Still, diverse casting is an important step that should not be discounted, and consumers crave physical representation in ad content, too. For instance, in a 2019 Admerasia survey of 400 Asian American women, 70 percent said they want to see more modern and diverse portrayals of Asian Americans in ads from beauty brands in particular, a segment in which the group over-indexes in spending, according to Admerasia.
Asian Americans spend 70 percent more on skincare, for instance, than the average share of the U.S. population, according to Nielsen.
“It’s typical that you see Asian-American women depicted in a very linear and stereotypical way, with small eyes and a flat nose, and things like that,” Guo said. “A lot of brands understand the business potential of the Asian-American market, but when they try to reach them, they do it in the wrong way.”
Another recent report from H Code, “Connecting with the Latinx Consumer During the Pandemic,” found that 62 percent of Latino people don’t think brands target them enough, and 52 percent said brands assume “we all look the same.”
In addition to casting, agency executives and other leaders working to connect companies with diverse audiences suggested other strategies for brands seeking to promote inclusivity.
“I want to see more of the advertisers of the world do things like not hiring agencies if they’re not diverse, or not working with media stations if they’re not diverse,” said Claudia Romo Edelman, founder of We Are All Human, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing diversity and inclusion in corporate America, especially in regard to the Hispanic community.
Medium matters as well: Within the Asian-American community, for example, Chinese-American consumers have an affinity for WeChat, Guo said, while Indian Americans in the United States consume many India-based publications because many are recent immigrants who miss familiar media from their home country.
Digital messaging on platforms such as Facebook is an effective way to get in front of Hispanic consumers, according to Germain. She said that in the five years since H Code’s launch, the company has seen more brands make the switch from linear TV to digital, as well as shift to more personal messages that speak to different cultural segments of the population.
“Traditionally in marketing and media, brands and agencies went in with this concept of general market or total market,” she said. “But by trying to speak to everyone, they’re speaking to no one.”
ncG1vNJzZmiooqR7rrvRp6Cnn5Oku7TBy61lnKedZK6zwMico56rX522tLzAp6CcZZGltm65wKuinqyZo7RurcOvnKusmai2r7M%3D