The age-old expression “May you live in interesting times,” seems especially prescient given the events of the past few days and months. At IAB, our role of bringing together publishers, tech enablers, brands, and buyers, large and small, to discuss ways of reducing friction in the marketplace, seems especially important given the realities of a rapidly shifting media landscape. While interactive advertising, publishing, and media are the core focus at IAB, the reality is, advertising is by its very nature, a conversation with consumers of varying perspectives and world views, which marketers must understand in order to be and stay relevant with their audiences.
With a goal of helping provide marketers and publishers with insights and perspective on the diverse cultures and world views that are the foundation of a shared American identity and society, the IAB Multicultural Council met recently to reassess and reinvigorate its mission of promoting the vibrancy, strength, and growth of the multicultural marketplace across the digital media landscape.
In his opening address at the council’s Q4 planning meeting, Diego Antista, U.S. Multicultural Agency Head at Google, and Co-Chair of the IAB Multicultural Council, asked the IAB community and the media industry as a whole to stand together and speak out on the importance of diversity as a core value on which America was built.
“Today more than ever as the IAB Multicultural Council, we should stand together to raise our voice and presence to ensure the Multicultural communities of this country are heard, valued, and included” – Diego Antista, U.S. Multicultural Agency Head, Google
The group agreed as a next step to launch a working group, focused on the creation of a “Comprehensive Guide to Multicultural Digital Marketing.” The compilation will serve as a reference for all things multicultural in the digital advertising space, supporting core values of diversity and inclusion while providing best practices and guidance for the development of more relevant marketing and communications. In its initial phase, the group will collaborate on a comprehensive ‘table of contents,’ providing a web-based document framework that will enable multiple contributors to consolidate and highlight existing reports/guidelines/research/one-sheets/primers already published by IAB or the IAB Multicultural Council, while ensuring that the identified documents remain updated, relevant, and current.
The group will then identify owners by areas of expertise and interest to work on various sections or to partner with groups within the IAB. This collaborative approach will help bring a multicultural perspective to various digital media work streams. The guide will be updated by the group’s members on a continuous basis and will provide source material for marketers seeking to understand how best to market to and with diverse communities and their members who identify with a particular culture, ethnicity, gender, or identity.
For a listing of the members of the Multicultural Council, visit here. For information on how to get involved, contact IAB staff liaison, Val Baron, [email protected].