Salvador Maldonado is a multicultural media and marketing manager within Google’s Media Lab, the team that plans, buys, runs, and assesses media on behalf of Google’s brands. He focuses on making those media campaigns more inclusive.
A few years ago, we had a realisation at Google: Despite building products for everyone, our brand marketing didn’t always reflect it. We’ve written about the ways we evolved our creative process to make sure all audiences can see themselves represented in our campaigns.
But inclusive marketing goes beyond creative representation. Another piece that’s been critical to our approach is inclusive media planning and buying. In 2019, we created a multicultural media team dedicated to making sure that our advertising campaigns have inclusive reach.
In the U.S., for example, we’ve focused on reaching and engaging Black and Latinx audiences. This meant committing 15% of Google’s top-tier brand campaign spend to culturally relevant media in 2019. By the fourth quarter of 2020, we surpassed this goal, reaching 18%. We’ve also evolved our media planning processes to be more inclusive for these communities, by implementing the principles recently shared in Google’s inclusive marketing toolkit, All In.
In 2019, we created a multicultural media team dedicated to making sure that our campaigns have inclusive reach.
Along the way, we’ve learned a lot. By no means do we have it all figured out, but in the spirit of helping other advertisers deliver more inclusive work, I wanted to share what we’ve seen to be successful in our own inclusive campaigns so far. Here are four helpful tips.
1. Reach audiences where they are
As the adage goes, to reach people, you need to be where they are. So after committing to spend more on media that reaches Black and Latinx audiences in the U.S., we began investing in channels that reach these audiences at scale.
YouTube was a starting point to drive reach, as Black and Latinx viewers are highly engaged on the platform. From there, we expanded our multicultural buys to include more businesses and digital communities owned by underrepresented groups.
One such publisher was Blavity, a digital media network created by and for Black millennials. Together, we launched #InTheBlack, a campaign focused on helping Black-owned small businesses in the U.S. persevere during the pandemic.
We expanded our multicultural buys to include businesses and digital communities owned by underrepresented groups.
For four weeks last fall, #InTheBlack spotlighted the stories of four resilient small businesses, through influencer-hosted live-stream events that were amplified across Blavity’s platform and social channels.
2. Leverage key moments and passion points
Beyond reach, another approach that has helped us better connect with Black and Latinx consumers has been aligning our brand campaigns with cultural moments and events that these audiences love. Bespoke media buys that guarantee placement across a variety of platforms have been particularly effective at reaching people around their passion points. Media sponsorships have been too.
Last year, for example, we launched Google Search’s #TheMostSearched campaign to celebrate Black History Month. Given that the creative was relevant for Black audiences, we placed it with media moments that we know have large Black viewership, including the NAACP Image Awards hosted on BET, the NBA All-Star Game, and the Grammy Awards. Beyond generating positive social buzz, the campaign delivered a 13 percentage-point lift in brand advocacy among adults ages 35 to 49.1
Bespoke media buys that guarantee placement across a variety of platforms have been particularly effective at reaching people around their passion points.
For our Pixel brand, ongoing sponsorships have been key. Entertainment and music are highly engaged passion points for Latinx audiences in the U.S. — Hispanic adults have the highest share (69%) of time spent on audio and video2 — so we’ve sponsored the Latin Grammys for three years running, each year spotlighting an artist featured in the awards show.
Besides helping us connect with the Latinx community, our continued investment in the Latin Grammys has successfully driven equity for the Pixel 5 phone among this critical audience. In 2019, the sponsorship campaign drove a 14-point consideration lift among Hispanic adults ages 18 to 49.3 We saw identical results in 2020.4
3. Build a more inclusive user journey
As our media buys have evolved to be more inclusive, we’ve also been focused on reassessing how we show up for underrepresented audiences online. A poorly optimised user experience stifles media performance, so we’re pushing for more relevant experiences, particularly when it comes to ad creative.
One of the most impactful things we’ve done so far to improve relevance is to localise search ads and campaign landing pages for the Spanish language.
A recent test we ran for the Pixel 5 phone, for instance, compared the performance of user journeys among a Spanish-speaking audience. Some users who clicked on a Spanish-language search ad were driven to a landing page in English, whereas others were driven to a landing page in Spanish. Results showed that compared with users who clicked the ad and experienced the English landing page, users who experienced the Spanish landing page were 3X more likely to add Pixel products to their cart.
One of the most impactful things we’ve done so far to improve relevance is to localise search ads and campaign landing pages for the Spanish language.
Our user experience research also shows that when websites include a language selector, they are more discoverable and see greater usage. This is a feature we’re working to implement across product sites in the future.
4. Honour regional and local nuances
Finally, as our inclusivity commitments have increased this past year, naturally so has our dialogue around it as a global marketing team. We’ve learned it’s critically important for us to recognise — and for our strategies to reflect — that “inclusive” means different things in different places. To help honor this, we rely on regional and local markets to select their audiences for inclusion and define their own plans for reaching them. Increasingly, our teams across Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Europe, Middle East, and Africa are doing this dedicated work.
In the U.K., for example, reaching and engaging the Black community is core to inclusive marketing strategies. So to recognise and promote Black Pound Day last November, our U.K. team partnered with media company Time Out London on an all-Black digital magazine edition. It featured Black-owned businesses, restaurants, and contributors, and was guest edited by English writer and performer Ashley Walters. The team also donated 80% of the magazine’s ad space to local Black businesses.
We’ve learned it’s critically important for us to recognise — and for our strategies to reflect — that “inclusive” means different things in different places.
While we’re proud of the progress we’ve made as a marketing team this past year, we also know it represents one step forward in a much larger journey. By sharing what we’ve learned so far, we hope you’ll consider what steps your own business can take toward making your media and advertising strategies more inclusive.
