What: Media agency GroupM is leading the New Majority Ready™ Coalition which also includes Disney, Google, iHeartMedia, Meredith Corporation, NBCUniversal, Twitter, Univision and Viacom.
Why it matters: The coalition’s aim is to help brands adapt to the changing U.S. demographics and assist in developing their audience planning and media strategies accordingly. The ultimate ambition of the coalition is to increase brand relevance, business growth and create a seismic cultural shift.
The coalition will collaboratively develop tools and solutions to help brands get “ready” to engage the new majority, including:
• A benchmark tool – Multicultural Maturity Framework – that will help assess a brand’s “readiness” for this demographic shift across audience, investment, culture, content and more;
• Cross-platform content solutions based on the framework assessment and inspired by brand need
• A communications program to drive better understanding of America’s population transformation and to assist in driving adoption of new majority-first media strategies that reach, engage and authentically connect to these consumers.
Gonzalo del Fa, President of Multicultural, GroupM (photo), tells Portada that “the multicultural demographic in America is
increasingly fueling the economy (they currently represent 40% of the U.S. population) yet the ad dollars committed to them are disproportionately low at just 5%. In addition to that, 2020 will be the first year that a large demographic group (individuals under 18 years old) will be ethnically and racially diverse.”
2020 will be the first year that a large demographic group -individuals under 18 years old – will be ethnically and racially diverse.
Facebook (including Instagram) is not part of the new coalition. Asked why this is the case, Gonzalo Del Fa, President of GroupM, Multicultural, tells Portada that “this first phase represents a handful of media partners across multiple disciplines such as video, print, audio and social media. A really exciting start. Our hope is that we will be able to welcome other leaders to join this movement”. According to del Fa, The New Majority Ready (NMR) coalition was initiated by GroupM to help brands better adapt to the changing of the U.S. demographic. In order to achieve that goal, GroupM is bringing together industry-leading companies across media, technology and publishing”.
The Challenge of Accurate Multicultural Measurement
The need for a more unified measurement of multicultural audiences is a major challenge that has hindered growth of investment in media targeting multicultural audiences. Asked about how the newly formed coalition will approach this particular challenge, del Fa says that “our benchmark tool (Multicultural Maturity Framework) will assess a brand’s “readiness” for the New Majority. This assessment includes brand’s growth potential, audience strategy, consumer perception, resource allocation and corporate impact among others. Based on that assessment, communication strategies and cross-platform content solutions that reach, engage and authentically connect to these audiences will be created to address challenges and opportunities. We will work with each client’s marketing team as well as our own analytics team to accurately measure the level of success of these initiatives.”
Therefore, these results show the brand is already doing something right. When asked about the approach Kia takes when marketing to Hispanics, Santos hits the nail in the head. “We don’t like to approach this segment by thinking ‘Spanish or English’? But rather, ‘How do we communicate in-culture? And that can be a combination of either language as it relates to our target audience and the look/feel of our campaign.”
Sports Business Daily. The division, which debuted in 2005, has 44 terrestrial affiliates in 15 states, as well as a SiriusXM channel. Staff layoffs are expected.
The NFL started an initiative, as part of the NFL Academy in the UK, designed to use American football to create “life-changing educational and professional opportunities for young people.” The NFL Academy will begin operations in September 2019 and offer student athletes aged 16-18 the opportunity to combine education with life skills and intensive training in the sport under full-time professional coaches. The initiative will be supported by Nike and based at Barnet and Southgate College, in North London.
Copa America has signed a content deal with Facebook to produce behind-the-scenes content for all 12 teams this summer. The partnership will allow official tournament profiles on both Facebook and Instagram to produce content from training centers, hotels and team transportation. “This agreement will enable the production of unique content that will bring all football fans behind the scenes of the world’s oldest national team tournament and some of the top stars in today’s football,” said Thiago Jannuzzi, competition general manager at Copa America.
The National Hockey League (NHL) franchise San Jose Sharks have announced it would provide Spanish-language commentary on its OTT platforms and TV broadcasts, in conjunction with Tico Sports. Users will be able to access the Spanish-language stream on either the Sharks + SAP Centre app or via an SAP setting on NBC California television broadcast. The partnership with Tico also includes helping the Sharks expand their Spanish-language social media presence. Games will be live tweeted from a dedicated Los Tiburones account alongside additional original content.
According to a Washington Post poll, 38% of mixed martial arts fans are African-American, and 31% are Hispanics.
Combate Americas is returning to Monterrey, N.L., Mex. with its second, annual ‘Estrellas’ event, featuring a collection of the MMA sports franchise’s talent, live in Spanish in the U.S. on both Univision (12a) and UDN and in English in the U.S. and Canada on DAZN (10p) on April 12.
With the acquisition, RELEVENT has further solidified its status as a major player in the soccer world with recent announcements of the 
Bank’s Sahagún asserted that “with Hispanics shaping modern society as we know it, their impact should not solely be measured on size but rather on the influence and impact they have on the broader population.”
argument for putting everything under one roof, especially because bigger agencies tend to have bigger budgets and consequently, more negotiating power. But that doesn’t mean that multicultural agencies aren’t necessary: “If the staff at a general media agency doesn’t understand the nuances of marketing to these groups (language, age, geography, media usage, acculturation), then they will be doing a disservice” to their clients, Rosenberg clarifies.
She also underlined the importance of ensuring “cultural and language authenticity” instead of simply “translating general market creative.” “At the end of the day,” she said, “every agency must demonstrate their value to the client through overall thought leadership, consumer insights on their respective segments, new communication opportunities and pitching better ways to engage with consumers, as well as reporting competitive activity.”
The U.S. will get its biggest immigration makeover in three decades in a step that is expected to eventually legalize some 5 million illegal immigrants. Any measure that makes it for the undocumented Hispanic population safer to live in the U.S. will have a positive impact on marketing. “I think the issue is that if the millions of undocumented come forward and instead of the U.S. Hispanic population being 17% of the overall population the percentage jumps closer to 20% we could potentially see an increase in advertising spending which we typically see right after census numbers are issued,” says Enedina Vega-Amaez, Vice President/Publisher of the Meredith Hispanic Ventures Group.
The addition of almost 5 million documented Hispanics to the population also means that the Spanish-dominant share of the Hispanic population will increase and somewhat counterweight the growth of the English-dominant population. Al Dia Dallas’ Penni Barton notes that “in markets like Texas and other border states the majority of the potential beneficiaries of this measure are Spanish-dominant Hispanics.” “After all, the nature of a Hispanic immigrant is that Spanish is their first language,” says Enrique Arbelaez from XL Alliance . He cautions, however, that the media consumption habits of these Hispanics may not necessarily change because of their new legal status.
It is budgeting season again! How much should be allocated to multicultural and is it a struggle or even relevant? Portada talked to Xavier Turpin, Director of Multicultural Marketing at Dunkin’ Brands Inc on these and other issues facing the multicultural and overall marketing sector.