1. Top 10 Multicultural Brands in
North America
As we prepare to make 2013 the year of innovation and creativity that
pushes Multicultural Marketing to the next level, we at Komli Media
thought why not revisit the brands that have made a significant
contribution to the Multicultural Marketing Space in North America.
These are the top 10 brands, nominated by our team, that have
embraced cultural diversity, identified various ethnic groups as an
important target market and also understood the need for a more
nuanced and thoughtful marketing strategy, which keeps in mind the
cultural affinity, acculturation, cultural sensitivity and cultural
acceptability for these audiences.
These Brands are listed in no particular order and were purely chosen
by a team of internal marketing experts, for their impact on the
multicultural marketing world.
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2. 1. cDonalds
McDonalds has won many ANA’s Multicultural Excellence Advertising
awards since 2002 in Asian, African-American and Hispanic categories,
including the Grand Prize in the Radio category in 2012. It is also
amongst the top 10 digital brands in Asia.
In 2003, McDonalds started an ad campaign for Spanish-speaking
audiences resulting in a 32% increase in sales for the company, and
hasn’t looked back since. Later in 2010, McDonalds won the “Marketer
of the Year Award” at the Asian American Advertising Federation
conference for a new branding campaign that featured Michelle Wie
and was produced in Chinese, English, Korean and Taglish. The
campaign was an integrated marketing effort that included advertising,
PR and online components. Click here to view the commercial.
McDonalds has gone beyond advertising to increase engagement and
loyalty within the Asian American community by supporting key
initiatives around education and Asian festivals that touch the lives of
thousands of Asian Americans.
Source: http://premium.docstoc.com/article/91100481/Understand-and-Leverage-Multicultural-Marketing 2

3. 2.
Pepsi has won many ANA’s Multicultural Excellence Awards in various
categories including Hispanic and African American since 2002. Its latest
being an Honorable mention in 2011.
Pepsi’s first multicultural campaign was in 1948 for African Americans.
In 2009, Pepsi's "Refresh Anthem," which debuted during the Super Bowl
featured a collage of images from the '60s and today that celebrates
generations past and present, where both whites and blacks were shown
with Bob Dylan and Will.i.am taking turns singing the Dylan classic, "Forever
Young," each in his signature style. Watch Here.
Today, Javier Farfan, senior director of cultural branding for PepsiCo, is taking
a more holistic and nuanced approach in connecting with audiences within a Click to read the article by WSJ on how Pepsi
community. He does not assume that all Latinos are the same and is focused opened its door to Diversity.
on creating products and marketing campaigns that speak to the diversity
within the community.
Watch Hispanic Football fans celebrate the super bowl with Pepsi’s Familia
de Campeones.
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4. 3.
According to Autonews ,“GM's multicultural marketing
evolved from hiring a diverse group of engineers, designers
and executives starting in the late 1960s to establishing 10
affinity groups within the company, including African-
Americans, Hispanics, women, people with disabilities,
Chinese, Middle Eastern and more recently Native Americans
in 1999.”
In 2012, GM with Latin Works won the Multicultural
Excellence Award in the General Category. For Asian- Indians For Asian- Filipinos
Click here to view the Ad.
Earlier in 2005, GM won an award in the Asian American
category for the campaign “Dreams”, where it nailed the
audience’s love for great action and comic books, and more
importantly understood their aspirations. In 2007, all GM
brands spent $138.8 million in Spanish-language media,
according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, which is a considerable
uptick from an estimated $60 -$70 million GM had spent on
its Hispanic, African-American, Asian and new youth-urban ad For Hispanics For Asian- Chinese
Click to view the video
agencies in 2002.
Source: http://www.autonews.com/article/20080914/ANA09/809150475#ixzz2G4yHQvRS 4

