Chuck Morrison of UniWorld has worked in multicultural marketing for more than 30 years and during that time has been on both sides of the ad agency and client sides of the fence. He has worked on a veritable who’s who of brands that include McDonald’s, DaimlerChrysler, Schlitz, P&G and many others. Morrison headed Coca-Cola’s multicultural marketing department in the late ‘80s and into the 1990s where he had responsibility for both black and Hispanic advertising budgets.
Now, as a executive vice president and general manager of UniWorld’s Detroit office, Morrison has a pedigree in multicultural marketing that very few can come close to matching. So, when he speaks on this subject, it’s usually a good idea to pay attention.
According to Morrison, the biggest shift that he has seen of late in the discipline is the replacement of African Americans by Hispanics as the primary target of multicultural marketing dollars. Morrison says that the shift has been so dramatic that, for all practical purposes, the term “multicultural marketing” has become pretty much synonymous with Hispanic marketing.
“The African American market has diminished in importance. They’ve gone back to that old ‘they speak English’ routine and they’re not as astute in their business as, I would say 25 year ago,” offers Morrison.
But it’s not all good for Hispanics either, he added. “Still corporations haven’t embraced this change in demographics, and I’m talking about blacks and Hispanics. If you look at most corporate budgets right now, I’ll bet you you won’t find more than two to three percent of the budget allocated to African Americans and Hispanics and in 2009 that’s ridiculous — the population is over 30 percent. And then a lot of them are losing market share, losing volume and they wonder what’s wrong.”
Morrison acknowledged that not all companies, including many of his clients, have been so short-sighted. He blames much of the current state of African American marketing on black executives in positions to affect policy and budgets who don’t have an historical perspective or appreciation for the gains of the past. They are more concerned with individual career advancement than taking a stand for what’s right.
