Editor’s note: In conjunction with his BOSS Academy Radio podcast, Paul Kirch, CEO of Actus Sales Intelligence, a Fort Worth, Texas, business and sales consulting agency, is interviewing authors, marketers and marketing researchers on a wide range of topics. By special arrangement, we’ll periodically feature edited recaps in the e-newsletter including portions of the conversations that touch on research-related topics.
To effectively engage with multicultural consumer segments, it is often up to researchers to recognize and focus on differences, something that Pepper Miller, president of Chicago-based marketing strategy company, the Hunter-Miller Group, believes many researchers shy away from when it comes to the African-American consumer segment. Without this ability to find and embrace segment differences, researchers and marketers are missing out on the opportunity to show consistent relevance with multicultural consumers.
In an interview with Paul Kirch for BOSS Academy Radio, Miller said she believes this challenge stems from society’s overall sensitivity toward pointing out differences, which is linked to black America’s history of slavery and post-slavery discrimination. Miller discussed the importance of pinpointing differences and using them to effectively design and conduct research – and ultimately market products and messages to the African-American consumer segment. Miller believes that researchers who are shaping techniques and multicultural marketing must focus on changing the conversation to represent, engage and include black America to collect relevant stories and quality consumer data.
Paul Kirch: You have talked to a lot of corporate organizations and companies from a consulting standpoint about the idea of race and how [MR] is missing the mark when representing individuals …
Pepper Miller: For the most part, when we hear the word multicultural, it mostly encompasses the Hispanic, the Latino segments. There's a lot of dynamic growth with the Hispanic market and importantly, that segment speaks a different language. Language has become the cultural identifier and because African-Americans – which is a segment that I primarily focus on – speak English primarily, marketers tend to roll the African-American segment in with mainstream and ignore the cultural differences.
There's such sensitivity around the subject of race that it feels like we have to shy away from it …
There is a lot of pain and there's a lot of shame associated with black history so nobody wants to talk about that. Black people, many of us, or I should say some, don't want to talk about our history and definitely many from white America don't want to talk about the history. Then, society teaches us not to talk about differences because it's rude, it's impolite. People say it creates separatism.
But to your point Paul, [we have] the opportunity to celebrate the differences. When you really understand how someone is different without judging it, you have an opportunity to come closer. From a marketing standpoint and from a research standpoint, that's where the insights come from. And if you're embracing the insights, you're creating communication, marketing messages [and] advertising that are going to better connect and engage with that segment. If you're engaging with that segment, then you're bound to have loyal customers. If you do that with some consistency and some relevancy – if you have loyal customers – you should see an impact on your bottom line.
Celebrating differences and understanding ways to actually reach out and communicate properly and effectively – is it a missed opportunity across the board?
We have to have the tough conversations. When we talk about marketing and engagement, it's not about blaming people, it is [about] constantly bringing up [multicultural] insights and telling these stories. It's about being, as Mellody Hobson says, being color brave and not color-blind. You have to be brave enough to have the conversation about differences and it does take some guts to do that in a society that tells us that we shouldn't.
I think a lot of researchers don't think about that. The reason that they don't think about it is because there's still not enough people of color at the table helping design these studies.
Is market research alienating any of these groups or do you see [MR] just not driving participation?
I don't think it's alienating or limiting. I think it needs to do a better job of understanding. No market research alienates, no market research limits. What's missing is a strategic framework around market research and how we do it and what we need to do. Market research is behind and so [researchers] are not as forceful, aggressive [and] assertive in perceiving opportunities and it could be because they're behind.
There's just a whole world of opportunities that the research industry can [take] for themselves and their clients as well as for the multicultural marketing industry and I don't think they're doing enough. Not hurting, not holding back, but not seizing opportunities.
If market research is about ultimately getting to the point where the data or the results tell a story, don't we want to tell the whole story?
That's exactly it and that's what we're not doing and that's what the research industry is not doing. They hold the key, they hold the insights and they hold the opportunities for better stories, for deeper insights so you're absolutely right. That's what needs to be done. We need to be able to tell a better story about the mainstream consumers and then each one of these segments: multicultural, African-American, Native American, Latino, Asian and LGBT.
You've been invited to speak at a lot of large companies … some of these are really trying to learn more and trying to understand this model. Do you see this as something that you're bringing more awareness to? Are you seeing a change or are things slow-moving?
It's slow-moving. [There is] usually a solider or two on the inside that get it and they are trying to bring the company along and so I would have an opportunity to come in and speak and it usually goes very well. Then people get rotated off the business.
You're constantly starting over and over and over again with these companies because there [are] new groups of people that bring in this mind-set of not talking about differences… the whole idea about embracing multicultural differences has to come from the top. Those companies who really want to get it, those are the ones that do a little bit better when the CMO, or the executive VPs and the chief marketing officers, when they get it and when they want to get it.
In 2015 America, I just can't believe how little progress we've really made.
If there was one thing that you could pinpoint as a starting point for an organization that's considering going down this path of trying to focus on more of a diverse method of doing research, is there one starting point you would give them?
Research is so important.
Don't throw out the qualitative research. Most companies want big data and they want numbers but qualitative research is where you get the insights, where you hear the stories, where you have the conversations. I say, try to do both.
You can listen to the entire interview at www.bossacademy.com.