Nearly a quarter of Australians (six million) speak a language other than English at home, but multicultural communities are often ignored in media plans or only considered during certain cultural moments each year.
Santosh Murthy, the managing director of Identity Communications, has urged Australian marketers to include multicultural media as part of a conventional mass marketing campaign.
He told B&T there is a growing appetite for brands to reach multicultural communities, but few understand the best way to go about it, or are daunted by the task.
“Five years ago, organisations would look at multicultural marketing as one off events around religious or cultural events, but today about a third of our clients are looking to reach multicultural audiences consistently and authentically,” Murthy said.
“The problem they face is two-fold. Firstly, many are unaware of the potential size of multicultural audiences out there and that can be reached effectively via specialist multicultural media outlets. The second challenge is that a lot of these specialist media companies do not have the data and audience understanding, as well as the ability to measure the success of campaigns.”
The event, which will be held on 4 March, looks at how brands and organisations can engage with Australia’s rapidly evolving multicultural demographics, as well as how brands are measuring success.
Media outlets and brands that will be discussing these issues include:
- Santosh Murthy, managing director, Identity Communications
- Amanda Nakad, marketing director, McDonald’s Australia
- Yasmina Pinto, head of brand, AGL Energy
- Angelo Poli, head of sales, The Media Shop
- Vicki Richardson, chief commercial officer, New Age Media Group
- Deric Wong, global chief business officer, EternityX
B&T’s Arvind Hickman will be moderating a panel discussion, along with Murthy.
You can register your interest to attend here.
Murthy told B&T that he wants to introduce to the wider commercial world that the multicultural media ecosystem is expansive and nuanced, and highlight different ways brands and organisations can effectively engage with multicultural communities.
“Moving forward we want to bring the industry together and, as a whole, push for better understanding of multicultural audiences and empower the specialist media to articulate their value of what they’re doing.
Because at the moment, the audience is there and the media is there, but there’s nothing connecting the dots.
“In the past 10 years, people that speak a language other than English grew at two and a half times the rate of the general population. The fact is, Australia is an extremely culturally cohesive country and for many brands,engaging with these audiences organically and authentically will result in significantly improving marketing outcomes.”
Register your interest to attend Inclusivity with Impact – Multicultural Media in 2025.
