefit of cultural sensitivity and relevance. By integrating diverse-owned data into their strategies, programmatic buyers can ensure that their diversity initiatives are not only fulfilled but also drive meaningful engagement with the audiences they seek to reach.
This blog post was originally published on MediaPost.
Consumers are demanding more from brands when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. They are tired of the social polarization surrounding DEI and how these concepts are exploited to foster division and isolation. They support brands committed to creating a culture of respect and understanding where everyone feels valued, seen and heard in the workplace and the marketplace.
But too often, DEI initiatives in organizations go no further than high-level training and one-off workshops. DEI is more than bias training, however. It's about embedding DEI into all aspects of the organization, from hiring and promotion to product development and marketing.
Brands demonstrating their commitment to DEI will resonate with consumers, especially multicultural segments and younger generations. These consumers are increasingly looking to support brands that align with their values, and DEI has become one of their core values. Studies show that African American and Hispanic respondents, for example, are the most likely to support a company that makes a public commitment to diversity and inclusion initiatives. They do this by sharing support on social media, spending more money at stores, and going out of their way to shop in specific stores.
Removing limiting factors like bias and stereotype threat from organizational culture liberates employees to perform at their best, resulting in increased productivity, improved work outputs, and higher revenues.
In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Maria Morukian, CEO of MSM Global Consulting, discusses how to build high-performing, inclusive workplaces that better serve employees and consumers.
Meet Our Guest: Maria Morukian
For more than 18 years, Maria has devoted herself to consulting, training and coaching leaders and organizations to facilitate culture change, with a specialization in diversity, equity, inclusion, intercultural competence, and innovation.
Maria’s passion lies in building bridges across identity differences, facilitating dialogue and coaching individuals to reflect on their individual cultural lenses that impact their beliefs and behaviors. She is sought after for her ability to connect on an individual level, as well as guide systemic change initiatives with measurable results.
Maria has partnered with a broad range of clients, including American University, the Association for Animal Welfare Advancement, National Institutes of Health, PBS Distribution, U.S. Department of State, and the World Bank. She has worked with leaders around the world, including Colombia, India, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Thailand, and Tunisia.
Impact investing has emerged as a powerful tool for directing private capital toward social and environmental causes while generating financial returns for investors. This approach is particularly relevant for black and brown entrepreneurs who often face systemic barriers that limit their access to capital and resources. Many of these entrepreneurs are creating businesses that address social and environmental challenges faced by their communities, such as access to affordable housing, healthcare, and education. However, they often struggle to secure the funding they need to grow and scale their businesses.
Despite the data documenting the opportunity gap for diverse founders compared to their White counterparts, there is a persistent narrative that suggests no correlation between race and ethnicity and business enablement. Yet, their funding journey varies significantly and getting people to buy into social impact as a business strategy isn't easy.
In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Jessica Salinas, Chief Investment Officer at New Media Ventures, discusses how impact investing can empower diverse entrepreneurs and contribute to a more just, equitable, and sustainable society.
The difference between organizations that implement diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives well and those that stumble is intentionality. Two years after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, people of color are still waiting to see systemic change economically, politically and socially.
Companies and brands that employ millions of workers can make a tremendous impact here if that influence is wielded to take a stance on social justice issues, level the playing field for black and brown workers, and increase representation in marketing and advertising.
That work begins with the talent pipeline. Organizations that intentionally fill the pipeline with diverse candidates are more likely to hire employees with diverse backgrounds. That diversity impacts culture, innovation, creativity and, ultimately, business outcomes.
For marketers, when hiring, it’s important to remember that what’s happening inside the organization often shows up on the outside. Without cultural competence and representation, inclusive marketing will be difficult to achieve. Simply put, failing to diversify your talent pipeline is why your marketing is missing the mark.
In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Carole Smith, Marketing Director and Executive Sponsor of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council at Aquent, discusses the role of diversity in talent acquisition and how it improves business outcomes.
In 1978, former President Jimmy Carter legalized home brewing beer giving rise to what we now know as craft beer. There are currently over 9,000 craft breweries in the U.S. challenging legacy beer brands for market share and consumer mindshare. As beer has evolved, brand offerings have expanded to include non-alcoholic beers and non-beer products like hard seltzers. Beer drinkers have evolved as well. Alcohol consumption has soared, particularly among women ages 21-25 for the first time in history.
Yet, outside of oversexualized ads, the beer industry has largely ignored women in advertising and the c-suite despite the growing number of female founders of craft breweries like Golden Road Brewing and Jack A Lope Brewing Company. Bad behavior and gender disparities are not uncommon in the beer industry. Last year, a brave female founder took to social media to call out sexist and abusive behavior toward women in the industry, leading to resignations, firings, and a new perspective on women's contributions.
In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Jessica Infante, Managing Editor of Brewbound discusses gender diversity in the beer industry and what brands need to do to be more inclusive.
People want easy solves. It’s not uncommon for companies and brands to retain the services of an expert in multicultural marketing or diversity and inclusion to be told what to do rather than coming to the table with what they want to do. You have to set the intention. While you may not know how to get there, doing the soul searching needed to uncover the vulnerabilities within your organization is a step in the right direction toward developing a more inclusive culture that impacts how you work, how you hire, and how you market.
Ironically, marketers turn to market research to give them insight into specific audiences. But the challenge within the research industry is its lack of diversity, and it can have a real impact on results. When there is a lack of representation when developing sample frames, for example, the questionnaires lack objectivity. And when you only pull in researchers of color when you want to run a multicultural campaign, your general market campaigns lack that perspective.
Researchers of color are first and foremost researchers and should be considered team members, not just leads on special projects or multicultural checkpoints. The industry needs more people of color to fill the vacancies on these teams. Essential to attracting diverse talent is an inclusive recruiting strategy.
Awareness of market research careers should be raised on the campuses of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and jobs posted on inclusive job boards like Mimconnect. When candidates are hired, they must see themselves growing at the company. If there isn’t representation at the top in key leadership positions, it sends the wrong message.
In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Whitney Dunlap Fowler, founder, A Touch of Whit and Insights In Color and Shazia Ginai, CEO, Neuro-Insight and board chair, Colour of Research (CORe), share their experiences in the market research industry, and how intentionality is key to driving diversity.
Supplier diversity programs were developed to level the playing field for diverse suppliers, including minority, women, LGBTQ, disabled, and veteran-owned businesses. By connecting entrepreneurs to economic opportunity, ideally, organizations can harness the power of the marketplace to drive social impact.
However, supplier diversity often falls short on the data. It’s widely known that diverse suppliers are not given the opportunities to contract for public sector work at the rate of their non-minority and male counterparts despite the explosive growth of entrepreneurship among minority and women-owned firms. (more…)