Lizette Williams de Kimberly-Clark, Bill Duggan de ANA y Catherine Bension de SelectResources International,
Catherine Bension, CEO at SelectResources International, and Lizette William, Leader of Multicultural Marketing at Kimberly-Clark talked with ANA’s Bill Duggan about the future of multicultural agencies during the first day of the Multicultural conference. Duggan showed figures that talk about the important growth recorded by Hispanic agencies in the last five years, compared to Afro-American agencies that have fallen, and the Asians that have only grown a little. Williams explained that one of the problems of multicultural marketing is that the total market concept has been totally misunderstood. “We’ve to redefine what total market is, because it was a concept to see from strategy, not from execution. At Kimberly-Clark we’ve invested a lot on including multicultural thinking and we promote diversity within our company”. For her it’s very important demanding diversity from agencies, but most important is to diversify the organization from inside, further more if its talking to the multicultural consumer. “If the change comes from within the rest of the industry will subsequently evolve.”Bension commented that “the main topic after digital is market diversity and your team. Clients have changed what they demand from their agencies. What they seek is strategic thinking to be successful in that market. Several clients have had problems with their Hispanic agencies, because many confine solely to Spanish translation.” She noted that the best creative agency is not the one that specializes in multicultural, but the one that creates pop culture and centers in the consumer. “I think that the point is to see where we are heading, not where we come from, and to innovate through culture. We want to reposition multicultural agencies to make them influencers.”
