Global Majority consumers hold the power: report reveals shifting expectations for brands yet fails to hold them to account

The Consumer Equality Equation: Why Brands Should Care About Ethnicity and Why It Matters for Business Success in 2022, written by Ogilvy Consulting and GroupM, was released by WPP. It is said to be the most thorough study of the relationship between ethnicity and the consumer experience in the UK.

In this month's newsletter, I wanted to take a deeper dive into the insights and share my observations.?

Key statistics/insights?

Changing demographics?- The number of people from Global Majority groups is projected to double to almost 27% of the UK adult population by 2061.?

Disposable income?

• The disposable income of the Global Majority* group is expected to be ￡252 billion per year in 2023.?
• They thought that the total amount of money we could spend would be ￡3.06 trillion by 2031 and rise to ￡16.7 trillion by 2061.?

Representation?

• 80% believe brands have a responsibility to reflect modern Britain.?
• 82% of respondents believe brands play an important role in shaping Britain's culture?
• Trust is higher for brands that are more ethnically representative in their advertising - 79% of Global Majority respondents versus 60% for white respondents.?

Who cares about sustainability??

• 77% of respondents from Global Majority groups actively choose to buy brands with a social purpose, compared to 56% of white respondents.?
• Among consumers from Global Majority groups 71% say that brands should be in conversations about climate change and sustainability, versus 63% of white people.?

Who cares about racial equality??

• 80% of white consumers surveyed care about racial equality.?
• 92% of Global Majority groups care about racial equality.?
• Among consumers from Global Majority groups, 72% say brands should be in conversations about racial equality—the joint highest of any other issue, alongside equality for people with disabilities (QT).?
• 86% of the UK population say that “racism is a problem in the UK” (96% people from Global Majority groups and 85% of white people)?
• 84% of respondents (across all ethnicities) believe it’s important for brands to promote diversity and inclusion.?

Consumer Inequality (a noun) is defined as inequality that lies at the intersection of consumer experience and the social context.?

The commercial benefits are obvious, however...?

They outline the importance of tapping into the experiences of the Global Majority and building trust with consumers as a key to business success.??

The report highlights the shifting expectations of consumers, particularly regarding representation and customer experience, and the significant purchasing power held by Global Majority groups. This is a good thing and the work they have done over the past two years to highlight that should be commended.?

However, there were some omissions in their report.

Call it what it is

Even though they know and stress the business benefits of reducing consumer inequality, they missed addressing some of the real reasons for it.

Racism. Apathy. Bias. Discrimination.

This omission gives the impression that brands and corporations found themselves in this position by accident—maybe through a combination of unconscious bias that unfortunately led us here.?

Quantifying this 'progress'

The Consumer Equality Equation mentions progress being made in "internal organizational culture through DE&I strategies," but does not provide any details on how this progress is quantified or how it addresses issues of racism and discrimination that impact on the customer experience for example.??

If the global protests of 2020 showed us anything, it is that some groups have a unique experience of racism and discrimination that is rooted in a complexity that goes back over 400 years. The disproportionate amount of influence Black culture has and how it has been appropriated in some industries and brands, for example, does not correlate with ownership, control over how we are represented in media campaigns, or our experiences as consumers in retail stores.

A more meaningful approach could have been to overlap employee and consumer insights to see what the data shows as this way, it allows for increased accountability and responsibility for brands to tackle the root causes, rather than incentivise them to focus on the pot of gold at the end of rainbow.??

Could Ogilvy, GroupM and other industry titans be more challenging in this area? 100%.

In my Racial Equity Maturity Model explained at length in my book The Anti-Racist Organization: Dismantling Systemic Racism in the Workplace, I frequently refer to Level Four organizations as those who have public and private commitment and, as part of that, use their considerable influence to shift the practices and behaviors within their industry. that doesn’t water down the issue or imply, we arrived at this point by accident.??

But I guess this is a start and at least reinforces the mistakes brands and corporations will make if they ignore this growing demographic.?

“What you show is more important than what you say” – David Ogilvy?

For brands who do want to take responsibility for approaching this in an intentional way?

Questions for C-suite leaders, particularly marketing and brand professionals, to consider alongside the Consumer Equality Equation Report – basically covering off the angles that were missed - is the following (in no particular order):?

