Crossmedia, Gallegos Founders Team Up to Form United-X

As agencies try to understand the modern consumer, a key area seems to rely on categories and definitions from a bygone era. With the U.S. population diversifying even faster than predicted, traditional marketing categorizations of "general market" and "multicultural" seem increasingly outdated. Progress is especially slow when it comes to media plans designed around effectively reaching diverse audiences. Kamran Asghar, founder and CEO of media agency Crossmedia, and John Gallegos, founder, president and CEO of independent creative and strategic agency Gallegos United, have teamed up to launch United-X, a full-service media agency designed to connect the increasingly culturally, ethnically and racially diverse U.S. consumer base. The agency will have shared employees and resources operating out of existing offices in Los Angeles and New York. It will take on business opportunities independently and in connection with sister agency client partners. The founders say the agency provides a unique offering: a media agency with a full scale of capabilities designed around understanding and reaching diverse audiences as its primary positioning. "Clients are interested in demography as it relates to business growth," Gallegos told Adweek. "Where multicultural might be perceived today as a volume minority, when you look at it from a growth perspective, it flips, [and] multicultural is the growth majority." United-X launches with California Milk Processor Board and landscape supply company SiteOne as inaugural clients and is actively involved in a number of additional pitch processes. In 2017, California Milk Processor Board consolidated creative with Gallegos United as agency of record, ending its relationship with longtime AOR (and creator of the famous "Got Milk" tagline) Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Gallegos United had previously handled Hispanic marketing for the client for 12 years. "Putting the market back in marketing" Gallegos claims advertisers miss opportunities by relying on outdated views of "multicultural" audiences that over-generalize large populations rather than examine the spectrum of differences. "When you use the general market term, you generalize the market in a way that is ever less effective," Gallegos explained, adding that clients understand the approach when they see it applied to their product. "What we’re doing is elevating that conversation to the market. We're putting the market back in marketing." The agency's offering includes a suite of data and analytics tools designed to examine audiences through a multicultural lens. "We're going in and developing custom surveys or tools that mirror how we go about general market so we can break down audiences even further," he explained. "You need to attach that on the activation side to know you're buying for these audiences." Investing in growth According to 2019 figures from the Association of National Advertisers, 5.2% of advertising budgets are invested in multicultural media channels and BIPOC-owned media partners. "We’ve started to build comprehensive lists of minority owned media available to folks in the industry," Asghar said. "When you talk to folks who are owners of that media, you hear the frustration to just get a seat at the table." Larger holding companies have recently introduced efforts to expand their investments in diverse media. IPG's Mediahub introduced its inaugural Diversity-Owned Media Day last month, shortly after Dentsu Media announced a partnership with OZY Media as part of a commitment to rethink media investments. The previous month, Publicis Media agency Spark Foundry hired Jason DaWayne Smith as president, diversified investments. Asghar applauded the efforts of such investments in diversifying investments and perspective around media planning. But he also noted that such efforts are inherently limited in scope when tied to legacy operations. He said many agencies were reluctant to have conversations around race and ethnicity in marketing, partially due to the industry's lack of diversity. "There's probably a bit of a taboo still in bringing race and ethnicity to the forefront of conversations around marketing," he said. While it's easy for agencies to designate audience segments by age, those agencies likely viewed initiating a conversation around race and ethnicity as "fraught," something he said ultimately leads to a poorer understanding of audiences. "Those are the kind of things that need to break down and break apart," he added. "As agencies begin to look different, the more we'll be able to have these conversations. There's representations missing in advertising, and it's an opportunity." The Time to Prioritize Workplace Diversity and Inclusivity Is Now. Is Your Agency Ready?

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United-X launches with California Milk Processor Board as an inaugural client

Erik Oster

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Erik Oster