Smart Home Tech Is Excluding Certain Diverse Audiences

Digital media company My Code—formerly known as H Code—found that some Black, Hispanic and Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) audiences feel excluded from the smart-home tech market. The study, which surveyed 1,295 people in the U.S. in November, suggested this might be because advertisers aren't prioritizing marketing to these audiences. The study also noted a difference in interest between multicultural homeowners and renters. These findings were announced along with the firm's rebrand, which includes a name change. Top line Advertisers have been intentional with their efforts to reach diverse audiences in the last couple of years, but there are still untouched diverse audiences in urban areas like renters, according to My Code's research. Ad Tech Suffers From a Lack of Diversity and Inclusion Despite hurdles to adoption, like living in multigenerational households where the comfort of all members are considered, multicultural Americans have an interest in smart-home tech, offering an opportunity for brands. Based on the survey, 63% of Black and 66% of Latinx renters would purchase smart-home tech such as smart locks, smart-home light switches and smart speakers. While that's true, 51% of Black and 54% of Latinx renters still feel that at least one leading brand offering smart-home products is not meant for consumers like them, indicating a gap between the interest of multicultural audiences and the connection they feel with smart-home tech products. My Code's vice president of marketing Adrian Whant suggested one of the barriers to adoption is that smart-home products are too expensive. Smart-home tech also markets towards a specific lifestyle in ads that don't resonate with multicultural renters, according to the research. Between the lines H Code's transition to My Code is the company's effort to become the go-to source for multicultural audience reach, research and content creation, expanding beyond the Latinx audience they've catered to since 2015. "One of the things that we need to solve in the industry is to make sure advertising dollars reach the entire ecosystem of underrepresented communities," said Whant. Broader commitments to inclusivity in companies lead to improved business outcomes. A Deloitte study from October 2021 found that brands with annual revenue growth of 10% also have established commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion in areas including the workforce, marketplace and society. Further, 38% of companies that are considered high-growth have established equity metrics for their brand-messaging campaigns, while 30% of negative-growth companies don't, according to Deloitte. My Code's director of research Michael Viveiros agreed it's possible the reflection of low smart-home tech ownership is due to the way the tech is marketed by brands. "It seems like [smart-home tech] is tailored to homeowners but multicultural renters are as interested—if not more interested—than the overall U.S. renter population," Viveiros said, "and homeowners are slightly less interested." A generational-tech gap could be what's behind making older homeowners less interested, Viveiros added. Bottom line Whant told Adweek having diverse ads is not sufficient enough. Multicultural people are needed behind the scenes of product design and marketing to remove the wedge between audiences and consumers these advertisers are missing out on. "We see our research as a way to start these conversations to make sure everyone has access to the technology," Whant said. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that 71% of Black and 68% of Latinx renters are interested in buying smart home tech.

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Smart Home Tech Is Excluding Certain Diverse Audiences, Study Finds

74% of multicultural renters feel these products are not designed to meet their needs

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Meseret Ambachew

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Meseret Ambachew