Message to local-direct businesses: The value of brands in today's multicultural society. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

COMMENTARY

What Brands Must Understand About Multicultural Audiences

• by Anabela Bonuccelli , 55 minutes ago

The following was previously published in an earlier edition of Marketing Insider.

As the ad industry continues to grapple with the best ways to connect with multicultural audiences, there’s clearly still more work to be done. What many marketers are missing is that reaching out to multicultural audiences means more than just thinking about ethnicity -- it’s about identity. As an industry, we have to find ways to help brands engage with people of diverse identities in a truly meaningful way. To do that effectively, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Multicultural marketing is mainstream marketing. With multicultural consumers making up more than 40% of the U.S. population and $3.9 trillion in spending power, brands should adapt their mindset and stop thinking about general market and multicultural marketing separately. Today, brands need to think and plan for an “integrated market” inclusive of all identities.

Representation is fundamental, and although mass media allows brands to maximize their reach within their target, being present in diverse media outlets will help brands connect better to these minorities. This will enable brands to become more meaningful, and, in consequence, will maximize profit because it’s proven that the more meaningful the brand is, the better the business performs.

Be intentional! Begin with a strategy that gives you meaningful reasons to connect with multicultural audiences and make sure you are aligned at every level within your organization.

Simply translating your ad isn’t inherently bad, but will it meaningfully connect with your intended audience? You’ll see greater success through intentional creative that speaks directly to your multicultural consumers and inspires brand loyalty through those genuine communications.

Invest in research, understand cultural insights, passions, and habits to connect in a more meaningful, and relevant context. Set clear KPI’s, be open to learning, trying new things, and always measure results.

It’s important to formalize creative development processes and find new ways of teaming up internally to bring new voices to the table. Use your existing employee resource groups and DE&I resources.

Multicultural means authentic representation. Brands with purpose have strong strategies and are considered a powerhouse when it comes to multicultural audiences. The ability to match and translate the brand’s values with those of the general and diverse audiences generates great results for branding and business.

Consumers have high expectations for the brands they engage with. In our 2023 Meaningful Brands study, we found that 71% of respondents think companies and brands should be doing more to improve and support their personal health and well-being. We also know that consumers are skeptical of brands who claim to have altruistic or humanitarian intentions.

Multicultural voices are everywhere, and they all need and deserve to be heard. People must always be front and center. It’s time to embrace the nuances and go beyond stereotypes, and that begins with the customers.

There’s diversity within the diversity. One size has never fit all -- and that’s especially true for multicultural audiences. It’s vital to be both in-language and in-culture for your multicultural consumers.

Becoming inclusive thinkers and marketers starts with an inclusive brief and being open to taking risks. Make sure your advertising (both owned and paid) has the right representation and is culturally relevant, avoiding any types of stereotypes.

We are a multicultural country and that is part of our strength -- one that can certainly become part of your brand when you incentivize and nurture diverse thinking into your integrated marketing and communication strategies.

 

COMMENTARY

Will Streamers Offer Regular Tune-In TV Show Promos - Like Linear TV?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 1, 2023

A maturing streaming TV business prompts the question of what comes next. For many that means tune-in promotion.

Many have talked about streaming looking to be more efficient, trimming the TV and movie production budgets, and raising consumer subscriber prices.

But one question may have been avoided: What can streaming do to get consumers to watch more content on their platform?

This means tune-in promotional/marketing, where streamers will have the potential to get higher viewing specifically for their new TV shows and movies.

This becomes more important as premium, mostly subscription-based streaming platforms and FAST networks put more emphasis and scale into their advertising-supported options.

This includes new ad-supported efforts from Netflix, Disney+, and perhaps even more impactful stuff to come from Amazon Prime Video.

That means we need more -- and more specialized -- program promotion.

This would expand the current rash of streaming marketers to advertise on linear TV with generic, bland marketing/advertising creative that shows a slew of short video clips of TV shows/movies, old and new -- in one 30-second commercial. 

Many believe streamers will adapt to mimicking what linear TV does for network on-air promos for TV shows. 

“Despite enormous shifts in the connected TV space, we are still currently only halfway through this migration,” Ron Gutman, chief executive officer of Wurl, tells TV Watch. “In the beginning, the focus was on moving content to streaming. The next phase as we head into 2024 will be about moving viewership, where the growth is still ahead of us.”

