Leveraging Diversity as a Tacit Resource: An Exploration into an Organization’s Antecedent and Succedent Factors for a Model of Successful Multicultural Marketing: An Abstract

Abstract

Given the level of diversity in the United States, companies are implementing multicultural marketing to be competitive in the marketplace. Multicultural marketing, the practice of integrated marketing strategies and tactics for products and services that are race- and ethnic-neutral and agnostic to sexual orientation, has become a conventional marketing strategy. However, both for-and non-profit organizations are challenged when it comes to execution. The mainstreaming of multicultural marketing has presented marketers with challenges in executing an optimal strategy to target diverse consumers, giving rise to what is known as the Total Market Approach to Multicultural Marketing. Unfortunately, marketers rely on the objective attributes of culture in multicultural consumer segmentation. Thus, multicultural consumers are more predisposed to being unfairly represented in advertising due to stereotyping. As a result, there has been an ongoing marketing practitioner debate on multicultural marketing strategy (e.g., what exactly is the Total Market Approach to multicultural marketing, the necessity of hiring a multicultural advertising agency, and the important role of diversity within the marketing organization).This manuscript answers the following marketing-relevant research question: What are the important measurable organizational factors necessary for successful U.S. multicultural marketing? The marketing literature is scant relative to multicultural marketing strategies and tactics. What has not been discussed in previous marketing literature is how an organization's visible human resource diversity—and its commitment to diversity—can be leveraged as a tacit resource when marketing to multicultural consumers. This paper proposes that an organization’s Diversity Avouchment can be a sustainable, tacit, competitive advantage to a company as it relates to multicultural marketing. Leveraging the theory of the Resourced-Based View of the Firm and practitioner multicultural marketing research, a sample of marketing practitioners was queried on their multicultural marketing practices. An empirical model identifying the meaningful and measurable constructs within an organization that can predict multicultural marketing success was developed. Findings demonstrate that through greater Diversity Avouchment and the implementation of a Total Market strategy, organizations have higher financial and strategic performance, more effective advertising, and creative latitude to develop culturally relevant marketing communications. The empirical model of multicultural marketing in this paper, sampled from marketing practitioners across various U.S. companies, will make a unique contribution to the area of marketplace diversity, contributing to what is already known about the theory of the Resourced-Based View (RBV) of the Firm.This paper can make management teams within various organizations aware that multicultural marketing is a legitimate and profitable strategy to be competitive in the marketplace. Trade organizations such as the American Marketing Association (AMA) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) will have a prescription for successful multicultural marketing. As a result, stereotypes can be mitigated, resulting in better, more effective, and more inclusive marketing communications.KeywordsMulticultural marketingDiversityEthnic marketingAdvertising