AIMM Report: Cultural Relevance Drives Purchasing Decisions

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, September 18, 2019

A breakthrough new study that proves the incremental value of genuinely reflecting culture in marketing creative was unveiled today by The Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM). The Cultural Insights Impact Measure (CIIM) was developed by AIMM in partnership with NBCUniversal and AIMM member companies. CIIM evaluates advertising creative in various categories and identifies the impact and effectiveness of cultural insights in ads and programming on increased brand relevance, ad relevance, purchase intent lift, and loyalty.

"CIIM points at the role that cultural insights play in forming deep consumer-brand connections that lead to significant value creation," said Carlos Santiago, Co-Founder, AIMM and President, Santiago Solutions Group, who led the study team. "Genuinely mirroring cultural values, in the eyes of consumers, boosts their recall, interest, net promoter scores and purchase intent. These findings present marketers with a paradigm shift as to how culture can optimize growth opportunities."

Released today, initial findings - which included a survey of 10,000 individuals across demographics including Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, LGTBQ+, the Disabled community, and Non-Hispanic White - found that culturally-relevant ads are a key driver of brand affinity and purchase intent.

Results revealed that consumers who perceive ads as culturally relevant, compared to those who do not, are:

• 1.5x more likely to learn more about the brand
• 2.8x more likely to recommend the brand to others
• 2.6x more likely to find the brand relevant to them
• 3x more likely to find the ad relevant to them
• 2.7x more likely to purchase a brand for the first time
• 50% more likely to repurchase a brand they have bought in the past

Bob Liodice, CEO, Association of National Advertisers, said, "ANA is extremely proud of AIMM and NBCU for the rollout of CIIM. One of the cornerstones of ANA's growth mission is measurement. The utilization of CIIM provides marketers and the industry with a powerful measurement tool that will enhance culturally relevant creative to engineer incremental brand and business growth."

"At NBCUniversal, we have always known the value of diversity and multicultural representation in advertising and media," said Laura Molen, President, Advertising Sales and Partnerships, NBCUniversal. "While we hear from marketers in every industry that reaching diverse and multicultural audiences is critical, we partnered with AIMM to create CIIM to show the broader media and advertising community what we already experienced to be true: culturally-relevant creative and environment drive real brand results."

"People are thirsty for culturally relevant content and we have an obligation as marketers to follow both the head and the heart - to drive growth in our businesses and bring America with us - that's why AIMM is launching the #SeeALL movement within the marketing industry," said Tony Rogers, Chair, AIMM, and Chief Member Officer, Sam's Club.

"Inclusion and authentic cultural representation are the right thing for our country; the right thing for our businesses and the right thing for the marketing community," said Michael Lacorazza, Founding Chair, AIMM, and Head of Integrated Marketing, Wells Fargo.

In the coming months, AIMM, in partnership with NBCUniversal, will release the full scope of the results across all consumer segments. To make the findings actionable for marketers, CIIM will also be developing a baseline, norms for industry, segments, and individual CIIM™ scores available for creative assets provided by advertisers. In 2020, the study will provide learnings on how culture impacts ROI. CIIM will serve as an actionable tool in guiding marketers, advertisers and the entertainment industry on how to best reflect, understand and respect all consumers in order to drive profit and growth.