Marketing to the New Majority: New Book From Millward Brown Offers Strategies for a Diverse World

As minority consumers become the majority, brands must adapt to stay relevant

Today, diversity is the default, not the exception. “Minorities” are already the majority in some of the biggest cities in the United States, and demographers predict that the same will be true of the country as a whole before 2045. In their new book, Marketing to the New Majority: Strategies for a Diverse World (Palgrave Macmillan, August 2011), Millward Brown’s David Burgos and Ola Mobolade explore and analyze America’s increasingly diverse consumer population and offer strategies for marketers hoping to connect with the new mainstream and the different segments that comprise it.

Commenting on Marketing to the New Majority, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive officer of WPP, said, “Through their painstaking analysis of the 2010 U.S. Census data, [Burgos and Mobolade] alert us to the truth of a new and ultra-complex America.”

Rick Gomez, vice president, brand marketing at MillerCoors, added, “Burgos and Mobolade tackle some of the misconceptions around today’s multicultural market and offer a glimpse into the future of marketing as the United States becomes a majority-minority nation.”

Drawing on interviews with dozens of marketing powerhouses and Millward Brown’s vast database of consumer research, Marketing to the New Majority shows marketers how to develop integrated campaigns that effectively reach culturally diverse consumer populations. 

The book shares insights about the following:

• The importance of moving away from “ethnic silo” thinking
• Detailed insight on the role of the non-Hispanic White segment in the multicultural community
• What the history of multicultural advertising can teach us about how companies should and should not occupy that space today
• How the digital revolution has accelerated the blurring of borders in both personal cultural identity and media consumption
• How to determine whether to take a targeted versus non-targeted communications approach
• Strategic recommendations based on a company’s life stage in approaching the new majority
• Learning from other countries around the world who are following similar patterns of multiculturalism
• Implications of a new segmentation that goes beyond acculturation to identify “diversity within diversity” based on attitudes and lifestyles

According to McGhee Williams Osse, Co-CEO, Burrell Communications Group, “David and Ola have succinctly presented the realities of the data, the limitations of the current go-to-market strategies and most importantly, they’ve given us the tools for honest self-assessment of our own readiness to play and win in this new and exciting era of diversity.