How to best connect with the 51 per cent of Australian who identify as culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) was in the spotlight when multicultural agency CulturalPulse picked up two gongs at the Australian Marketing Institute’s (AMI) Marketing Excellence Awards gala for its work engaging multicultural consumers to FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.

And at the latest AMI-ThinkNewsBrands Marketing Perspectives series event in Sydney, the growth opportunity for marketers who can respect and connect with CALD audiences was again a key subject of discussion.

Panellists including Destination NSW GM of consumer marketing, Kathryn Illy, News.com.au editor, Kerry Warren, and former Australian Psychology president, Amanda Gordon AM, broadly debated how to best navigate today’s anxious consumers who are looking for ways to authentically connect and be respected for their distinctiveness – even as they seek to engage through the similarities of lived experience and cultural moments. The panel was moderated by ThinkNewsBrands CEO, Vanessa Lyons.

“People are both looking for people that they are like, to whom they are similar. They want to see someone like them, but also want to understand what it’s like to live in the whole world that is our local world, Australia, but the world generally,” Gordon told attendees, citing this as a strong trait across CALD communities she’s worked with.

“There is that need to connect and feel this medium understands me. I’m not you, I’m me, but I also want to be included and feel part of the mainstream. I don’t want to just be segmented off because I happen to come from a different place or eat certain foods.”

Achieving a balance between recognising cultural traits and finding commonality is something Warren has experienced firsthand in her job at News.com.au – initially through a failed experiment aimed at attracting youth audiences.

“We thought, what we’re going to do is we’re going to write stories with really cool pictures, everything’s colourful, and the language is youthful. Obviously, it failed. It was a disaster. What we learned from that actually is what we then applied with great success to our CALD strategy,” she said.

“That’s the insight that people don’t want to feel othered. Instead, we looked at what topics different CALD communities are traditionally into. Several are traditionally very educated, and much more aspirational. We identified finance content we already produce explaining how to get ahead in the Australian system, explaining superannuation, how to invest, buying houses, all of that sort of stuff, was key. Instead of writing things specifically for a cohort, we just chose topics we knew they are interested in and wrote them the same way we write for everyone else.

“It’s been massively successful, and it’s based solely on that insight. We’re not treating people differently. We’re helping them understand their new community. We’re helping them fit in.”

CALD communities of course want to retain their cultural identity, added Gordon. “It’s not I want to completely transition to be like Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. It is many things and many different ways, and it’s multifaceted.”

CulturalPulse, Destination NSW and the FIFA Women’s World Cup

Taking a dual identity approach informed one of the standout campaigns engaging CALD communities during 2024. Destination NSW’s efforts to attract audiences to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 saw it working partnership with CulturalPulse to target specific CALD audiences in New South Wales. The campaign won CulturalPulse two awards at the AMI Marketing Excellence Awards gala held last year: The Data and Insight-Driven Marketing award, as well as the gong for Campaign of the Year under $1 million.

To tackle the task, CulturalPulse employed key opinion leaders plus 192 community champions, as well as content in native tongue, and focused on the channels, mediums and publications these CALD communities are most engaged in.

CulturalPulse leveraged advanced data and insights and crafted highly targeted campaigns that resonated deeply with 24 multicultural communities. This began with in-depth analysis of census data, ticketing sales, and cultural preferences. This data-informed approach enabled precise targeting, addressing specific barriers and fostering genuine community engagement. By integrating cultural nuances and consumer behaviours into campaigns and networks, there were 31 sellout matches and 18.2 million individuals engaged. The program of work helped drive a record-breaking total attendance of 1,977,824 across Australia and New Zealand matches.

“It was a huge success. We saw several games actually sell out as a result,” said Illy. “We were very targeted to be able to approach those key market segments and talk to them in their own language.”

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 CALD campaign encompassed 164 customised creative assets such as community guides, posters, specific match tiles, and vibrant flyers in 24 languages. CulturalPulse additionally hosted 43 community live events, drawing 411,000 attendees across ANZ.

For the AMI judges, the program’s innovative use of data and insights set a new standard for multicultural engagement in sports marketing, showcasing the importance of understanding and leveraging a mix of measurements to create impactful and targeted campaigns. For CulturalPulse, the program reshaped the tournament’s narrative, fostering genuine community connections and celebrating multiculturalism in Australia.

CulturalPulse CEO, Reg Raghavan, said it was critical the agency’s approach tapped into the dual identity of multicultural Australians. It wasn’t just about supporting the Korean team as a Korean or the Brazilian team if your heritage was Brazilian, but also supporting Australia’s Matildas. Recognising the importance of these multi-faceted aspects was something CulturalPulse learned in its earlier work helping drive engagement with fans for the 2015 AFC Asian Men’s Cup.

