According to the latest research from My Code’s Intelligence Center on the automotive landscape, 9-in-10 multicultural households have at least one vehicle, which mirrors the overall rate of car ownership in the United States. Still, there are some critical nuances among the Hispanic, Black and Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities that auto manufacturers should understand to connect with these audience segments.
Multicultural Consumers Tend to Lease Vehicles at Higher Rates
One of the most striking differences between the multicultural and other U.S. markets is a lower rate of owning vehicles (68 percent vs 75 percent). Our research found that multicultural households are almost twice as likely to lease their vehicle than the general market (15 percent vs. 8 percent).
Leveraging this information may be crucial to those in the automotive industry that want to put people behind the wheel and drive sales.
Multicultural Households Make More Diverse Brand Selections
Another key takeaway from Intelligence Center’s recent study is that AAPI households are much more likely to purchase or lease a foreign car than a domestic brand.
Toyota and Honda together account for almost 60 percent of the market share for Asian American households, for example. Yet, those brands only occupy around 30 percent of the general market share.
Likewise, in Black households, American brands like Chevrolet and Ford were the most popular options, while Toyota and Chevrolet enjoyed nearly equal popularity with Hispanic consumers.
Vehicle Type Is Also a Factor in Multicultural Households
My Code’s research shows that mid-size sedans are more prevalent with AAPI, Black and Hispanic consumers than the rest of the U.S. population. Also, full-size pickup trucks were considerably less prevalent in all three primary multicultural demographics.
Data illustrates that diverse populations in the United States tend to be more concentrated in cities, making up 43 percent of the urban population and 22 percent of the rural, according to the USDA. This information is invaluable when designing marketing campaigns for multicultural audiences.
Making the Shift: How the Automotive Industry Can Implement Multicultural Marketing
With a larger slice of the American consumer demographic identifying as multicultural, automotive manufacturers and marketers need to develop campaigns that specifically target them. But multicultural marketing is not a one size fits all strategy. A truly authentic and effective campaign goes beyond simply adding diverse faces to marketing materials — it includes understanding the underlying traditions, legacies, and cultural values of your audience.
