The Cultural Inclusion Accelerator, in partnership with ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM), announced today America’s most culturally inclusive brands of 2022 after extensive research through its industry-leading measurement methodology Cultural Insights Impact Measure™ (CIIM™) – a metric that identifies the impact and effectiveness of cultural insights in ads and programming and the potential to affect sales lift by 66% in CPG and retail companies, and 55% in auto showroom traffic.
Brands with the highest cultural inclusivity across all segments, noted as best-in-culture, included Gatorade, Lysol and Indeed. The top brands included key brands across retailers, CPG, automotive, fast-food, and financial and technology services.
“At a time when brands are looking to maximize their growth, connecting through culture should be primordial. Research proves that culture is responsible for 66% of a campaign’s success in the CPG category and 55% in the auto category. Minimizing culture is equal to minimizing the opportunity for growth,” said Bob Liodice, CEO of the ANA.
“We are proud to be recognized for our work that speaks authentically and powerfully to all audiences,” said William White, Chief Marketing Officer, Walmart U.S. “It’s imperative for every brand, regardless of industry, to lean into cultural insights, like the ones provided by CIIM™, that can better inform marketing and creative strategies that resonate with diverse consumers and encourage them to become brand loyalists.”
Cultural Inclusion Accelerator’s CIIM Best-In-Culture Brands Ranking Methodology:
CIIM™ started by reviewing Ad Age’s 2022 Leading National Advertisers rankings and Nielsen’s top spenders in diverse segments. From these lists, CIIM™ selected 100 brands to be included in the study. Throughout 2022, CIIM tested over 700 ads that aired from these 100 brands. Respondents were shown an ad followed by a series of proprietary questions to assess the ad’s cultural relevance, DEIB reflections, and subsequent ad effectiveness impact. Over 250,000 ad evaluations were collected from Asian English, Black, Hispanic English, Hispanic Bilingual, Hispanic Spanish, Indigenous, LGBTQ, People with Disabilities, and White Non-Hispanic consumers. CIIM’s final ranking was then created utilizing only multicultural and inclusive respondents for “Overall” as well as segment specific rankings. The ranking was constructed using each brand’s average CIIM, DEI, purchase intent, trust lift, brand opinion, brand recommendation, gather information on brand, and likability scores.
Brand Findings Include:
Most Culturally Inclusive Leading Brands
CIIM identified Gatorade as the most culturally inclusive brand across the overall multicultural and inclusive segment, Lysol as the best-in-ad effectiveness brand, and Ad Council as the best-in-DEIB brand all of which resonated through celebrations of culture and positive role models across segments among other cultural attributes. These brands delivered consistent high relevancy and effectiveness marks in their :15 and :30 creative while featuring universally relatable storylines with themes persistent across cultures, including equality, safety, and happiness. Gatorade’s Want From Within and Lysol’s Purpose spots were among the overall top performing ads of 2022. The ranking of the top 50 most culturally inclusive brands across all multicultural and inclusive segments is included in the image above.
“These brands are leading the charge for more inclusive marketing across the entire industry and brilliantly showcasing the power of authentic cultural representation and DEIB reflections.” says Carlos Santiago, AIMM Co-Founder and Co-Architect of CIIM™. “We see a clear and measurable attribution to ad effectiveness, sales and trust, which further proves the benefit of creating content that can strongly resonate with the growth segments of our marketplace whether in mass market or targeted efforts.”
Among the top brands that performed well with a specific diverse and inclusive segment, CIIM discovered that the best performing ads casted universally appealing familial dynamics, with a unique approach to family in their storylines, which enabled connection across multicultural segments. The top 5 culturally inclusive brands by segment are (in order):
Asian English Media Viewers: McDonald’s, Disney, Google, Colgate, Microsoft
Black: Target, Walmart, Champion, Ad Council, Gatorade
Hispanic English Media Viewers: Colgate, Ulta Beauty, Neutrogena, Gatorade, Ad Council
Hispanic Spanish Media Viewers: Walmart, The Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Lysol, Chevrolet
LGBTQ: Indeed, MasterCard, Gatorade, Microsoft, McDonald’s
People With Disabilities: Gatorade, MasterCard, AARP, Colgate, Microsoft
Key findings include:
Cultural Relevance Drives Sales Lift
CIIM™ attribution studies in partnership with the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) have uncovered that cultural relevance explains 66% of campaigns’ sales lift in CPG and Retail categories. Similarly, in the automotive sector, cultural relevance explains 55% of the lift in showroom visits, proving that higher priced durable goods purchases are also greatly impacted by marketing efforts enriched by cultural authenticity. Also, CIIM™ generates a lift of 190% in purchase intent.
Consumers Increased Expectations Around DEI
The link to sales also has a halo effect on consumer desire for brands to openly communicate its perspectives on DEI in brand marketing. 83% of multicultural & inclusive consumers expect brands to take public stances on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in their ads. And, CIIM™ has found that DEIB reflections generate lifts of 440% in brand trust.
