Today's Hottest Films Prove to Be Culturally Relevant with Multicultural Audiences, Yet Still Fail to Be Recognized by the Academy Awards

LOS ANGELES, March 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Oppside and ANA's AIMM (Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing) released their first ever Oscar's Inclusion & Relevancy Report analyzing how the nominated films resonated with traditionally underrepresented audiences. The research draws upon Oppside's analysis of accurate cultural portrayals in the movies gathered by its Cultural Insights Impact Measure (CIIM™). Learnings indicate that while the film industry has come a long way over the past several years when it comes to authentic depictions of culture in its body of work, there is still more to be done when it comes to the award industry recognizing these efforts.

CIIM™ tested 33 Oscar nominated movies through 18,000 evaluations among six audiences, Asian, Black, Hispanic (English/Bilingual/Spanish), LGBTQ, People with Disabilities and White Non-Hispanic, and found the following:

• None of the films that ranked in the cultural relevance top quartile across all segments are nominated in the Oscars Best Picture category.
• While nominated films CODA and King Richard ranked highly among People with Disabilities and African Americans, respectively, their recognition underscores the need for inclusion beyond casting and plot as both films put culture at the heart of their narratives.
• Only five of the 33 nominated movies, Encanto, Lost Daughter, Luca, Raya and the Last Dragon and Tick, Tick…Boom!, were perceived as highly culturally relevant by five or more audience segments.
• Animated films performed best for all segments, proving it is possible to tell stories and integrate settings that have the power to engage all audiences.

"CIIM™ analysis indicates that movie-goers want to see more than people that look like themselves on-screen. Viewers cherish accurate reflections of their rich identities, communities and culture, through integrated storylines, strong character portrayals and positive role models," said Carlos Santiago, AIMM Co-Founder and Co-Architect of CIIM™.

Additionally, despite many challenges yet to overcome, Oppside's Oscars Inclusion & Relevancy Report also found that more headway has been made on the big screen than the small one. CIIM™ also evaluated the other award shows, including Emmy's (2021), People Choice (2021), Golden Globes (2022), SAG (2022), NAACP (2022) and GLAAD (2021) nominations, and found within the same diverse groups:

• 40% of Black viewers ranked Emmy nominated TV shows as "Best-In-Class," the top relevancy quartile, along with 37% of People with Disabilities, 27% of Hispanic viewers, 27% of LGBTQ, 24% of White Non-Hispanics, and 10% of Asians.
• Whereas 70% of Black viewers, 55% of Hispanics, 47% of People with Disabilities, 22% of LGBTQ, and 20% of Asians ranked the nominated movies across all awards shows as "Best-in-Culture."

Hollywood continues to advocate for fair and accurate portrayals across all screens, oftentimes taking matters into their own hands to create content that resonates. And, major celebrities are partnering with AIMM to give a voice to oftentimes marginalized communities.

"The report clearly illustrates that while the film industry has come a long way over the past several years when it comes to authentic depictions of culture in its body of work, there is still more to be done when it comes to the award industry recognizing these efforts," said AIMM Co-Founder Lisette Arsuaga.

To learn more about AIMM and CIIM™, or to get involved in the #SeeALL movement, visit https://www.anaaimm.net.

About CIIM™
CIIM™ (Cultural Insights Impact Measure™) is the industry-leading metric validating the incremental value of cultural relevance in ads and programming demonstrating that culture explains 40% of campaign' sales success and viewers' preference. As the largest cultural relevance measurement tool, CIIM covers 63 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, in partnership with AIMM member companies, CIIM™ provides a guide for brands and content creators to benchmark their cultural journey progress. To date, it has gathered  more than 500,000 ad evaluations across over 1,500 ads from more than 500 brands.

About the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM)
ANA's Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) was established in 2016 to provide corporations with viable solutions for growth by addressing opportunities in Multicultural and Inclusive marketing. AIMM comprises senior-level advertisers, media/publishers, research and data companies, agencies and trade organizations, to spotlight the missed growth potential in General, Hispanic, African American, Asian-American and LGBTQ markets. This extraordinary working group of industry leaders is transforming the way multicultural and inclusive marketing is seen and understood via an industry-wide reboot – the largest ever in this space. Beyond simply identifying where growth potential lies, AIMM shows its members (and the industry) how to best maximize this potential towards positive bottom-line impact. AIMM is the leading authority in the space. AIMM is a branch of the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), which consists of 1,400-plus domestic and international companies with a shared mission to drive growth for marketing professionals, for brands and businesses, and for the industry.

SOURCE ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM)

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