“We interviewed all our ambassadors and 98 per cent felt more Australian after being acknowledged for their ancestral country. Because their typical experience when they’re in Australia – and this is something that’s happened to me because of my Indian heritage as well – is people think you’re from India, you must support the Indian cricket team,” Raghavan said. “The whole conversation narrative is around that. But people who understand it better say hey, you must feel something for the Indian cricket team but you’re also Aussie. And if someone allows me to do that, it’s more inclusive.

“It’s about dual identity and being acknowledged for the more complex element, rather than it being a binary thing of being either Korean or being Aussie.”

When CulturalPulse did its ambassador inductions, it therefore talked about the Maildas and the tournament as much as specific country matches. The second element of customising these things is a desire to bring people into the broader ecosystem, Raghavan explained.

“It’s not just sport, but also with our Virtual Midwife [an AI solution developed to help provide communications to multicultural Australians created by CulturalPulse]: We acknowledge it’s not that people don’t know, but how they engage with mainstream services is different,” Raghavan said. “When there is a mainstream organisation, like the hospital system, different communities will know how to engage with that system in different ways.

“It’s the same with football – when the tournament comes and you have a mainstream marketing or media approach, it just reaches whoever is in those channels without necessarily going into who are underserved in terms of reach and resonance of a message. Our job is really about making sure there is fairness and equity around the resonance the message. So we had to do a little bit extra to make sure people knew about the tournament and therefore the customisation. But the end goal is everybody is able to engage with football as an ecosystem in Australia.”

And the evidence is they did. “Number one, we increased awareness and interest in the Matildas, the national football team. A lot of CALD communities got to learn about the Matildas, who the players are… and second, we boosted engagement with football overall. We saw a notable rise in football participation rates at a grassroots level in women’s and girl’s participation [of 18 per cent],” Raghavan said.

Cultural relevance personified

Warren noted News Corp’s thinktank, the Growth Intelligence Centre, recommended three things businesses could do to better engage CALD audiences. The first step is recognising CALD consumers want to retain their heritage.

“Marking important cultural days or cultural things that are relevant to them is important,” Warren said. “But these consumers also want to adapt to their new culture. They want to learn how the banking system works, what sports are big and popular, what’s pub etiquette. And yes, funny things about the Australian accent. Thirdly, CALD audiences want to adopt a new way of kind of living to that point they want to become Australian, to live like a new lifestyle and content that can help them along that way as well.”

Raghavan said a lot of CALD communities are often dealt with in isolation, but not many groups bring them together.

“For example with our ambassador program, when people come together they see the commonalities with each other as well and they love that,” he said. “It’s intracommunity in a way. They tell us they love meeting the other communities who are in a similar position to what we are. It’s part of the shared experience for them.”

At a more general level, Gordon brought it back to better understanding what is motivating connection.

“What does that connection mean? Is it a respectful connection? Is the distance right? Are we too close or too distant? Is there an acknowledgement of my uniqueness, or do I just have to fit in and be the same? Am I ok having a different opinion on one part of the world while having the same opinion with you about something else? Or do we have to totally align for it to be ok? If we have to totally align for it to be ok, that’s called a rabbit hole and an echo chamber, and that’s where people get caught and become depressed,” she said.

“We have to be able to tolerate difference and cope with the uncertainty of whether someone else feels the same as we do when we connect with them.”

Avoiding tokenism

For Lyons, however, the concern with marketers trying to be more inclusive is they fall into the trap of tokenism – often for fear of offence.

“Have we gone too far about only assuming tokenism and making sure everything is balanced, and therefore not saying anything?” she asked. “Do people see that as basically check the box and not genuine?

“Because I feel as marketers, we get a great campaign, great creative, great messaging and the very next thing we do is ask: Is this going to make ostracise this person, offend this person or this person? It almost becomes legalese, where we don’t say anything because we’ve muted it down.”

In response, Illy acknowledged diversity and inclusion as always being a consideration. But ultimately the job as marketers is about knowing and understanding your audience and consumer base.

“Do you know their needs, their motivators, their drivers and what appeals to them now, and what could actually appeal to them in the future? Can you anticipate those needs, then tailor your communications to that certain segment? Do you know if you’re selling them something they may not even need or they know they need?” Illy asked.  “If you can manage to do that as a marketer, you’re actually on to something really special.”