How Top Marketers Will Find Overlooked Audiences in 2024

Marketers' expansive reach and myriad tools still miss broad, vital audiences who aren’t being addressed with the exigency their numbers command. In 2024, more people can and should get the message. Advances in technology have given marketers advantages they could’ve only dreamed of even 10 years ago, according to Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar, and with it the ability to create positive change in the world. He just wonders if the industry has the right people with the right skills for the job ahead. “Classically trained marketers have traditionally been qualitative, excelling in areas such as psychology and sociology, creative design and brand positioning,” he said. “But in today’s world, they need to also be analytical and get ahead of the inevitable trends and emerging platforms headed our way. We need Leonardo da Vinci marketers who embrace whole brain thinking—art and science—so we can compete and thrive in this evolving environment.” To Rajamannar, that means training their teams, getting more people familiar with emerging technologies like AI and Web3, working with students and universities to understand the new workforce, and welcoming new talent with different backgrounds. For David Jordan, president of agriculture-focused creative agency Bader Rutter, it also means adapting his business to a rapidly changing future. Why We Should Start Using The Term ‘Underestimated Audiences’ Within the next 15 years, 371 million acres of U.S. farmland will be transferred to the next generation. Hispanic farmers’ share of U.S. agriculture grew from 55,600 farms and 17 million acres in 2007 to 86,300 farms and 32.1 million acres within a decade. The LGBTQ+ community, which Jordan grew up a part of in an Illinois dairy town of roughly 100, now represents 20% of Gen Z, according to Gallup. Jordan sees a cultural responsibility for brands and marketers to run toward customers in need. Leaders like Rajamannar and Jordan told Adweek that addressing underserved audiences in 2023 can produce much better relationships when they’re simply your audience in 2024 and beyond. “My advice to marketers is understand who your customers are and make sure you're showing all of them,” Jordan said. “Because what people want are relationships with brands that make them feel seen, heard, represented and safe.” Broadening inclusion During this year’s ANA Masters of Marketing Conference in Orlando, Florida, iHeartMedia CMO Gayle Troberman showed an audience in a breakout session just how often marketers’ sensibilities diverged from those of the average audience. They tended to live in the Northeast, watch Succession, and care more about charcuterie boards and NFTs than many of the people they considered customers. She’d make a similar presentation later in the year at Adweek X in Los Angeles, sharing the stage with That ‘70s Show and NCIS actor Wilmer Valderrama and noting, similarly, that marketers were missing opportunities by scoffing at audiences' love of police procedurals, veteran recognition and religion. In an exclusive conversation with Adweek in Orlando—and joined by her fellow panelists, SeaWorld CMO Marisa Thalberg and Encantos chairman and TelevisaUnivision chief client officer Steven Wolfe Pereira, who co-host the Brand New podcast—Troberman noted that marketers’ unfamiliarity or discomfort with certain topics may be unnecessarily excluding pockets of consumers. A member of her iHeart team who grew up in the South and lives in Nashville now suggested a means of bridging the divide. The New Power Couple: How CMOs and CTOs Can Drive Innovation Together “She's a fairly religious person, she was like, ‘After church, people go to retail stores … it's a very common family activity to go to a Lowe's or a Walmart,’” Troberman said. “I bet a lot of people aren't thinking about that intersection in their marketing.” Thalberg noted that her experience leading marketing at Taco Bell and as head of brand and marketing at Lowe’s provided lessons in recognizing and listening to the audience. Lowe’s, in particular, gave her a greater appreciation for speaking to members of the military, which led to her recently expanding SeaWorld’s military pass on Veterans Day. The return on that kind of marketing investment proved more beneficial than using a trend or bauble just to capture a small fraction of the news cycle. Thalberg lamented about pedestrian marketing that traps marketers into a transactional relationship with consumers, and instead wants more brands to get people out of their comfort zones. "Everyone talks about breaking through, but it's about making your brand show up in a way that unlocks something different, and that to me is the essence of creativity." WhatsApp and Verizon Are Listening Closely to Underserved Consumers Wolfe Pereria recalled speaking to Thalberg during her time at Lowe’s and discovering that two-thirds of the company’s market segments were driven by Latino consumers. With that knowledge, Lowe’s had a basic foundation from which it could understand its brand and build its message. As Wolfe Pereria noted, understanding the customer and what they really care about makes it easier for marketers to craft a message, convince the C-suite and finance department to back it up with resources, and approach their customers with confidence. “Bring your own voice into the conversation,” Wolfe Pereria told marketers. “They want to hear from us. They don't want it to be faceless." Building the future Inclusive marketing is often only as good as the company culture producing it. Nationwide attempts to reach a broad customer base with similarly extensive sponsorships. It’s established itself in major-league sports through the National Football League’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, the National Women’s Soccer League Community Impact Award and the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship golf tournament—using its national presence to boost local outreach. “Improving the communities where we work and live, particularly those that are underserved, is at the heart of Nationwide’s mission,” said Nationwide CMO Ramon Jones. “We are committed to using our platforms and resources to support the needs of underserved communities and the people who live in them.” The Importance of Serving the Underserved In early 2016, Nationwide began looking at the challenges women face in retirement compared to men when it comes to health care, long-term care and Social Security. As Nationwide dug into different demographics of women, it launched its Diverse Markets initiative in 2018 by looking at the specific needs of Black consumers. That led to similar studies of Hispanic, LGBTQ+, Asian and rural customers as Nationwide considered shifting U.S. demographics and how its financial professionals could build trust with clients. “I'm a Black woman, I grew up in a Black family in Black culture, and it goes without saying that you take care of the aging adults and your family … but no one ever talked about how you financially plan for that," said Kristi Rodriguez, svp of the Nationwide Retirement Institute. But it’s easier for consumers to feel Nationwide is on their side when the people behind the company share their experiences. To that end, Nationwide launched a Financial Services Apprenticeship program in 2020 that identified students in public high schools near company headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, paid for them to attend Columbus State Community College after graduation and gave them a 20-hour-a-week job with full benefits at Nationwide while attending classes. Once they complete their associate’s degree in life, annuity or retirement planning, Nationwide hires those students. “I always use this African proverb that says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others,'” Rodriguez said. “We truly believe by coming together as an industry at all different aspects and placing individuals in various roles, which include marketing roles, within our industry, we are having an uplift.” Inclusion as Innovation: How These Marketing Leaders Stay Ahead by Leaving No One Behind

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

How CMOs and Executives Plan to See Overlooked Audiences in 2024

Technology and reach can help, but marketing leaders from Mastercard, iHeart Media, SeaWorld, Nationwide and elsewhere look to legwork and basics

Jason Notte

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Jason Notte