Linear TV, for all its flaws, is still a key for “tune-in” program promotion for viewership of regular TV series and other content. Those on-air promotions also are used to highlight streaming availability of those programs, where consumers typically can access the next day after its initial airing.

Dave Morgan, chief executive officer of Simulmedia, has said: “Tune-in promotion has always been one of the most predictable and successful forms of advertising, helping launch shows and build viewership episode-over-episode and season-over-season.”

Change is coming. The bottom line, says Morgan, is to look at the bigger picture: As NBCU marketing legend John Miller used to say, "TV shows are no longer competing with the few other shows in their same time slot, but are now competing with every show and movie ever made.”

 Something to discuss with your local-direct client that will allow them to feel your expertise is working for them! Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Stop Doing the Same Thing and Expecting a Different Result

• by Michael Baer , December 4, 2023

The marketing year has once again sped into the annual post-Thanksgiving b-l-u-r. Now, every business leader needs to thoughtfully prepare next year’s plan. But all the things you need to do to execute today’s activity, close out the year, AND deliver a budget and plan for next year may leave 2024 getting short shrift – just like last year, the year before, and the year before that...

Are you ready to make next year less like “same $%@!, different day”? It’s time to stop this “definition of insanity” death spiral. Here’s how to create a plan that does more than provide more of the same.

Use 2023’s data and insights for actionable lessons learned. I’ve written before that a marketing plan shouldn’t be just a “one-off.” Instead, it should feel more like an episode of a continuing story. But how can you move to a new chapter if your characters don’t learn from the last one, and grow and progress?

Ensure you’re digging into data from the year’s efforts to derive useful and actionable insights. Take stock of what worked well, and where your efforts were less effective -- and seek to understand why.

Purposefully identify core objectives. Naturally, any business leader wants to drive growth. But just saying your goal is growth isn’t helpful. Instead, ask yourself why you’re not growing as fast as you want to be. What are the hurdles getting in the way? Once you have broken this down, you can then identify the aspects of growth that you believe will most contribute to success, e.g., increasing conversion rate, driving up customer value, or growing penetration or leads.

And fight the urge to list several, disparate objectives, unless you can afford plans to address each. For example, a single plan would be hard-pressed to appropriately address the objectives of growing penetration AND increasing loyalty -- so don’t even try.

Document your customers’ challenges, needs, and journeys. No company ever had too much customer understanding – that’s foundational for operating and growing any business. But having that understanding isn’t enough. It must be distilled into usable tools for the organization, like Personas and Customer Journeys. These tools help the broad team speak the same language and work off the same page (literally).

And, once you have them, your planning will become more intentional and impactful. If you don’t feel like you know your customer well enough to create these tools, make that a priority for your 2024 plan.

Choose your tactics based on your goals and your customers -- not the other way around. Too often, marketing plans list the tactics they’re using without clarity around why. Instead, let your objectives and your knowledge of your customer journey drive selection of tactics -- and be ruthless about including only those that fit them well.

Bake strategic rigor into your execution to ensure success. Make sure you brief your projects appropriately, stating goals, customer insights and KPIs. Create documented strategies for things like social media. If it’s not documented, then there is no strategy.

Next year's marketing plan should be more than just “rinse & repeat,” so ensure you approach it purposefully. Because before you know it, it’s going to be December 2024 -- and you don’t want to say once again “Wait until next year…”

 

Nexstar Media Says CW Could Be Profitable In 2025

• by Wayne Friedman , 7 hours ago

An uncertain advertising market, coupled with writers' and actors' strikes, have impacted The CW network on its road to projected profitability by 2025, Nexstar Media Group says.

“The curve balls we have been thrown are an ad recession but also a writer’s strike,” says Perry Sook, chairman and chief executive office of Nexstar Media Group, speaking at an UBS investor event on Monday. 

“We still think we will be at break even -- I don't want to say by 2025 -- I'd say in 2025,” says Sook.

Nexstar Media Group, the large TV station-based media company, has a 75% ownership interest in the broadcast network.

He adds: “The CW was losing in excess of $300 million when we took it over in our first year of operation.... We are taking in excess of $100 million of costs out of the network every year, which is how we get to a three-year path of profitability.”

In August 2022, Nexstar announced a deal to buy a 75% stake in the CW from co-owners Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global, with each of those companies retaining a 12.5% interest in the broadcast network.

