Marketing’s Failure to Adjust to the Decline of Monocultural Identity

It’s time for a More Expanded Approach to Multicultural Marketing

At a young age, my mother and father left their families and the neighborhoods they grew up in and joined the military. In doing so they were able to successfully escape an upbringing that was wrought with violence, poverty and misfortune. The decision they made to ensure a better future for themselves forever changed the relationship me and my siblings would have with our identities and our relationship to the world.

Unlike most Americans, we were not born in the US and experienced a global way of living from birth. Our cultural worlds consisted of growing up on military bases filled with expat families from various states and countries while living alongside German citizens and participating in German culture. For the first 5 years of our lives my brother and I learned our ABCs while simultaneously learning how to speak German (and for some reason, Spanish?). We were also introduced to some of the basics of Korean culture since many of our babysitters were from Korea. We didn’t stay in Germany long but the foundation of our cultural core was set. We continued to live on diverse military bases in the US well into our childhood. With no connection to the families our parents chose to run away from, our cultural worlds were freely formed and detached from any kind of deeply rooted heritage or tradition.

After leaving our military bubble, we quickly learned that our life experiences were not common, especially in the Black community. We would each spend a part of our childhood learning what it meant to be both American and Black on US soil as we lived the rest of our formative years in the south. The transition was fairly easy but it made us aware of how our perceptions of ourselves were very different from our peers and atypical of the “expected African American experience”.

I’d imagine that this is also true for children of immigrants. I have a friend who grew up in the Midwest- an American but also the daughter of a Nigerian family. I’ve watched her attempt to navigate what it means to be Black in America while honoring the culture she comes from. She doesn’t bring it up often, but I know she has struggled with trying to figure out where she belongs. One day many years ago, she asked about the purpose of HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). She explained that they felt unwelcoming to her — a Nigerian American woman, who spent most of her youth around white Americans and mainstream culture.

She is not alone in her perspective. Recently, I assisted in a study where we spoke with Black respondents across the county with a goal of gaining a better understanding of their relationship with HBCU homecomings. While most of them proudly revered these institutions, many confessed to never attending a homecoming or visiting a campus. When asked why, the answers varied, but more often than not, they believed that those spaces were not intended for them. Essentially, many felt that HBCUs were spaces intended for a specific type of Black student, not those who may have grown up outside of the “typical (expected) African American experience”.

So what’s going on here?

The answer is actually more obvious than you may think. It is the battle cry that Black Americans have been singing for years now: Black people are not a monolith. We are in fact, increasingly polycultural- an amalgamation of multiple identities, cultures and experiences. And while we know this to be true because our lives are built around Black experiences, those who exist outside of Black culture (like a boardroom of executives) likely do not. This is a small part of a much larger issue at play: the rapid decline of monocultural identity and the marketing industry’s refusal to adjust.

The Issue

Four years ago, the US census revealed the rapid rise and growth of both single identity and multiethnic populations for all but Non-Hispanic white consumers who, for the first time in history, were declining in number. The results noted that multiethnic groups would likely continue to be the fastest growing segment in the US.

• The White in combination population saw a 316% increase between 2010 and 2020. The White and Some Other Race population increased the Multiracial population by a change of over 1,000%.
• The Black or African American in combination population grew 88.7%. The Black or African American and Some Other Race population experienced a 230% change. The foreign-born Black population has nearly doubled since 2000, rising from 7% then to 10% in 2019.
• Between 2010 and 2020, the number of people of Hispanic or Latino origin reporting more than one race increased 567%. The number of who identified as White alone decreased by 52.9%.
• The Asian alone population grew by 35.5% between 2010 and 2020. In comparison, the Asian in combination population grew by 55.5%.
• From 2010 to 2020, the American Indian and Alaska Native in combination population increased by 160%.
• Over half of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders identified with more than one race.
• The Some Other Race population was the second-largest alone or in combination race group, comprising 15.1% of the total population- a 733% increase since 2010.

Despite knowing this information, brands and marketers are dragging their feet when it comes to developing proactive solutions to meet the needs of an increasingly multidimensional consumer base. Many have instead chosen to stick with what’s most familiar- a multicultural marketing model that originated in the 1960s and 70s which centered the needs, wants, and motivations of mainstream audiences (i.e. majority white) and only considered the needs of marginalized audiences as an afterthought. This adherence to old practices continues to dominate the industry today even though the approach towards multicultural marketing has progressed in recent years.

When it was initially revealed that Millennials would be a highly diverse generation, marketers panicked upon realizing that their reliance on demographic segmentation alone would not be the most impactful, cost-effective way to manage such a diverse, growing audience. The prospect of a “majority minority” mainstream felt foreign and, due to restrictions on their marketing and research budgets, they sought a solution that felt more attainable. The model needed to evolve.

Enter the new “Total Market” Strategy which centered on identifying similarities and large, easy to target universal truths across consumer groups. The approach worked — for a time. Despite its point of difference, the execution of the approach remained mostly the same, and marketers continued to prioritize mainstream tactics to activate newly identified universal truths. This produced messaging strategies that appealed to everyone but failed to deeply resonate with anyone. The result: forgettable campaigns, and failure to break through the noise.

