3 New Principles to Follow when Multicultural Marketing

Multicultural marketing can feel like a minefield when you’re starting out. However, if you keep the following principles in mind, you’ll avoid many of the common pitfalls and set yourself up for creating work that genuinely resonates.

Start with understanding, not assumptions

In many areas of marketing, it’s possible to rely on assumptions built from years of experience working with a particular audience. Research is often treated as a useful addition rather than a necessity. That approach doesn’t work in multicultural marketing. If you want to create something that truly connects with an ethnic audience, understanding, research and evidence must come first. Assumptions can quickly lead to stereotypes, and stereotypes are often easy for audiences to spot.

One concept worth keeping front of mind throughout the entire process is intersectionality. You’ve probably heard the term before. It refers to the fact that people’s experiences are shaped by multiple aspects of their identity, including ethnicity, generation, gender, sexuality, socio-economic background and more.

No community is a monolith. Failing to recognise these nuances can result in overgeneralisations that audiences will see straight through.

A great example of this came from the privilege of working with DKMS on their Aunties Campaign. During our initial research, we discovered that the campaign’s two key audiences- young South Asians and young Black Afro-Caribbeans, faced very different influences when making decisions about their health. While both groups required tailored engagement, the motivations and pressures shaping their choices were different.

Among South Asian audiences, there was a strong desire to make older generations proud, which often led family perceptions to play a significant role in personal decision-making. For young Black Afro-Caribbean audiences, there was a different kind of social pressure, driven by expectations around how they should behave and present themselves within their communities.

Recognising these nuances was essential. A single message wouldn’t resonate equally with both groups or the wider population, so our approach needed to reflect the unique experiences, motivations and cultural dynamics of each audience. You can find the full case study here.

Look inward before looking outward

Before developing your campaign, ask yourself whether it fits naturally with your brand.

If it doesn’t, are you willing to make a long-term commitment to ensure it does? Are you genuinely putting these communities at the heart of your approach, or are you simply reacting to a cultural moment, awareness month or trending conversation?

The most important question is a simple one: Are we being genuine?

Audiences are highly attuned to authenticity. If your brand suddenly appears to champion a cause or community that it has previously shown little interest in, people are likely to view the effort as opportunistic rather than meaningful. When multicultural marketing feels performative, it can damage trust rather than build it. Authenticity, consistency and long-term commitment matter far more than simply showing up at the right moment.

An incredible piece of work that brings this point to the forefront is by the National Trust as part of their Black History Month, they launched their Everyone Welcome Programme. The aim of which was to create and change their spaces and properties to make them accessible for everyone, forever. The spaces and properties in question? Raising awareness for the diverse and inclusive history found within the UK. So what we had here was an organisation looking to make a long-term concerted effort to reach and connect with these communities, making the campaign during Black History Month seem well positioned and authentic to their wider business objectives. You can check out the National Trust case study here.

Consider the channel as carefully as the message

Just as ethnic communities are not all the same, neither are their media habits.

Different groups engage with different platforms, apps, publishers and creators. Understanding where your audience spends their time is just as important as understanding what you want to say to them. After all, even the strongest message will have little impact if it never reaches the people it’s intended for. Meeting audiences where they are, in the channels they trust and use most, is often what transforms a good multicultural campaign into a great one.

Ding is a great example of why channel selection matters just as much as the message itself. Their goal was to raise awareness of their mobile top-up service among first-generation South Asian audiences in the UK, with a particular focus on Pakistani, Afghan and Bangladeshi communities.

To ensure we were reaching the right people, we analysed a range of audience data and proprietary research to understand where these communities were most engaged. Rather than relying solely on mainstream channels, we identified a mix of South Asian television networks, community events (which often play a more influential role within these audiences) and trusted micro-influencers from each community.

While these influencers offered smaller reach than larger creators, their connection and credibility with their audiences delivered far greater impact, helping us engage people in a way that felt authentic and relevant. You can check out the full Ding case study here.