Multicultural Marketing Mistakes: How They Happen and How to Avoid Them

Kim Kardashian Teaches a Marketing Lesson – Are You Listening?

Yesterday, Kim Kardashian announced she would rename her lingerie line after previously announcing her line as “Kimono.” Today, CNN reports that Japan will send trade officials to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to discuss the situation. This all comes after the hashtag #KimOhNo began trending on Twitter with people around the world labelling the branding decision as cultural appropriation. Kardashian’s team should have seen this coming. Anyone with the worldwide reach of the Kardashian family would certainly want to be aware of multiculturalism in marketing. Maybe they did and decided to move forward anyway in the spirit of no press is bad press. While it’s highly unlikely that this incident will damage a brand like Kim Kardashian’s, most organizations can’t afford to take that risk.

What Is Multicultural Marketing?

Whether or not an organization is intentionally marketing to specific ethic or diverse groups, also known as multicultural marketing, the reach of digital media means that marketers need to be more culturally aware of the impact of marketing decisions from photos to product and company names to taglines, content and hashtags. All marketing is multicultural marketing these days. Unfortunately, examples of insensitive or poor marketing decisions abound. 

Social Media’s Response to Multicultural Marketing Mistakes

In April 2019, Ancestry.com, the world’s largest DNA testing company, received the equivalent of a social media slap fest for a commercial, titled “Inseparable.” In it, a black woman and a white man in period costume speak in a foggy alley with the sound of horses trotting in the background. He offers her a ring and tells her to escape to the North with him. This, my friends, is a warning case study of how not to handle multicultural marketing. Surely they meant the ad to be inspirational. And just as surely, they failed.

As far as I can tell, they timed the commercial to coincide with a promotion offering free access to more than 100 million records from a Civil War collection. Perhaps someone on the marketing team spotted the issue and spoke up or perhaps not. In any event, Ancestry had to deal with the fallout of articles like the Washington Post’s with the headline, “How Ancestry.com Has Failed African American Customers.”

In March 2018, Heineken faced similar backlash for its “Sometimes Lighter Is Better” commercial and its decision to use this tagline while featuring non-white actors in the ad. After over 20 years in the corporate marketing world, I can easily see how this went down. Some well-meaning marketer read in a strategic plan that minorities were a target market. Perhaps, the plan stated the need to use more diverse actors and models in commercials and ads. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the decision to expand into or target specific markets. And I applaud the employment of diverse people. However, the decision to use this questionable tagline at all is an epic fail.  And all of this happened just a year after Heineken had been applauded for its “Open Your World” commercial.

I’m being gracious. The Twitter universe was not. One celebrity, Grammy winner Chance the Rapper, tweeted that “some companies are purposely putting out noticeably racist ads so they can get more views.” I certainly hope this isn’t the case.

How They Happen

My graciousness comes from personal experience. I’ve faced issues like this that stand out for all the wrong reasons. I once received a proposed marketing package for a new promotion at work. I glanced down and immediately noted a problem. The image featured a minority male looking distraught. A yellow Post-It was stuck to his forehead. Written on the Post-It was one word. “Help.” I nearly choked. 

I knew that clients had been giving feedback that our marketing materials featured too much of the same…happy white caucasians. I knew a well-meaning peer had likely selected the image with that feedback in mind. I evaluated how best to proceed. In the spirit of managing up, I let my boss know I was going to step in. He didn’t get it. I looked into his ice-blue eyes as he smiled and told me he didn’t see anything wrong with the image. “I guess I’m just not as sensitive to that stuff as you are.” Clearly. Undeterred, I approached my peer and let her know how the image would likely be perceived by the same clients who had felt underrepresented in other marketing materials. To her credit, she changed the image. 

No one and no organization is immune from occasional slip-ups, marketing or otherwise. While I’d like to believe that no company or marketer would intentionally promote cultural appropriation, bias on insensitivity for attention, I know that unconscious bias exists. I also know that marketing is a fast-paced, demanding career, and any marketing misstep can be painfully public. And I know that without someone specifically watching out for multicultural elements and risks and foibles in marketing efforts, these things will continue to happen. And when they do, social media will be there to set things straight with a hard, less than gracious, clap back.