"New American Mainstream" Challenges Marketers to Navigate a Multicultural Marketing Maze to Tap Ethnic Buying Power

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The "New American Mainstream" serves as the headline topic for the latest edition of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council's quarterly digital magazine, PeerSphere. The cover story reveals that CMOs have a long way to go when it comes to structured and systematic engagement with a multiplicity of sub-segments and ethnic groups across Hispanic, African-American and Asian markets.

The lead article underscores the need for marketers to have a multicultural strategy in place that is prioritized and adopted across the organization in order to ensure consistent and relevant experiences that build loyalty and advocacy with ethnic consumers, who now represent some $1.2 trillion in annual purchasing power. By 2050, it is projected that 49 percent of the total population in the U.S. (some 200 million people) will be of ethnic descent.

Drawing on the results of the CMO Council's "Activating the New American Mainstream" study—conducted in partnership with Geoscape—the lead story advocates the need for CMOs to gain a deeper, data-driven understanding of multicultural purchasing patterns, variations, values, drivers, influences and intentions and then use this information to create meaningful experiences that are truly personalized…and not simply translated.

The feature story also notes that part of the challenge around this critical area of marketing is that the level of buy-in for multicultural initiatives across organizations is divided: half of marketers feel they have support for these efforts, and half do not. Gaining support from the top of the organizations will be critical in order to gain alignment around a strategy and to secure the budget needed to implement it across the company.

"As customers from all backgrounds and ethnicities become more particular about the relationship and experience they want with brands, senior marketing leaders must rise to the occasion to meet these expectations and create personalized engagements with all consumers—not just the majority," notes Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. "Ignoring valuable and growing customer segments will translate into lost influence, loyalty and revenue from increasingly important multicultural audiences."

The latest issue of PeerSphere is available today and also features insights from global marketing executives at companies such as Planet Fitness, Smartling, Spotlight Retail Group and more. Among the topics covered are:

• Marketing hits and misses from the "big four" professional sports leagues
• The potential business opportunities in Cuba following a lifting of the embargo
• Keys to creating personalized engagements with B2B audiences through better targeting
• Q&A articles with marketing leaders at Planet Fitness and Spotlight Retail Group

PeerSphere is available on a complimentary basis to CMO Council members courtesy of our sponsor, Thomson Reuters. For more information or to view the issue online, visit http://www.cmocouncil.org/peer-sphere.php.

About the CMO Council

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is the only global network of executives specifically dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries. The CMO Council's 9,000-plus members control approximately $400 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include more than 35,000 global executives in more than 110 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets.  Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, India and Africa. The council's strategic interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Mobile Relationship Marketing (MRM) Strategies, LoyaltyLeaders.org, CMOCIOAlign.org, Marketing Supply Chain Institute, Customer Experience Board, Digital Marketing Performance Institute, GeoBranding Center and the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME). More information on the CMO Council is available at www.cmocouncil.org.

CONTACT: Kevin Sugarman, 1-408-677-5311, [email protected]

SOURCE CMO Council

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