Today, some organizations are incorporating a hybrid approach that utilizes both models. With the rise of multiethnic consumers and polycultural existences, we are more than overdue for the next iteration of a more reliable and accurate multicultural marketing approach. Luckily, much of the groundwork for this has already begun, thanks to how we approach and consider Hispanic audiences.

Building From What We Know

In the past, one’s ethnicity was determined by their culture and cultural habits. It was assumed, for example, that Hispanics ate certain foods, or had many of the same beliefs and cultural practices as others within their “racial group”. Eventually, however, an acculturation model was developed which debunked this myth and identified Hispanic identity on a spectrum in relation to assimilation. Years later, the validity of this model began to come into question.

In 2017, a new approach sought to add nuance to an outdated, one-dimensional assumption: That assimilation in the US existed in a clean-cut, linear fashion. The “Bidimensional Identity Measure” (BIM) tool offered a new way to measure race and multiethnic diversity — one that considered an individual’s ethnic and American identity as two separate entities:

The proposed Bidimensional Identity Measure (BIM) is an 18-item scale, comprised of two subscales, the AIM (12 items) and the MEIM-R (six items), which simultaneously measures the collective identity of (non-Hispanic) whites, Hispanics, African Americans and Asian Americans in the USA.

The simultaneous measurement of one’s ethnic and American identity is a necessary first step to getting this right. The research from this work serves as a foundational way to begin considering the nuanced lives of an increasingly diverse, non-monocultural, multiethnic America.

Expanding the Model

If we were to continue to build off the BIM approach to develop a more culturally-fortified model, key factors would need to be considered — factors that would apply to multiethnic groups and the shifting racial dynamics of monocultural groups as well:

1. Societal perceptions of one’s ethnicity and the way in which an individual internalizes or rejects the meanings associated their ethnicity
2. The cultural traits passed down or avoided by an individual’s parents and subsequently, by that individual
3. The chosen vs. given cultural identity of one’s parents and subsequently, the chosen vs. given cultural identity of the individual

1. Societal perceptions of one’s ethnicity

How society perceives a specific ethnic group has a direct correlation with how consumers from that group choose to lean into or reject aspects of their own culture. Theorist William Cross recognized this dynamic while developing and evolving his theory of Nigrescence (the psychology of becoming Black). This theory included three crucial factors: assimilation, miseducation and self-hatred, each of which play a role in determining an individual’s proximity to, and acceptance of their Blackness. If society’s view of an individual’s ethnic group is less favorable, and (s)he has been socialized to think the same, (s)he may feel less drawn to participate in it.

However, just as culture shifts and changes, so too can societal opinions. Ethnicities that might be viewed favorably today can, in a matter of months, be viewed less favorably tomorrow. We witnessed this during the pandemic and how American attitudes towards Asian Americans shifted from them being almost invisible, “model minorities” to one where they were seen as ever-present threats.

2. The cultural traits passed down or avoided by their parents (and the individual)

The societal perceptions mentioned above directly impact which attributes and traits are chosen to be passed down or avoided by individuals belonging to specific ethnic groups. While some may find pride in demonstrating specific behaviors or leaning into unique customs and rituals, others may see them as embarrassing, or as holding them back from excelling.

To ensure a life of happiness and ease, they may choose to forgo passing down cultural traditions that could potentially limit the success of their children, and their children may choose to do the same. For example, in the past, it was common in some Hispanic households for parents to not teach their children the Spanish language because they felt the only way their children could succeed was by being fluent in English.

3. The chosen vs. given cultural identity of one’s parents (and the individual)

It is imperative to distinguish between the identities consumers are born into and the identities consumers choose for themselves. Society has historically told people who they are based on their physical features, their accents, and/or the languages they speak. But history has shown that consumers often view themselves differently from their forced societal labels. Because of this, some Americans remain at odds with how society chooses to define them and who they feel they actually are.

This can be demonstrated by the way Black immigrants see themselves as existing outside of the African American experience since their cultural identity is often tied to the lands and the cultures they originate from. However, in America, it is well known that these cultural distinctions often go unnoticed and are overwritten by a tendency to lump likenesses together into digestible categories. In the US, no matter where you’re from, if you are Black, you are often assumed to be the same as Black Americans and treated as such.

For the most part, the last two preliminary factors insinuate one-to-one correlations- cultural traits, habits and associations passed down or avoided from guardian to child. But there is a secondary layer to consider: the impact that family members and kinship networks may have on one’s identity. This is especially necessary to consider today as Americans have less children or choose to be child free, which grants permission for eager aunts, uncles and godparents to become more involved in the lives of the children in their networks. For multiethnic and polycultural consumers who may be exploring their own identities, all of these factors feed into how they decide to show up in a world full of binaries.

Real World Application

Instead of speaking hypothetically about how these factors could be considered and applied, I’m going to provide a more tangible example from my own life.

