AIMM Reveals America's First Ever Most Culturally Inclusive Brands Awards

‍AIMM REVEALS AMERICA’S FIRST EVER MOST CULTURALLY INCLUSIVE BRANDS AWARDS

New Cultural Inclusion Accelerator’s CIIM™ data, in partnership with ANA’s AIMM, reveals top overall brands perceived as most culturally inclusive among Multicultural & Inclusive consumers, as well as top brands perceived by Asian, Black, Hispanic, LGBTQ, and People with Disabilities segments.

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Los Angeles, CA (February 14, 2023) - The Cultural Inclusion Accelerator, in partnership with ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM), announced today America’s most culturally inclusive brands of 2022 after extensive research through its industry-leading measurement methodology Cultural Insights Impact Measure™ (CIIM™) - a metric that identifies the impact and effectiveness of cultural insights in ads and programming and the potential to affect sales lift by 66% in CPG and retail companies, and 55% in auto showroom traffic. 

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Brands with the highest cultural inclusivity across all segments, noted as best-in-culture, included Gatorade, Lysol and Indeed. The top brands included key brands across retailers, CPG, automotive, fast-food, and financial and technology services.

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“At a time when brands are looking to maximize their growth, connecting through culture should be primordial.  Research proves that culture is responsible for 66% of a campaign’s success in the CPG category and 55% in the auto category. Minimizing culture is equal to minimizing the opportunity for growth,” said Bob Liodice, CEO of the ANA.

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“We are proud to be recognized for our work that speaks authentically and powerfully to all audiences" says William White, Chief Marketing Officer, Walmart U.S. “It’s imperative for every brand, regardless of industry, to lean into cultural insights, like the ones provided by CIIM™, that can better inform marketing and creative strategies that resonate with diverse consumers and encourage them to become brand loyalists.”

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Cultural Inclusion Accelerator’s CIIM Best-In-Culture Brands Ranking Methodology:

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CIIM™ started by reviewing Ad Age’s 2022 Leading National Advertisers rankings and Nielsen’s top spenders in diverse segments. From these lists, CIIM™ selected 100 brands to be included in the study. Throughout 2022, CIIM tested over 700 ads that aired from these 100 brands. Respondents were shown an ad followed by a series of proprietary questions to assess the ad’s cultural relevance, DEIB reflections, and subsequent ad effectiveness impact. Over 250,000 ad evaluations were collected from Asian English, Black, Hispanic English, Hispanic Bilingual, Hispanic Spanish, Indigenous, LGBTQ, People with Disabilities, and White Non-Hispanic consumers. CIIM’s final ranking was then created utilizing only multicultural and inclusive respondents for “Overall” as well as segment specific rankings. The ranking was constructed using each brand’s average CIIM, DEI, purchase intent, trust lift, brand opinion, brand recommendation, gather information on brand, and likability scores. 

Brand Findings Include:

Most Culturally Inclusive Leading Brands

CIIM identified Gatorade as the most culturally inclusive brand across the overall multicultural and inclusive segment, Lysol as the best-in-ad effectiveness brand, and Ad Council as the best-in-DEIB brand all of which resonated through celebrations of culture and positive role models across segments among other cultural attributes. These brands delivered consistent high relevancy and effectiveness marks in their :15 and :30 creative while featuring universally relatable storylines with themes persistent across cultures, including equality, safety, and happiness. Gatorade’s Want From Within and Lysol’s Purpose spots were among the overall top performing ads of 2022. The ranking of the top 50 most culturally inclusive brands across all multicultural and inclusive segments is as follows (in order):

“These brands are leading the charge for more inclusive marketing across the entire industry and brilliantly showcasing the power of authentic cultural representation and DEIB reflections.” says Carlos Santiago, AIMM Co-Founder and Co-Architect of CIIM™. “We see a clear and measurable attribution to ad effectiveness, sales and trust, which further proves the benefit of creating content that can strongly resonate with the growth segments of our marketplace whether in mass market or targeted efforts.”

Among the top brands that performed well with a specific diverse and inclusive segment, CIIM discovered that the best performing ads casted universally appealing familial dynamics, with a unique approach to family in their storylines, which enabled connection across multicultural segments. ​The top 5 culturally inclusive brands by segment are (in order): 

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Asian English Media Viewers: McDonald’s, Disney, Google, Colgate, Microsoft

Black: Target, Walmart, Champion, Ad Council, Gatorade

Hispanic English Media Viewers: Colgate, Ulta Beauty, Neutrogena, Gatorade, Ad Council

Hispanic Spanish Media Viewers: Walmart, The Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Lysol, Chevrolet

LGBTQ: Indeed, MasterCard, Gatorade, Microsoft, McDonald’s

People With Disabilities: Gatorade, MasterCard, AARP, Colgate, Microsoft

Key findings include:

Cultural Relevance Drives Sales Lift

CIIM™ attribution studies in partnership with the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) have uncovered that cultural relevance explains 66% of campaigns’ sales lift in CPG and Retail categories. Similarly, in the automotive sector, cultural relevance explains 55% of the lift in showroom visits, proving that higher priced durable goods purchases are also greatly impacted by marketing efforts enriched by cultural authenticity. Also, CIIM™ generates a lift of 190% in purchase intent.

Consumers Increased Expectations Around DEI

The link to sales also has a halo effect on consumer desire for brands to openly communicate its perspectives on DEI in brand marketing. 83% of multicultural & inclusive consumers expect brands to take public stances on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ​in their ads. ​And, CIIM™ has found that DEIB reflections generate lifts of 440% in brand trust.

CIIM™ will continue to be a leading metric for advertisers to make meaningful progress against DEIB goals, engage diverse communities and increase ROI. To learn more about CIIM™ and how to integrate it into brand strategy, visit www.culturalinclusionaccelerator.com.

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About CIIM™

CIIM™ (Cultural Insights Impact Measure™) is the industry-leading metric validating the incremental value of cultural relevance in ads and programming. As the largest cultural relevance measurement tool, CIIM™ covers 70 industries and ten segments: White Non-Hispanic, African American/Black, Asian English, Hispanic English Media Viewers, Hispanic Bilingual Media Viewers, Hispanic Spanish Media Viewers, LGBTQ, Native American, People with Disabilities, and General Population. Created by Oppside, LLC, CIIM provides a guide for brands and content creators to benchmark their cultural authenticity & DEIB journey progress. To date, it has gathered more than 900,000 ad evaluations across over 2,800 ads from more than 775 brands. www.culturalinclusionaccelerator.com

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About the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM)

Founded in 2016, ANA's Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) is  the leading voice in multicultural and inclusive marketing and DEIB, powered by a collective of 200+ industry leaders from across the ecosystem, advancing actionable change to drive business growth and equity for all in today's diverse marketplace. For more information, visit: www.anaaimm.net.

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