In a brainstorm we had last year, we pulled out the bubbly and toasted to two individuals who were on their way down the aisle in 2015. We went around the table and offered them words of wisdom and advice for their long lives with their significant others. By the way, they weren’t marrying each other. If my memory serves me correctly, we also had a cake. It made for one celebratory meeting.

As you can probably guess, the brainstorm had to do with weddings, engagements and the process of getting hitched. Our client, Philips Zoom Professional Whitening had found a key metric in their marketing research. The top reason why people whiten their teeth? You guessed it—weddings.

We work well with insights and trends. We use them when we’re developing campaigns, looking into what we can offer our clients and, most prominently, how our work will resonate best with consumers. While digging around the internet, our team found another vital piece of information: over 50 percent of women who get engaged update their Facebook status within 24 hours of saying “Yes!”

After one makes the social announcement, the Likes and “Congratulations!” come pouring in, along with the ridiculous amounts of photos, comments and Likes that will follow. From the day that each woman says “yes” all the way through her wedding day and into the first year of marriage she will upload approximately 1 million photos of herself and her groom-to-be.* You all know what I’m talking about.

As you can imagine, we were thrilled to find this piece of information. With the opportunities that Facebook gives brands on its site, we were able to begin targeting paid ads to this particular segment of soon-to-be-brides and those recently engaged. Thank you, relationship status updates! We were also able to find those who were interested in wedding services—because though you might not be getting married you might be in the wedding.

Not only did we target them with paid amplification, we also created content that would speak to this demographic of soon-to-be-married women. We followed her chronologically along her journey—from engagement photos to bachelorette parties to the wedding day—making sure that we reminded her that she had to be camera-ready for all those photo opportunities she would encounter.

As they say, we hit the nail on the head. We saw some of the highest engagements we had ever seen on the page, along with incredible amounts of comments and shares.

For example, we put up a Halloween-themed post, which asked, “Ever been to a Halloween wedding? Show us the pics!” The post received 350+ comments that included photos, along with more than 2,000 shares. This meant that our fans and consumers were willing to share our content out on their own social channels!

This exemplified that with relevant content, we were able to reach the right target at the right time with a very deliberate strategy.

Our community grew nearly twelve-fold in 2014, driving more than 12,000 clicks to the Philips Zoom whitening website and averaging an engagement rate of nearly 6 percent. We can say that everyone involved was definitely pleased with the outcome.

We could not have asked for a better fairy-tale ending.

*Please note that this statistic was completely made up and exaggerated.

– Christina Elizabeth Rodriguez is a Senior Account Executive at Zócalo Group. Follow her on Twitter at @kiki416. Christina also blogs about her experiences with diabetes at Kikisbetes.com. Zócalo Group is a digital, social and word-of-mouth marketing agency focused on making our clients the most talked about, recommended and purchased brands in their categories. 

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A few weeks ago Nielsen released a multicultural report titled “The Multicultural Edge: Rising Super Consumers.” Within the detailed research, there are numerous explanations as to why marketers and advertisers should be focusing on this multicultural demographic.

Among the top reasons is life expectancy, the multicultural influence on the mainstream and multicultural consumers being in their prime. There are others of course, about the fact that multicultural demographic is extremely connected and mobile savvy and bicultural—maintaining their cultural heritage while simultaneously seeing themselves as part of the new mainstream, “allowing them to mix and match endless choices and products to suit their effortless duality in lifestyles and tastes,” states the report. However, it seems that the last two points have been discussed more frequently than the others.

So, what makes a “Super Consumer”? A Super Consumer is at the top 10 percent of households who drive at least 30 percent of sales, 40 percent of growth and 50 percent of profits.

A key factor to note, which has been explicitly stated before, is that multicultural consumers seek brands that speak to their culture, self-image and aspirations. This is important for brands, especially in social that look for that social engagement and results from likes, shares and comments. If an individual cannot relate to content, they will be less likely to engage with that content.

Among those listed as multicultural consumers are Blacks, American Indians, Asians, Pacific Islanders, those who define as “Other” and those of two or more races. Hispanics are considered multicultural consumers that can fall into any race, since the term is seen more as an ethnicity and not a race.

How Life Expectancy Drives Advantage

The multicultural demographic is fairly young and diverse. According to the report, “Each successive generation is becoming more multicultural.” For example, compared to those over the age of 80 where the generation is only 16.9 percent diverse, the percentage of diversity for the Millennial generation is almost 45 percent.

Additionally, according to the CDC, the life expectancy in the U.S. is at an all-time high. Among the multicultural population, African-Americans’ life expectancy is 74.3, Asian-Americans is 87.3 and Hispanic is 83.5.  Knowing that the median ages of these three groups are 27-35 and that they have at least 42 years of buying power left leaves room for the discussion of the advantage of targeting the segment.

With smart marketing toward the multicultural consumer, the opportunity for more years of consumption as well as consumer loyalty will add up on a better return on investment.

The Influence on the Mainstream

This has more to do with geographical locations than anything else. Multicultural population is over 50 percent in Hawaii, District of Columbia, California, New Mexico, and Texas with Nevada, Maryland, Georgia, Arizona, Florida and New York approaching the same status. When speaking of metro areas, 21 of the top 25 most populated counties in the US are already more than 50 percent multicultural.

Just knowing this, the need for ethnic and cross-cultural marketing and messaging is necessary. This will mean a demand in not only specific multicultural marketing strategy but also a strategy based on increased cultural influence on the non-multicultural population.

According to the report, “Proximity to other cultures and the sharing of cultural influences, attitudes and behaviors in these Super Geo clusters magnifies the multicultural opportunity… living near or in a high multicultural-density area can have a big influence on what non-multicultural consumers watch and buy.”

The Multicultural American

Because most multicultural consumers also see themselves as American as anyone, the result is shown through the cross categories. For the most part, food purchases are the most highly impacted by the multicultural Super Consumer—Multicultural shoppers make larger purchases of dried vegetables and rice, and account for 53 percent of hot sauce Super Consumers.

But along with that, due to an influx in births, Hispanics lean on purchasing baby foods, diapers, and other baby needs, along with women’s fragrances and the family planning category. African-Americans impact the ethnic hair & beauty aids category along with feminine hygiene products category. The Asian-American population impacts the Asian noodle category as well as photographic supplies.

However, the multicultural Super Consumer also has grown to impact the cross categories of men’s toiletries, refrigerated meal starters, shelf stable meal starters, diet aids, ice cream, bottled water and cosmetics. “Despite the fact that they were maintaining their cultural ties to cooking styles…[these consumers] were also heavier consumers of convenient meal starters…indicating an increased desire for speed and ease of preparation in cooking those meals.”

Overall, the multicultural Super Consumer pulls a lot of weight in multiple categories which stem from but are not limited to their cultural ties.

If brands begin to understand the related categories and well-roundness of the multicultural consumer, marketing dollars will be better spent and strategies better executed.

– Christina Elizabeth Rodriguez is a Senior Account Executive at Zócalo Group. Follow her on Twitter at @kiki416. Christina also blogs about her experiences with diabetes at Kikisbetes.com. Zócalo Group is a digital, social and word-of-mouth marketing agency focused on making our clients the most talked about, recommended and purchased brands in their categories. 

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