Editor’s note: Mario X. Carrasco is co-founder and principal of ThinkNow, a market research agency based in Burbank, Calif.

The sample industry is arguably the most influential in the broader market research, marketing and advertising ecosystem. By sampling segments of a population, we can gather insights about the values, motivations and preferences of a given audience to construct audience personas that mimic the target consumers’ purchase behaviors as they navigate the buyer’s journey. That data drives decisions across Fortune 1000 companies, public policy and political polling, making it invaluable to these institutions' go-to market strategy. 

Ensuring the accuracy of sample data is critical.

But in recent years, more than a few cultural faux pas have cropped up in marketing and advertising campaigns. Brands like H&M, for example, have rolled out new clothing lines, only to retract them hours later for mistakenly including racial epithets in their packaging and promotion. Dodge Ram truck’s 2018 Super Bowl ad drew swift criticism for using a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speech to sell trucks. The year before that was the Pepsi and Kendall Jenner fiasco. 

This summer, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, many brands received public backlash for trumpeting messages of unity while failing to acknowledge America’s history of poor race relations or their failures to address inequities within their own firms. All these incidents have eroded consumer confidence in advertising, giving rise to skepticism and disillusionment. 

Passing blame

Market researchers make many assumptions about why these campaigns failed to resonate with their intended audiences, or worse, managed to offend them. Most prevalent among these assumptions is the brands’ failure to conduct proper market research before launching the campaigns. Yet, that is not necessarily the case. Many times, the issue is the lack of representativeness in the sample frame itself. Representative samples are reflective of the population being surveyed. So, including the ethnicities within the sample as they exist in the general population is essential to ensuring the sample’s accuracy and giving everyone a voice at the table. 

But, 40% of the U.S. population is often left out of the conversation. Multicultural consumers are poised to become the majority in the United States by 2050. However, the online sample industry has made little to no changes to accommodate these demographics in the online sample process. 

Instead, online sample providers continually decry the difficulty of finding quality multicultural respondents. They struggle to produce survey instruments that include multicultural perspectives. As a result, the sample industry fails to provide holistic data to clients, which leads to failed behavioral predictions or, worse, culturally offensive marketing messages, as we’ve seen repeatedly over the last few years. Despite the backlash, few have taken meaningful steps to address these systemic issues. 

Remember the ads mentioned above? Research may have been done. It was just incomplete.

Then there’s the matter of budget. Many times when choosing online sample projects, hard to reach multicultural quotas are cut first. This shuts out multicultural audiences' opinions and leads to a less representative sample, opening clients up to repeat faux pas. While these surveys are often underfunded, simple shifts in resource allocation can improve multicultural data collection and attract and retain more diverse respondents.

Diversity and inclusion in sample

So, how can sample providers enhance multicultural sample and promote diversity and inclusion?

  1. Include multicultural developers in the survey development and design process. The online sample industry was created mainly by white men. Consequently, the majority of panels are designed to attract white respondents. By diversifying research and design teams, sample providers can organically eliminate survey bias by including more culturally relevant perspectives that encourage ethnic participation.   
  2. Translate and transcreate sample questions to speak to cultural nuances in multicultural communities. Simple translations of sample questions often fail to address the meaning of certain words and phrases in different languages. Meaning differs across cultures and dictates the type of incentive, messaging and online experiences of multicultural consumers. Thus teaming up with a quality translation partner can help sample providers navigate linguistic challenges and yield higher multicultural response rates.
  3. Recruit where multicultural respondents are naturally active and engaged. Many of the recruitment methods online sample providers use pull from websites that cater to white audiences. To encourage multicultural participation, sample providers need to expand the type of websites and digital channels they source to include places where multicultural consumers are already active. This will help spark meaningful engagement with these audiences.
  4. Expand survey accessibility to mobile formats to accommodate mobile-first ethnic audiences. Multicultural audiences over-index in mobile-only households. Yet much of the sample industry is built on desktop surveys and experiences. Without access to a home computer or tablet, sample providers miss prime opportunities to engage these audiences. Going forward, the online sample industry must optimize surveys for mobile users to accommodate multicultural consumer digital habits.

Following these steps, the online sample industry can meet growing demands for robust multicultural insights and champion diversity and inclusion. At the micro level, project managers can make an impact by educating clients on the importance of ensuring multicultural quotas are met.