A Journey into the UnknownTaking on the Challenges of Researching Cultural Diversity
15th February, 2012
Culture Watch and Future Foundation have embarked on a research- based project to explore cultural diversity and have found that both the conceptual and practical challenges are significant. Navigating a path to new insights means taking a fresh look at the research tools available and re-thinking conventional approaches to sample specification and methodology. The outlook is intriguing….
For over twenty years as a brand strategist I have been a devoted user of market research – of all kinds – as an invaluable tool, source of inspiration, reality check and reassurance. I have enjoyed the challenges of specification and design, the process and the outputs. But now I am obsessed, not by what it can offer now, but by the potential that it offers to provide new and fascinating insights into a whole new world – of how consumers from diverse cultural backgrounds engage with brands, advertising, marketing and media. And beyond this, how marketing and advertising professionals can use this information to think smarter and unlock value in their brands and communications. The scale of the opportunity
There are more than seven million people in the UK who were born elsewhere – they represent over 14% of the workforce, earn in excess of £137 billion and spend perhaps two-thirds of this on consumer goods – a sizeable audience by any reckoning. When I first came to consider the opportunity for developing marketing strategies for some of these consumers I was struck by how little data existed – not only in terms of attitudinal and behavioural data, but also in the more functional areas of media consumption and consumer spending. My enquiries of existing statistical sources were unhelpful and beyond this the research was fragmented and incoherent - and so I began my journey to explore the cultural landscape of the UK.
A question of definition - ethnicity versus culture
It is interesting to consider the reasons why the data on diverse cultural groups is not available. The overriding reason is that of the conventions of statistical collection – the UK census, and therefore centralized government surveys, use the standardised Black and Mixed ethnic classifications – which allow respondent to elect their ethnicity according to broad categories. This classification in turn determines how all other data is analysed. But at best ethnicity is a blunt tool. How your cultural background affects your behaviour as a consumer is not determined by your ethnicity, but by your specific cultural background. For example, it is self-evident that the ‘Black’ category covers an extraordinary spread of cultures from Caribbean to African and within these broad regional definitions there are clearly great differences in attitudes which affect consumer behaviour.
Even these broad classifications around ethnicity are complex to consider in terms of brand and marketing strategy or media targeting – and to take the complexity beyond these levels to individual cultural groups can seem daunting to say the least.
A fragmented picture - small scale and niche
The issues around classification and complexity have been compounded by the scale and scope of current players in this market – typically small, culture specific organisations reliant on small budgets for niche marketing and niche research. As a result there is virtually no attitudinal or behavioural information of any scale and a fragmented picture of media consumption – of little use to major brand owners.
A sizeable opportunity, overlooked
But if the audiences are so sizeable, and in a marketing environment where incremental share gains are hard to make, why have mainstream brand owners with the means and vision to take on new challenges failed to do so? In conversation with brand owners it seems that many are aware that they ‘should’ be looking at these audiences and ‘should’ be considering how their brands engage with them – but most are not. They see the issues around these audiences as low priority, small groups, difficult to target and not likely to provide a return on the investment required to explore and understand them – not to mention include them in marketing activities.
This lack of information is of concern to other organisations. The IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) has been a supporter of Culture Watch from its inception as Founding Partners. They see the issue as of concern to their members both in addressing the issues around diversity within the advertising and communications industry and in the portrayal of cultural diversity in advertising and communications. Future Foundation, a leading trends business, also expressed interest in this area as one of relevance in their global trends work and we are now undertaking a joint venture to execute the first survey.
A new vision for engaging with cultural diversity
Culture Watch and Future Foundation assert that brand marketers ignore these consumers at their peril. However, the current thinking needs to be turned on its head – engaging with these audiences is not about fragmentation and niche marketing, it is about understanding how mainstream brands with mainstream propositions and marketing strategies can work harder and smarter to include diverse consumers in their brand franchise.
At its simplest, this may be about targeting messages through different media or communications channels, whilst at a higher level it may be about identifying specific groups where the brand promise is specifically relevant and targeting them for share gain. It seems simple – the outstanding task is to find out who they are, how they behave and think and consider their engagement with brands. This is where it becomes more complex and where the Culture Watch journey began. The research challenge
At present in the UK it is not possible to go to a major research organisation and ask for a representative sample of consumers from specific cultural groups – because, at best, samples are constructed in line with the conventional reporting on ethnicity. For our first survey we set out to recruit representative of Indian, Pakistani, Polish and Chinese consumers. These groups were chosen to represent the largest and most interesting individual cultural groups for an initial survey – there are obviously others, which we want to look at in later waves – but you have to start somewhere!
Our preference was to carry out the survey online – the way the industry is moving and generally the most cost efficient method. But this has proved not to be possible - respondents from diverse cultural backgrounds do not participate in sufficient numbers on the survey panels that are currently available and the cost of recruiting them is prohibitive. Having considered the options – and with the experience of conducting a pilot study with the Polish community by telephone interview firmly behind us - we have arrived at a mixed methodology.
Smart Strategic Insight to Cultural Diversity – a consortium survey in collaboration with Future Foundation – will use qualitative groups to inform the development of a questionnaire for quantitative face-to-face research. This data will be supplemented by an online booster sample for the Indian community, where the numbers available through panel providers are sufficient and will allow us to compare the findings. In addition a ‘nationally representative’ benchmark survey will be carried out to provide points of comparison so that we can identify divergence from the population as a whole. Once data collection is complete, we will use qualitative methods to interrogate and confirm our findings.
Arriving at this solution to the methodology conundrum has been a challenge: without a coherent and credible sample of consumers from these groups how can we hope to deliver coherent and credible results?
Future challenges And so the journey begins – we are now recruiting our first consortium of brand owners and organisations to participate and contribute to the project and by May 2012 hope to have our first results. There is no doubt in my mind that the challenges will continue and the interest grow as we discuss the challenges with our consortium members. With luck and a following wind we will gain real marketing-focused insights to these fascinating and potentially valuable consumers.
What started as a casual interest has become a consuming obsession, but one with such tantalizing potential – a challenging journey worth taking. And one I am pleased to be taking with the support of Future Foundation and the IPA.
Kate Wilson
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