Build your brief
Build inclusion into your creative brief and media strategy
Creative brief
Make inclusion a creative mandatory, not an afterthought. If inclusion isn't given space in the project brief, it won't translate into the creative.
Here's a quick checklist of what to cover:
- Describe how and where underrepresented groups should be considered and represented in the work.
- Clearly state the insights from your research related to why and how underrepresented groups should be included.
- Get feedback on your brief from as many people as possible who are part of the audience you’re trying to reach and represent.
- Plan ahead to allow enough time for additional inclusion-focused creative reviews.
- It’s not enough to say, “this project should be ‘diverse and inclusive.’” Explicitly call out how inclusion is embedded in your objectives.
Example
“20% of the product’s users in the U.S. are Black. We want to reflect this within our creative and media spend.” or “18% of the U.S. population is Latino. The overall demographics of this campaign should reflect this.”
Media strategy
The individuals you reach with your campaign and how you tailor your creative to them are critical steps to building more inclusive marketing.
Consider for example, that 105 million Americans – roughly one-third of the U.S. population – are Latino and/or Black. To reach these audiences, prioritize multicultural media by using a planning and creative approach that intentionally engages and represents Black and Latino people.
For almost two decades, Latino and Black people have contributed more than 70% to overall population growth.
These two groups alone have almost $3 trillion in combined buying power, and are trendsetters and tastemakers with tremendous influence.
Ensure the media you buy is relevant
While traditional media buys may have a significant reach with Black audiences, a more nuanced approach can ensure even greater relevance.
- Consider bespoke media plans including coverage of multicultural tentpoles (i.e., Latin Grammys, BET Awards) and ensure that media buys cover a variety of platforms.
- Leverage partnerships that have large multicultural compositions. For example, Black audiences represent 47% of the NBA’s viewership.
When we consider the Latino population, traditional media buying practices are missing the mark:
More than 40% of Latino consumers do not watch TV in English.
On YouTube, English language campaigns reach less than 8% of Latino audiences despite the fact that 22% of all adults 18-34 on YouTube are Latino.
More than 50% of Latino audiences live in 10 metro areas in the US.
Here are some key tactics we follow and recommend to our partners from Sarah Carberry, who leads U.S. multicultural strategy and sales at Google:
Stop “othering” multicultural marketing
Transforming your approach to multicultural marketing from “nice to have” to “integral” requires an ongoing commitment. A great way to begin honoring that commitment is by adding Spanish language content to your media buy. This will help diversify your viewership and ensure you’re reaching Spanish-speaking audiences.
Invest in culturally relevant media
To reach underserved audiences, you need to be where they are. For example, since half the Latino population of the U.S. lives within 10 media markets, commit to advertising around relevant, multicultural moments, such as the Latin Grammys. Cultivating media partnerships that have large multicultural compositions can also be critical. So can partnering with authentic, trusted influencers with large fan bases.
Deliver inclusive experiences
A poorly optimized user journey will stifle the impact of your media, regardless of whether you’re advertising in all the relevant places.
Make a commitment
Ultimately it will be difficult, if not impossible, to improve multicultural media practices without making a measurable commitment.
- At Google, we’re allocating 15% of our top-tier brand campaign budgets in the U.S. to reach multicultural audiences through culturally relevant media. We’re also developing a plan to ensure that all of our future marketing campaigns have a dedicated multicultural component.