I began this article with stories from my childhood to demonstrate how Black identity and the Black experience can vary in America, but I haven’t spoken about the lived realities of my biracial nephews and nieces. Remember the Korean babysitters my brother and I had when we were children? He eventually grew up to marry a biracial, Korean and African American woman. Their 4 children, my nieces and nephew, are each partially Black and Korean. As they age into adulthood, which aspects of their identities will they identify with most?

In the past, the one drop rule in the US meant that Americans with any ounce of Blackness in their lineage were to be considered Black or Mulatto. Today that sentiment continues to exist in the Black community, based on the historical treatment of Americans with brown skin. Because of this, there are many who may say that my nieces and nephews are Black however, some of their earliest childhood memories have consisted of traveling overseas to spend time with their Korean family members. Their mother speaks fluent Korean with their grandmother, and while they’ve yet to learn the language, they greet their grandmother with the words that they know in Korean. Their daily lives are also inextricably “American” thanks, impart, to the way American Patriotism was drilled into us for the majority of our childhood. Subsequently, their dad, my brother, secured the American dream for his family- he married his high school sweetheart, and has the proverbial white picket fence and a dog. Their family dynamic is one where he is the provider, and his wife is a stay-at-home mother who homeschools their children. Finally, the shared Black identity between he and his wife means that culturally, their habits and traditions are similar to those of Black families but also squarely rooted in a global perspective as both grew up on military bases. On holidays and family get-togethers, his children are most often surrounded by Black aunts and grandparents and, when they are in town, biracial uncles (her brothers) all of whom have lived outside of the US and in multiple US cities. At the dinner table, Soul Food and Korean cuisines often co-exist and during birthday celebrations Korean traditions play a role while Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday remix is sung aloud.

In the summary above, there are three cultures at play: Black, Korean and American- worlds that my family has learned to navigate and incorporate fairly seamlessly throughout the course of this union. But as they age, my nieces and nephews will inevitably be faced with “box ticking” questions around how they identify and times in which where they will feel forced to pick a single identity or culture. Perhaps most importantly, as they learn more about what the world thinks of their Korean heritage, or their Blackness, they may each choose to opt-in or out of different aspects of their identities at different points in their lifetimes to ensure a sense of safety, belonging and wellbeing.

Given this, how might marketers begin to consider the multiple identity factors of consumers like my nieces and nephews? How might we begin to innovate identity models in market research to account for the way identity acceptance and rejection fluctuate over time? Most importantly, how can marketers ensure that the audiences they’re attempting to connect with feel seen and heard at every touchpoint? Universal truths with no cultural nuance has failed in the past, but in this case, what happens when there are too many cultural nuances to account for?

An Opportunity for Change

There is an opportunity to develop a “Cultural Core Analysis Tool” (CCAT) that takes into account all of the elements that shape one’s identity in a more comprehensive, and culturally astute way. The identification of one’s cultural core and our ability to track whether or not they are more or less aligned with their own ethnic culture or American culture is THE missing piece of this puzzle. Such a tool, if done correctly (sans human bias), will be able to understand and potentially even anticipate any consumer’s identity journey as they age, no matter the complexity of their genetic makeup. Such a development will allow us to more accurately dissect and understand the myriad of identity dimensions that exist within individuals, within different ethnic groups, and among multiracial sub-groups.

Perhaps most importantly, this new CCAT approach could work to push marketers beyond today’s limited application of acculturation and assimilation models which are typically only utilized for Hispanic/Latinx or immigrant communities. With the shifting cultural makeup of the US, it will be increasingly necessary to interrogate the cultural identities of all consumer groups. This will determine how we understand the makeup of their cultural cores and how they may differ from one group to the next. Because identity is always evolving, there is also a need to ensure this analysis occurs overtime, as this will be the only way to track how their cultural cores evolve and the variables that cause them to change.

Challenging Change Resistance and the Allure of Simplicity

Marketers have yet to account for the rise of multiracial or polycultural identity, often preferring to cling to philosophies that center monoracial and unidimensional experiences for their marketing strategies. For executives at the top, this approach likely feels easier to manage and understand, especially when the executives themselves do not exist within the same cultural dualities as the audiences they are attempting to connect with. But the tendency to package everything into neat little boxes will only continue to result in missing the mark with an increasingly savvy consumer base who can easily spot lazy, tokenized, non-dimensional, monolithically-informed inclusionary tactics void of authenticity and cultural accuracy.

If you’ve gotten to the bottom of this article and come to the conclusion that solely placing biracial characters or interracial families into the majority of your marketing outputs is the best solution, I strongly encourage you to start over, and read this piece again. You can not simply erase an entire ethnic group because it feels easier to include characters who have a little bit of everything within their genetic makeup. A strategy predicated on racial ambiguity will not win the hearts and minds of your consumers- it hasn’t in the past and it won’t in the future.

There has to be a space where monocultural, polycultural and multiethnic identities can exist together because this is the reality of the American experience today. A strategy that ensures the intentional presence of a variety of ethnic groups along with the inclusion of their contexts is the only way to begin winning here. Getting this right will not only take guts, but will require that the right people to have a permanent seat at the decision making table. This is a case of enduring willpower, and whomever decides to stay the course, no matter how murky, tough or uncomfortable things become will ultimately come out on top.