Marketing to multicultural audiences is a challenge that requires not just a keen understanding of different cultures, but also an ability to engage with them meaningfully. While some brands have mastered the art of global marketing, seamlessly integrating their messaging across various cultural boundaries, others find themselves at a crossroads, trying to figure out the right approach.
Understanding the fundamentals of cross-cultural marketing is crucial for any brand looking to make a mark on the global stage. it’s about engaging with them in a way that is respectful, relevant, and resonant.
For brands looking to thrive in the global marketplace, find the things to look out for with the help of this article.
Why cultural sensitivity is important in marketing
Cultural sensitivity is important in marketing because it ensures your brand respects cultural nuances and current trends to avoid multicultural marketing missteps. Ignorance or oversight of cultural contexts can lead to campaigns that fail to resonate with the intended audience while offending large groups of people, resulting in backlash and damage to your brand’s reputation. If you want to avoid cross-cultural marketing fails like this, your brand must carefully consider its mixed culture audience, various sensitivities, and how the marketing campaign would be perceived from different perspectives.
Things to consider when you have a mixed culture audience
As your marketing department develops campaigns, you need to keep quite a few factors in mind to prevent cross-cultural campaign failures. Your team of 10 or even 100 marketers simply does not have the same perspective as hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide, so you must step into consumers’ shoes to view the campaign from every possible lens. To avoid marketing fails across cultures, we recommend considering the following:
Cultural values
First and foremost, you should identify the different cultures your campaign speaks to, as you may be surprised by how many you can list. For example, if your clothing brand displays popular influencers showing off your new line of jackets on the streets of Japan, you must ensure that every aspect of the ad accurately reflects Japan’s cultural values to avoid offending people who may watch the ad.
Politics and religion
Politics and religion are highly sensitive subjects for many cultures. In America, Christianity is the dominant religion, so many people tend to believe similar concepts, though in other countries, this varies drastically.
For example, Buddhism is a dominant religion in China and Cambodia. Why does this matter? If you’re attempting to advertise to a global audience and use a catchphrase in your commercial, like “A candy bar that tastes like Heaven,” you may isolate a major market whose religion does not follow the same beliefs as Christianity.
The same concepts go for political beliefs. While your brand could align with current political affairs to win the favors of unrepresented audiences, this may land you in Pepsi’s position if you can’t nail the campaign correctly. If you decide to dabble in politically driven advertising, you must research the geopolitical climate and deeply understand all sides of the spectrum to consider how your audience may respond.
Events and holidays
Publishing a marketing campaign without considering current events and holidays can quickly land you in hot water. For example, if you create an ad about Christmas, you immediately isolate everyone who celebrates other holidays like Hanukkah, Diwali, and Kwanzaa. On the other end of the spectrum, if you accidentally post positive content during an unfavorable political climate, you could receive severe backlash.
For example, in June 2020, users across Instagram and Facebook participated in Blackout Tuesday to support the Black Lives Matter movement by posting only black squares on their stories and timelines. The movement grew to the point where if you posted anything but a black square, you received backlash. If your brand planned a campaign on this day and did not pivot plans based on the current events, you might have joined the list of cross-cultural marketing fails.
Multimedia and visuals
Any multimedia or visuals you post should be inclusive and accessible to all audiences. We’ve already exhausted the point of ensuring you research various cultures carefully, so let’s talk a bit more about accessibility. To meet ADA standards, your visual campaigns should include features like closed captions, transcripts, video captions, or text describing images so that individuals with hearing or visual impairments can engage with your content.
Legal considerations
When marketing to global audiences, you must adhere to additional regulatory frameworks set by the countries where your campaigns will play. Every country has its own regulations on things like data protection, taxation, intellectual property rights, business processes, etc. You must familiarize yourself with these laws to ensure you’re compliant in the various places your business operates globally.
The importance of mixed culture feedback before launching
Even after considering all the above factors, you shouldn’t launch your campaign until you’ve passed it through multiple rounds of mixed culture feedback. QA and internal feedback are essential in identifying potential issues that might not be evident to those who created the campaign. By placing fresh eyes on the campaign with diverse perspectives, you can locate potential insensitivities or misinterpretations that could alienate target demographics.
Now that we’ve covered practical tips on avoiding cross-cultural marketing fails, you can begin implementing these practices to protect your brand.