5. 4. “Diversity is innate in everything we do across
marketing and all our departments.”
- Joycelyn David, Director of Product Marketing for Western Union Financial Services Canada
Western Union money transfer business is inherently global that
includes diverse consumers from many cultures and nationality,
which makes it imperative for its employees to understand the
communities they serve for more effective communication.
Additionally, majority of the population in Canada and US will be
represented by minority groups by 2030 and 2050 respectively. In
light of which Western Union has made significant steps towards
making ALL its marketing “Multicultural” in nature.
In 2012, Western union and New A won the multicultural excellence
award in the Asian Category.
Earlier in 2009, Western Union launched its first-ever global brand
campaign called the Yes! brand campaign. It was translated into 40
languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati,
Marathi and other South Asian languages and consisted of several
marketing elements including print, broadcast and online advertising
as well as new Point-of Sale materials. It won an award for the ¡Sí! PR
campaign for Hispanics.
Another great campaign for Asians was the 5 for 50 campaign created
by AV communication in 2011.
Source: News A Website
Source: http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/marketer-news/multicultural-marketing-the-visible-majority-48428 5

6. 5.
According to an article by Ad Age, in 2011, Walmart announced it will increase its
"At Walmart, 100% multicultural budget and make it a part of all business units to improve its multicultural
efforts. As a testament to this, Walmart was ranked as the 16th biggest advertiser in
growth [in sales] is Hispanic media with about $60 million in spends, as reported in Ad Age's Hispanic Fact Pack.
going to come from In 2012, Tony Rogers admitted this worked well for Wal-Mart.
multicultural
Some key campaigns for Walmart by Golin Harrism, multicultural ad agency, were Walmart’s
customers.” Enchanting Viewing Parties to raise awareness of its Disney Princess apparel line among
African American audience. Click here for details.
- Tony Rogers, Wal-Mart’s senior And Walmart Posada, a comprehensive traditional and social media campaign that focused
VP-brand marketing and
advertising, 2012
on starting a conversation with Walmart’s Hispanic Mom and increasing Walmart’s share-of-
voice in Hispanic media during the 2010 holiday season. Click here for details.
Wal-Mart Hispanic heritage month Wal-Mart South Asian Commercial for
commercial Canada Wal-Mart Commercial in Mandarin
Click to View
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7. 6.
In 2011, TD was the #1 bank of choice for new
Canadians and members of the Chinese, South Asian,
and African American communities, according to TD’s
market research.
Canada’s net population growth comes from
immigration at an average of 245,613 immigrants per
year, making it imperative for banks to tap this target
audience within 2 days of them landing in Canada.
Hence, TD Bank has a focused strategy on connecting
and engaging with various ethnicities to increase
referrals from family and friends when new
Canadians arrive in Canada. TD Bank runs an
integrated marketing strategy which includes a
website for new Canadians.
Leveraging its multicultural expertise and sensibility,
Watch TD’s commercial for South Indians, for Hispanics and for Chinese. TD’s entry strategy into the US market has also been
to first focus on reaching the Hispanic community
with culturally relevant advertising, as they are the
fastest growing ethnic group and also an underserved
market.
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/fp/story/2010/05/30/3084084.html#ixzz2GAMVtZ9O 7