1. To what extent do your leadership and functional teams understand what systemic racism is, how it impacts on individuals as both employees and consumers??
2. Do you understand how your operating model, brand presence, human capital management and day-to-day decision making contributes to worsening inequality? Particularly for Black consumers, partners, suppliers and employees??
3. When you have embarked on listening exercises with Black and Global Majority consumers, have you overlaid that data and insights with the experiences of the employees internal to your brand? Where are the similarities, the overlaps, the point of difference? What does this tell you??
4. If your strategic objective includes targeting a ‘diverse’ consumer base – how are you going to do that, without addressing systemic racism internally??
5. Aside from ad campaigns, pledges, and commitments, what action have you taken to date? How much of that action is transactional versus transformational? Do your teams know the difference???
6. How is your brand perceived, right now, by this target demographic that you would like to reach? How does it differ to what or how you position your brand? If there’s misalignment, what does this tell you and are how willing and prepared are to address that??
7. Is there a positive correlation between the amount of energy and resource you are committing to going after this growing demographic and how you are supporting internal programmes and activities to dismantle and address systemic inequalities??
8. How does all of this sit with you from a leadership and a brand perspective? How far are you skipping the uncomfortable aspects of this, to get to the monetary benefits of engaging with a new consumer base??
9. The report highlights the need to recognise the complexity around ethnicity and identity – how well are your brand, customer insights and HR teams equipped to understand and respond to those differences??

The Consumer Equality Equation report is two years worth of good work, therefore along with these questions, will provide you and your teams with a powerful opportunity to make better informed decisions about your brand. You can seize these opportunities, without looking overtly opportunistic, exploitative, and performative.

For individuals who want to exercise more of their consumer power?

However, whilst brands sit and ideate over how to ensure they stay relevant to changing consumer demographics, what do we do in the meantime???

Where does the impetus and the pressure come from if industry players opt out of using the full scale of their influence through fear of alienating potential customers or being perceived as being ‘too woke’???

It’s with us. As consumers.?

Our power as consumers is consolidating in ways we haven’t seen before. With increased access to information about the internal practices that underpin external brand narratives, it’s become easier to critically evaluate their stance (or lack thereof) on issues that are important to us.??

We can be more demanding and sceptical about how brands are delivering on their promises.?

While we can (im)patiently wait for brands to understand how our needs have changed, there are glimmers of hope in the form of people in our community who are actively working on innovative and fair products and services to address this balance.?

I saw Tommy Johnson, the Chief Education Officer of Made With Black Culture, in Cannes last June for the International Creativity Festival, and what he had to say blew me away, so much so that I had no shame in sliding into his DMs to learn more. His organization exists to protect Black culture from commercial exploitation, appropriation, and theft.?

When you hear him speak, you’ll know exactly what I mean and because I’m good like that, Tommy is a keynote speaker at the Advancing Racial Equity Conference happening in the UK next month.?

He’ll be talking about what we can do as consumers to ensure that where Black culture is used for commercial gain by individuals outside of our communities, there is a more ethnical agreement in place to consume and appreciate, rather than extract and appropriate.?

And we also have a segment dedicated to the “Power of Brands” where you’ll also hear from:?

• Buddhist, Dalit, writer, CEO of Gaysians, former Contributing Editor at Gay Times and vital spokesperson for South Asian LGBTQ+ Reeta Loi who has worked with brands for over 23 years helping them to get their proverbial together?
• Nick Croucher, Partner at HR executive search firm Frazer Jones who can speak firsthand about how they have supported individuals like me and start-ups that are making a difference; and????
• Elfried Samba, Chief Community Officer at IOCONIC, CEO of Butterly 3ffect and former Head of Social Content at Gymshark?

As I like to remind folks every now and again, the murder of George Floyd in 2020, was not a brand call-to-action for tokenism, generic D&I initiatives targeted at everyone but Black people, or to exploit opportunities to make more money from consumers you have historically ignored and excluded.??

Yes, we may spend no matter what, but if brands want to take advantage of the business opportunities that come from acting on the insights found in this report, they should follow different rules.

2023 calls for us to have higher expectations for how brands engage with communities they don’t understand. And lower tolerance levels for window dressing.?

You can't love Black culture without at least respecting Black people and playing an active role in dismantling systemic racism

Ps *The report (page 11) asserted that there were no good alternatives to BAME (or Minority Ethnic which was used instead), so I took the liberty of using Global Majority within this article.??

A phrase coined by Rosemary Campbell-Stephens to refer to people who are Black, Brown, dual-heritage, Indigenous to the global south and/or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’, ‘BAME’, or other terms use to define all non-white people that normalise white and consider everyone else as ‘diverse’.?

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In addressing systemic racism in the workplace, accomplished HR strategist Shereen Daniels pulls no punches.???

A gifted speaker, educator and entrepreneur, her direct, yet compassionate approach have seen her twice recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice and former winner of HR Magazine's Most Influential Thinker.??

As the bestselling author of The Anti-Racist Organization: Dismantling Systemic Racism in the Workplace (Wiley, 2022), Managing Director of anti-racism advisory firm HR rewired, Chair of her charitable foundation The African Diaspora Economic Inclusion Foundation and Senior Advisor to Lansons, Shereen is called upon as the go-to personality on both sides of the Atlantic to support executive board and senior HR leadership teams tackle the complex, nuanced and often uncomfortable dialogue surrounding racism in the workplace.????