The shift in American attitudes toward social justice and inclusivity following George Floyd's death and subsequent protests has prompted some companies to consider creating targeted messaging for multicultural consumers. Consumers are paying more attention than ever to how companies navigate social and racial justice issues and reward brands that align with their values. Getting it right, though, can be a daunting task, even for experienced brand managers. The fear of offending consumers is often enough to prevent marketers from even attempting to create multicultural messaging. If done correctly, however, the benefits of targeted multicultural messaging outweigh the risks.

Market research has traditionally been more reactive, “reinventing the wheel” with each new client request, resulting in new trackers and survey instruments. Extracting accurate multicultural insights from these methodologies are difficult to obtain, as most surveys aren’t designed to attract or engage ethnic audiences. 

Market researchers must include more multicultural developers in the research design and development process to solve this problem. Diversifying your team will help organically eliminate survey bias and add more culturally relevant perspectives to questionnaires and other data collection methods. (more…)