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Case Study Toyota’s Multicultural Ad Campaign—Same Car, But Different Ads for Different Ethnic Groups
As you learned in this chapter, the growing diversity of the U.S. population is a major driver of change and is an important consideration for marketing strategists. Our membership in ethnic subcultures often guides our consumption choices, and may affect the products companies offer, where they are sold, and how promotional messages are communicated. Toyota has been one of the leaders in recognizing this diversity as we can see in the multicultural ad campaign for its popular Camry automobile.
Major companies have employed ethnically targeted marketing for many years, with companies taking different approaches to try to reach consumers in various groups. Some have created separate campaigns, ads, slogans, and product packaging related to the target ethnic group, referred to as “multicultural marketing.” Other companies have chosen a “total marketing” approach with ads that try to appeal to a wide variety of ethnic market segments at the same time. Toyota’s Camry campaign combines both approaches.
In the ad called “Strut,” an African-American man orders pizza and chooses pickup over delivery so that he can enjoy driving his Camry. The music track is hip-hop and the image of a strutting peacock flashes by before showing the driver’s new red Camry. “What we found with African-Americans is style really comes to the forefront in how we look at vehicles,” said Lewis Williams, of ad agency Burrell. “We see automobiles as extensions of ourselves, so style is really important.” Vicki Bolton of the agency noted that research added the idea of “strutting” because “we wanted people to take notice of us.”
For the ad targeted toward Asian-Americans, Toyota wanted to show that driving a Camry could bring out the more emotional and affectionate side of a father who is driving his daughter home from baseball practice. “Captivating” was designed to “highlight a not-often-seen behavior [among Asian-American fathers],” said Julia Huang, chief executive of agency interTrend.
“Rebellious” is the name of the ad targeted at Hispanic consumers. In it, a young man zooms down the highway and sees on the car’s display that his mother is calling his phone. After a brief hesitation, he decides to decline the call, breaking into a smile as he enjoys the drive. This is a bold move, given the strong role that family (and particularly mothers) play in Hispanic culture. The ad is in Spanish and, in developing it, the creators considered how long the targeted viewers had been in the U.S., if they were born here, which language they speak, and the culture they feel more connected to.
A final ad, “Thrill,” adopts the total marketing approach. It features a mix of white and non-white actors who temporarily forget about their daily duties as they experience unworried joyrides in a Camry until their phones ring, prompting them to get back to their responsibilities. In each scenario, the car races down the road and the drivers’ faces brighten as they speed on to the soundtrack of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” The commercial was designed to appeal to a market comprised of many cultures, what agency Saatchi & Saatchi calls the “the transcultural mainstream.”
Regardless of which of the ads best represents your cultural experience, you may find them either attractive or offensive. A frequent criticism of ethnically targeted advertising is that it portrays stereotypes (for example, playing hip-hop when the African-American drives). Marketing differently based on ethnicity could also suggest that Toyota is segregating its consumers based on race and ethnicity. Advocates of a “total marketing” approach point out that young consumers may not identify with just one segment. Others wonder if specialized ads like Toyota’s are needed at all, given the increased diversity of the U.S. population.
To be sensitive to these issues, Toyota hired different ad agencies with expertise in communicating with the different ethnic groups it targets. Each of these agencies employs people who are members of the targeted group. Vicki Bolton of the Burrell agency that created the African-American- focused ad said that while millennials may have broader social circles, ” . . . when they come home at the end of the day, they still want to see messaging with people that are reflective of them.” Regarding the Asian-American ad messaging, Julia Huang, of interTrend argues that characterizing that group as placing a priority on family and education is ” . . . not really a stereotype—it really is a core value that is embraced.” The characters in the Hispanic-American ads ” . . . are everyday people who portray different situations based on strong Hispanic insights . . . ,” according to the Conill agency that developed them.
Venturing into multicultural advertising risks offending some consumers, but offers the opportunity to communicate more effectively with others for whom a culturally sensitive message is appealing. “People like to see people of all ethnicities in what they’re seeing because that’s the life they’re living in most of the U.S. today,” said Jack Hollis, group vice president and general manager of the Toyota brand, but, he added, “if a person of any group is looking for communication that is like them, that looks like them specifically, the good news is because of the breadth of something like a Camry campaign, they can find it.” The process, however, can be tricky. Mark Turner, chief strategy officer of Toyota’s agency Saatchi & Saatchi sums it up by saying that culture ” . . . is a very complicated and hard thing to understand and get right.” Consumers across the cultural spectrum will decide if Toyota and its ad agency partners have been effective in their efforts to appeal to all American automobile shoppers.
Source: Solomon, Michael R. Consumer Behavior. Available from: VitalSource Bookshelf, (13th Edition). Pearson Education (US), 2019.