To take control of the CW -- at that time a network losing $300 million -- Nexstar was paid $54 million to take on that ownership, according to reports.

Overall, the TV advertising marketplace continues to improve, says Lee Ann Gliha, chief financial officer of Nexstar -- especially in the third quarter: 

“We have been seeing some sequential improvement,” she says. “Our third-quarter advertising -- including The CW -- declined at a rate lower than that of the second quarter.” Projections are that the fourth quarter will continue along the same path.

Sook says while the big automotive ad category that TV stations and networks depend on has been improving all other ad categories are down.

Its three-year-old cable TV news network NewsNation, he says, has recently added 25 new advertisers.

Sook adds that for the channel's first Republican Presidential debate to be aired this Wednesday, NewsNation has sold out its ad inventory “at record rates.” 

 Are your local-direct clients targeting this money-wealthy demographic? Phiip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Lean In or Luck Out: Why Brands Need to Appeal to America's Over-50s

• by John Malozzi , 4 hours ago

Gen Z is the go-to target audience for many brands, deemed digitally and culturally savvy. Some brands have transformed their identities, product lines and values to keep up with this beloved generation. But they’re not the only powerful collective in the digital age.

All consumers have adapted to the digital way of life, adopted social media profiles to interact with loved ones, influencers and brands, and watch content via their screens. And yet Gen Z is the demographic in the limelight -- despite only making up 20% of the U.S. population and having the lowest average net worth of all the generations.

There is another engaged and growing demographic that’s ready to purchase products from automotive to technology, clothing to household appliances. Disregarded by brands out of fear of becoming “irrelevant” by association, they are the over 50s.

Viewed often as a homogenous collective, the over-50s are an amalgamation of three generations -- Gen X, baby boomers and the Silent Generation -- each at different life stages, with lifestyles and experiences too myriad to be lumped together. But they do share the freedom from the tyranny of trying to get onto the housing ladder and often have the time to do and spend as they please. The brands ignoring this collective are too influenced by the global cultural mindset thatthe over-50s don’t have a voice -- or power -- past “a certain age.”

Reported by the ANA as making up 35% of the population and 53% of consumer expenditure, this wealthy and loyal consumer base provides a ream of experience, opinions and funds benefiting brands that target them.

Some brands do this well – namely, the luxury sector.

Rolex acknowledges that people who can purchase its products already have established wealth. Its recent partnership with the Academy Awards saw Rolex celebrate the excellence of the silver screen, not with the fresh faces on billboards but the living legends behind it such as Martin Scorsese and James Cameron.

Similarly, in an industry notoriously obsessed with youth, L’Oreal’s Age Perfect range is designed for mature women, enlisting celebrity spokespeople like Helen Mirren to represent the brand, and collaborating with Vogue for a special edition showcasing the beauty of ageing. Not only does the brand appeal to women over 50, but these campaigns tell all consumers that when they inevitably age, L’Oreal will cater to them.

How you approach the 50-plus cohort matters. They have brand experience, they know what they like and dislike, but that doesn’t mean they’re stuck in their ways. The AARP in fact reports that 62% of older consumers would consider switching to a brand that they feel accurately represents people their age.

The AARP also reports that over-50s are spending $8.3 trillion a year, a sum expected to increase to $13 trillion by 2030. That spending power needs to be embraced with products and services -- as well as advertising -- that caters to them.

This doesn’t make a brand old by association. Think of Nike celebrating its 50th anniversary with a short film fronted by Spike Lee. It celebrated decades of Nike athletes and consumers who gave the brand notoriety, all while discussing the future of a brand with universal appeal. 

Brands need not be afraid of the over-50s. Engaging thoughtfully with them breeds an informed and respected opinion. It allows brands to reframe a global cultural mindset and champion them as valued consumers – as well as countering ageism.

 

Will Other Media Sellers Tell Clients To 'F-' Off?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Last week Elon Musk told business prospects -- in this case major brand advertisers --- to “go f-” themselves.

Imagine what negotiations might be -- separate from any self-serve/programmatic platform buying of X/Twitter advertising inventory --- when it comes to future pricing of those media availabilities.

Who is in the driver's seat?

Linda Yaccarino, chief executive officer of X/Twitter and former senior executive of NBCUniversal's advertising business, might be wondering the same thing. 

Does this mean greater leverage -- or less -- for the social-media platform or brands?