8. 7.
In 2003, Nissan was among the honorees for the ANA
Multicultural Excellence award for the African American
segment. According to Ad Age, in 2007, Nissan spent
$35 million, a bulk of their multicultural budget, on
Hispanic advertising. They launched the Nissan Shift
campaign for Hispanics that was later extended to the
Asian American segment.
In 2010, Nissan launched the Juke. A car made for the
urban Hipster. It was the first multicultural campaign
including African Americans and Hispanic for Nissan.
Watch the case study – HERE.
In Canada, 2011 was the first time Nissan allocated a
portion of its traditional advertising budget to reach
South Asians by providing a car that meets their lifestyle
needs such as the space needed by a joint family which
includes a husband and wife, two kids and at least one
grand parent. In 2012, Nissan explored new media by
partnering with Hipcricket to create mobile advertising The infinity in “Black” was among the
campaign targeted to Hispanics. most famous campaigns in 2004. It was
among the first-ever marketing
In 2013-2014, Nissan prepares to target multicultural
millennial in the African American, Hispanic and campaign by Nissan designed to speak
Chinese segments to increase its market share among directly to African Americans.
the Multicultural Audience.
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9. 8. Comcast runs multicultural campaigns that reach 17 distinct ethnic groups in more than 20 languages, as per the
CMO site.
“Comcast has been carrying multicultural programming in the US for over 12 years,
and as our business grew, so did the need to carry additional programming, and
we branched out into even more ethnicities. Our customers speak many languages
and are from many backgrounds. It is important to ensure our employees and
products relate to our customers.”
- Natalie Rouse, Comcast's director of multicultural marketing, 2012
In 2005, Comcast won Five “Excellence in Multicultural Marketing Awards” from National Association of
Multiculturalism in Communications (NAMIC). Comcast also won ANA’s Multicultural Excellence awards in 2009
in the Hispanic segment.
Click here to watch Comcast commercial Click here to watch Comcast commercial
for South Asian for Hispanics in Spanish
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10. 9.
Hispanics and African-Americans are expected to drive 70% of
beer growth from 2000 to 2020, according to industry estimates
cited by Heineken USA. As a result, Heineken’s revival in the US
started with multicultural brands such as Sol and Tecate becoming
popular with second- and third- generation Mexican immigrants.
Heineken has experimented with new media like Facebook
applications to engage with its user base. A fine example is a TVP
called “Keep it Legendary”, which was a set of tools accessed
through a dedicated tab on the Heineken Facebook page to
maximize the experience for Hispanic soccer fans.
Get a sneak peek at the TVP
Heineken has also made drinks specifically for the Hispanic
audience such as the Tecate Michelada, a pre-mixed drink
mirroring a popular Mexican beverage of beer, lime, spices and a
hint of chili.
Heineken won ANA’s 2012 Multicultural Excellence Award for the
campaign created by The Vidal Partnership. In 2012, it also
launched campaigns with inclusion in mind. Such as the ‘Open
Your World‘ campaign, which shows a lavish party filled with
people of all colors, nationalities and cultures.
Source: http://www.aef.com/industry/news/data/2012/1215/:pf_printable 10

11. 10.
New York Life's multicultural marketing reaches many communities
including Hispanics, Indians, Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese.
In 2002, New York Life started targeting Chinese-American
audiences because they believed that even though the population
was relatively small compared to the rest of the country, the
market penetration was less than 50% for life insurance products.
Now they see high growth in these communities, specifically
Hispanic, because of high population growth and low product
penetration.
They go beyond communication to tap into these markets by
building a robust human infrastructure, getting relevant market
data, in-language resources, and culturally sensitive sales training
The ads were created and produced by New York Life's Indian to agents to deliver tailored solutions that meet the needs of the
Market Unit. In addition to the ANA recognition, these ads ethnic consumer.
received abundant praise within the Asian-Indian community.
In 2012, New York Life was recognized by the Asia Society as the
Best Company for the support of the Asian-Pacific American
Community. In 2004 and 2003, it also won the ANA Multicultural
Excellence Awards for the Asian Segment.
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12. THANK YOU, for reading !
Hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed writing about these brands.
This is brought to you by:
North America’s leading multicultural ad platform that helps
advertisers and agencies reach various ethnicities, including Asian,
Hispanic, Arabs and Latin Americans, through display, mobile, video,
social, search and data.
It is a part of Komli Media, which is headquartered in Mumbai and has
over 400 employees across 18 offices in India, Australia, New Zealand,
Southeast Asia, Middle East, North America and United Kingdom.
www.facebook.com/KomliMulticultural na.komlimulticultural@komli.com www.komli.com
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