11/19/2022
Seven Habits for Market Growth
P&G’s Chief Brand Officer: “Multicultural Marketing is Mainstream Marketing”
In a presentation to the Association of National Advertisers, Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard outlined Seven Habits for Market Growth. According to the U.S. Census, 100% of population growth in the past 10 years came from increases in the Black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native, Indigenous, multi-racial and multi-ethnic segments of the population. That’s buying power worth more than $5 trillion.
Pritchard’s remarks focused on serving the Black community and expanding the Black owned-and-operated media market because it’s the biggest opportunity for P&G brands, but the habits are fully applicable to each multicultural consumer group.
- Change Mindset. “We need to break with a habitual mindset that there is a general market. We live in a totally diverse country with many cultures. We are not homogeneous. There is no average consumer…multicultural marketing is mainstream marketing” Pritchard said.
- Inclusive Research. Pritchard called for marketers to rethink how they use representative bases in marketing, as they historically skew toward white demographics. He pointed to an example for hair care, explaining how “lather, rinse, repeat” is not representative of all hair care routines, as Black women often have more extensive routines.
- Diverse Media Reach. P&G is working to convert more multicultural consumers to purchase through the habit of reaching each multicultural audience 80% to 90% with our advertising, 52 weeks a year.
- Representation in Ads. “It just makes sense that if you’re seeing someone like yourself in an ad, [then] you’re more likely to relate to it,” Pritchard said.
- Relevance in Ads. Pritchard added that increasing representation isn’t enough if groups aren’t being portrayed in authentic ways. This insight led P&G to create new Old Spice work that portrayed Black couples differently after it found Black audiences considered previous Old Spice humor was not as relevant as it could be. The new Old Spice work, Pritchard said, shows representation with relevance.
- Resonance in Media Programming. Just 2% of media spend is invested in Black-owned and operated media outlets, despite a recent study by the ANA’s Alliance for Multicultural Marketing that showed a 17% to 38% sales lift and a 46% to 52% increase in trust when resonant ads are placed on media programming that resonate with each ethnicity. The opportunity is to expand the multiculturally-owned and operated media marketing through partnerships, programming and technology.
- Accelerate Investment in Black-Owned Media. Pritchard reinforced P&G’s commitment to be the number one spending in Black-owned and operated media, as well as all multicultural media. He went on to push marketers to form consortiums with P&G and other groups like the National Association of Black Broadcasters, the ANA and the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Media to build plans to reach more broadcasters, get more buying scale and solve problems to get accurate measurement — with the intention of growing and creating value together.