Multiculturalism among Millennials
The past generations were more inclined towards monoculturalism. However, in the current society, the undeniable impact of the boomerang generation cannot be ignored. They have forced several global industries to initiate massive changes in their business operations while reconsidering their marketing approaches for appealing them.
Irrespective of an age difference of almost 20 years, the millennial generation reflects specific stereotypes (Surrenti, 2009). They hold the tendency of sharing fundamental traits, while leading similar lifestyles and the right aspirations. The millennial generation also reflects vast diversity due to which it is obvious that there is widespread multiculturalism. While their behaviour is quite similar, their social backgrounds are completely different with different purchasing behaviour.
Considering the trends of multicultural marketing, maximum growth in the luxury industry can be attributed with the increased demand among Middle Eastern and Asian millennial customers (Seo and Cruz, 2014). 56 per cent of the European population falling in the age group of 18 and 34 years show preference for purchasing products from obscure and niche brands.
However, Middle Eastern and Asian customers show strong desire for luxury good. Their purchasing behaviour reflects financial stability and success, and good taste. With high purchasing power among minority communities, luxury brands can afford neglecting the cultural disturbance. On the other hand, Affluent consumers are more digitally savvy, urban, and younger than others. This can be classified as a valuable opportunity for integration of luxury brands and preferences in their basic lifestyle (Seo et al., 2015).
Multicultural Marketing by Luxury Brands for Customers.
This multiculturalism has been clearly addressed by the luxury brand, Burberry. It has successfully transformed itself as a luxury, global, and digitally focused brand with the best online presence. Its website: “Art of the Trench”, provides an opportunity to customers for posting selfies in the iconic coats of Burberry. Moreover, the Acoustic page of Burberry provides a platform to customers for showcasing their music talent. By the combination of unique attributes in innovative initiatives such as Burberry Kisses, it is clear that the brand is showing strong commitment to create a good brand experience to serve the unique demands of multicultural millennial customers.
As an additional example, BMW Canada has turned out the first luxury car brand of Canada that created an engagement campaign having full integration with the continuous rise in the interaction between Chinese customers and BMW Canada. The luxury brand identifies the value of Chinese Canadian community. Therefore, the brand wanted to focus on cultivating in-depth connection and communication with them. There are a number of brands in Canada creating strategic campaigns and partnerships with WeChat, by collaborating with the Balmoral Approach of Multicultural Marketing (Seo and Cruz, 2014).
However, BMW Canada has been successful in development a multicultural campaign with absolute integration of traditional media sources to enhance the scope of social media presence, media contests, influence relationships, and content marketing through WeChat. The company placed such a valuable effort simply for addressing the needs of Chinese customers in a better manner, while improving overall relationships with them. There is no denial in the fact that the current customer base is highly diversified and multicultural. For such customers, there is less significance of image or status than ease or comfort. While this is a completely modern mindset, the psychographics of luxury customers are consistently changing with the consistent evolution of external factors. The overall population of luxury customer are facing consistent evolution in terms of values due to differences in personality and social understanding (Surrenti, 2009). With significant changes in society and people, there will be changes in the customer trends. This will also end up changing the psychographic factors of other customer groups, and brands will have to consider aligning their strategic approaches in accordance with these trends. This will require enhanced consistency in research and data collection. As a result, luxury brands will have to address additional aspects and further perceive different aspects of quality control in order to be successful.
References
Seo, Y., Buchanan-Oliver, M. and Cruz, A.G.B., 2015. Luxury brand markets as confluences of multiple cultural beliefs. International Marketing Review, 32(2), pp.141-159.
Seo, Y. and Cruz, A., 2014, July. EXPLORING LUXURY BRAND CONSUMPTION IN A MULTICULTURAL MARKETPLACE. In 2014 Global Marketing Conference at Singapore (pp. 2125-2130). Surrenti, S., 2009. The Consumption of Experience and the Ethnic Market: Cosmopolitan Identity Beyond Multiculturalism. Beyond Multiculturalism: Views from Anthropology, pp.201-11.