Long Time Multicultural Agency Orcí Pivots to Emphasize Multi-Segment Marketing
The AW360 team sat down with Andrew Orcí, CEO of Orcí, to discuss the agency’s expansion to multi-segment marketing, the reasoning behind the shift and his view on the future of the industry.
Can you tell us a little more about multi-segment marketing? What does it look like in practice and how does it differ from multicultural marketing?
Multi-segment marketing is all about targeting varied consumers in ways that acknowledge—and celebrate—their distinctions. It’s not significantly different from multicultural marketing, but the latter focuses primarily on one particular audience—in our case, it has been the Latinx consumer—while multi-segment marketing takes a more nuanced approach. It recognizes that consumers also have subtle distinctions and they can identify with more than one demographic or psychographic segment. For example, Latinx individuals are Hispanic and also millennials or Gen-Z. They can also identify as black or queer. The reality is that we’re very rarely “one” thing, so why should brands treat their audiences as such?
The agency has been synonymous with multicultural marketing since Hector and Norma Orcí founded the company. What’s behind this expanded approach?
Our team has helped brands speak to multicultural consumers since 1986, and we’re proud to say we have consistently targeted consumers through respectful communications that have driven real impact for our clients—including Verizon, Disney, Dole, and Honda. Unfortunately, the downside of that mastery has been that our agency is at times pigeon-holed as a Spanish-language agency when we do much more than that. So, we took a very close look at our expertise in multicultural and realized we were uniquely qualified to focus on, and in turn reflect consumer distinctions. Note that multicultural advertising, particularly in the Latinx and Asian spaces, is often in-language and considered as separate from the general market. But our multi-segment approach is results-focused, designed to build lasting relationships and reach the segments that matter to our clients within the general market—which is a strategic shift. Over the past year, our team developed a road map to navigate the changes in the industry more broadly and uncovered what we saw as an opportunity to leverage our heritage and expertise when it comes to connecting brands to people—to do even more of that in the future.
Can you briefly explain how brands can target more than one segment without losing their key message? And more importantly, why should they?
Retaining and celebrating a brand’s key message remains a priority. Which is to say that we’re not suggesting a brand change their message depending on the audience. Instead, we’re suggesting they adapt their message to blend with and also reflect the cultural elements of that audience.
How do you do that? By making it matter to your audiences. The message needs to be insightful, and therefore engaging, which in turn makes it an attraction, not a distraction—and simultaneously more effective. Everything from word choice to music choice to color schemes matter. As to why brands should target more than one segment? As I said earlier, consumers are more nuanced than ever, and their distinctions are growing and morphing every year. One-size-fits-all marketing is not going to get the message across as effectively as it used to.
Considering the cultural and demographic changes we’re witnessing and the fact that consumers are increasingly nuanced, is multi-segment marketing the way forward from here on out?
As we see it, absolutely. Marketing must target consumers in ways that acknowledge everything that makes them unique if it’s going to drive any kind of impact. Keep in mind that these distinctions can overlap and cut across multiple demographic and cultural groups which means that all of us—marketers, creatives and ad execs—need to recognize and reflect their interests and preferences back to them. In the current cultural and demographic landscape, you need to adapt in order to succeed.
You have said that “relevance is key.” How can brands create relevant advertising while effectively targeting varied consumers?
In our case, it all comes down to our long-held philosophy: Capturing Share of Heart®. The very best advertising recognizes the diversity of our communities and speaks to these communities in ways that subtly recognize their distinctions, simultaneously making a message relevant. But you really need to care about these distinctions because, in the end, they won’t remember what you said—only how you made them feel.