Cultural Fluency: It's Time to Take Multicultural to the Mainstream

Cultural Fluency is an innovative marketing approach that helps brands connect with a wide range of culturally distinct segments that make up modern mainstream.

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April 5, 2023
David Evans – Chief Insights Officer

It breaks the traditional marketing trade-off between niche and mainstream marketing by finding new ways to activate using culturally-specific insight to accelerate broad success. 

Watch this short video to learn more about how you can leverage
Cultural Fluency to achieve the halo effect. 

Break the Trade-off Between Strength of Resonance and Appeal

Recent research shows that most marketing organizations have not yet caught up with this marketing opportunity. Despite the vast amount of advertising spend, only 37% of consumers think advertisers have “done their research” in authentically representing diverse consumers.  

Leading brands are making Cultural Fluency a top priority from the outset, they define mainstream as diverse, and apply diverse-led insights at the core of marketing plans. Moreover, the most successful brands commit to making data and analytics an ongoing part of how they understand their diverse audiences, rather than relying on episodic (and quickly dated) research or gut-and-instinct driven decisions.  They ensure every marketing plan starts with insights from diverse segments.

In times of tightening budgets, these brands get more out of marketing spend by squaring the circle to create targeted marketing that can be used with mainstream audiences.  They do this by applying cultural insights specific to one demographic target in ways that resonate compassionately with the deeply human concerns that connect us all, a phenomenon we call the “halo effect.”

Cultural Fluency accelerates growth. Grounding representation in cultural specifics for one group that nonetheless work across many segments helps brands achieve higher marketing ROI, higher loyalty, and more rewarding performance. 

Brands can’t win with a mentality of that diverse marketing is incremental to mainstream strategy. Instead, winners make cultural fluency the currency for everything they do.

Collage Group was founded on the mission to help corporations unleash the power of culture to drive brand growth. We’re partnered with more than 300 iconic American brands on their journey to Cultural Fluency. Our always-on stream of cultural intelligence offers members access to the largest database of diverse consumer insights and industry-leading subject matter experts available. Contact us at the form below to learn more about how you can gain access to proprietary data, insights, tools and more.

This article was adapted from an article published on MulticulturalMarketing.com on April 4, 2023.

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David Evans

David Evans

David serves as the Chief Insights Officer responsible for all syndicated content and thought leadership. He is passionate about leading the teams that reveal insights into consumers that can transform the fortunes of our members, make these actionable in our products and experience, and build great places to work. Before joining Collage Group in 2018, David served in a variety of senior roles in data, analytics and syndicated research organizations, including Cushman & Wakefield as Strategic Advisor, CoStar Group as Vice President of Research, and the White House where he founded the Office of Executive Councils in 2011. From 1998 to 2009, he worked at the Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner), serving ultimately as Chief Researcher for a $100 million division covering eight major business units. David holds a Diploma (M.Arch equivalent) from the Architectural Association in London and an M.B.A. from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Before pursuing a business career, David worked as an architect in the UK, France and Germany, and published and exhibited widely. David was born in London to American and Canadian parents. He lives in Bethesda with his wife Juliette Searight and younger Generation Alpha daughter, while avidly following his older Generation Z daughter’s journey into adulthood in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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