Coca Cola U.S. CMO Katie Bayne recently made headlines during a speech where she explained the value of the multicultural audience to her brands. The basis for her position was that multicultural consumers made up a third of all U.S. sales for Coca Cola and were projected to increase to 40 percent by 2020. This is in and of itself a sobering reminder of the changing face of America. She went further by pointing out how 51% of teens today are multicultural themselves. What was missing however was any delineation between the traditional concept of multicultural consumers and the emerging consumer base that is driven by a newer, truer multiculturalism.
Our agency fields a routine survey to stay on top of diverse segment trends and one of the most consistent findings is that younger multicultural consumers are building their own identity based on shared associations — a new melting pot if you will.
The question, asked of respondents across all age groups, is simple. “Are most of your friends or members of your social circle of the same ethnicity as you or a different ethnicity?” Most recently 58 percent of respondents ages 24 and younger indicated that the majority of their friends were of a different ethnicity.
Putting this into context means borrowing from some commonly accepted principles. Many researchers use an acculturation model to better understand generational dynamics among Hispanic consumers. Partially acculturated Hispanic consumers are said to have one foot in tradition and one in “mainstream” culture. The difference now is that the fact younger consumers are more often engaged with other ethnic groups so they are sharing and learning in more directions. Instead of adopting certain attitudes from a limited exposure to either a vertical relationship to parents and extended family and then horizontally to friends or peers in their own specific ethnic segment we see a more organic and dynamic set of relationships.
Engaging this rapidly emerging segment means moving beyond the recognition of cultural importance. Marketers and brands must also dig deep to understand how cross-cultural pollination is generating a new mindset.