This comes amid estimates that even before this occurred, X/Twitter was down 54% in worldwide ad revenues year-over-year.

Now other major advertisers have dropped more media plans in the wake of a Musk post in which he sided with an antisemitic view of Jewish people  -- something he has apologized for.

Going forward is another story. Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst of Insider Intelligence, sees a different future: “Personally and publicly attacking the advertisers that have kept X alive while the company is in the midst of an ad boycott could be the nail in the coffin for X's ad business.” 

While Musk was angry enough to say “go f-yourself” and “don't advertise,” this further pushed into the spotlight Twitter's platform's value against not just other social media platforms, but versus comparisons to linear TV.

Although some may point to weak data around specific return on investment/business outcome results, linear TV might seem even more aligned to advertisers when it comes to “brand safety” issues -- something Yaccarino spent years cultivating at NBCU.

The day after Musk's remarks at the New York Times DealBook event, she posted this: “He also offered an apology, an explanation and an explicit point of view about our position. X is enabling an information independence that's uncomfortable [emphasis added] for some people.”

Some people? Does that include advertising executives?

Perhaps her perspective has changed. Still, we may wonder how the process among her sales staff in making calls this week to ad executives has changed.

As opposed to linear TV, and other media, Enberg says: “It's easier to pull advertising than it is to return, and what makes the X ad boycott unique is that it isn't primarily about content adjacency or moderation.” 

She adds: “Twitter isn't an essential ad platform, and it's hard to imagine that advertisers will continue to spend when the company’s owner has explicitly told them not to.”

Let's put this whole episode another way: What if a chief executive officer of a legacy TV-media company used the same words when they had a content-related advertising issue?

Fox's “Married.. With Children” in the late 80s? MTV in the mid-1990s? Fox News Channel in recent years?

Telling advertisers to "f-off" may not be not for everyone. Privately? Executives say it could happen more frequently.

Are we now in a different world? For some. One veteran media-buying agency executive tells TV Watch -- in reference to Musk: “This is a new level, but he lives on a different planet than us

 

COMMENTARY

TV Debate Political Plan: RNC Working Over Small, Mid-Sized Networks?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 9 hours ago

With election season just around the corner, the battle of the TV networks to get major awareness from Presidential debates is in full swing. 

Primarily, that means the control levers for Republican National Committee this time around.

With major TV news networks getting their fair share -- ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN -- small networks are fighting tooth and nail to get in the mix.

More pressure is now put on up and coming wannabe big TV news channel players NewsNation and Newsmax to make hay. And there is money to consider: Near-term production costs for the event.

For example, Axios reported the Republican National Committee priced the upcoming GOP debate in Alabama on Wednesday at $4 million in production expenses for Newsmax -- somewhat pricer than Newsmax executives believed it should be.

Instead the deal went to Nexstar Media Group's NewsNation, another new and mid-sized cable TV news competitor. The event will also air on Nexstar TV stations and on The CW in some time zones.

One single high-attention single debate event can spike a small TV network's average nightly prime-time audience. So this can be crucial in an election period where news networks audiences typically climb.  

However, while more money is one major goal for the RNC, another is reaching a wide audience to sell one's messaging. The problem there is that some Republicans don't want to be on “mainstream media” -- as they would term it -- and would rather stay in the silo of conservative-leaning news networks, which include smaller niche channels.

Of course, the missing factor for any TV networks doing the GOP debates is the current Presidential contender leading all Republican candidates: Donald Trump, who can raise viewership with loosey-goosey, outrageous content.

News TV networks can only do so much to boost their audiences from the daily news cycle -- even getting many political candidates or personalities to sit and do an special “exclusive” interview.

Dramatic Presidential debates spectacles with more mud-slinging are perhaps the easiest way to gain some new ongoing viewers.

But when the content owners of those events --- like the RNC -- are looking for money, viewership, and impact -- they want the biggest players in the mix. 

So what can smaller players get?

Supposedly,  the RNC proposed Newsmax co-sponsor the third GOP debate as a “junior partner” to that of ABC News -- all for the nifty price tag of $2 million for that second-seat position. 

That was rejected by Newsmax, according to Axios. NBC News ended up getting to air that event, but with just 6.8 million viewers in the sans-Trump political show.

Bottom line: Money and clout still carry some heft no matter what side of the fence -- political or media-wise -- you are sitting on.