Culturally relevant marketing: Conceptualising a critical pedagogical approach to multicultural marketing strategy

Abstract

In this era of unprecedented political shifts, the global health pandemic, and social justice awakenings, marketing strategists who look to develop effective marketing strategies must be able to navigate an evolving socio-political landscape and the needs of an increasingly diverse population and marketplace. To meet these needs, this paper proposes a new framework: the culturally relevant marketing strategy. For theorists, pragmatists and practitioners operating in this space, culturally relevant marketing offers important features and benefits. Taking cues from education pedagogy, this hybrid approach integrates traditional marketing strategy with multi-dimensional consumer research, discourse, critical interpretation, and analysis, to facilitate meaningful outcomes. It does this by providing the tools needed to overcome cultural blind spots and social justice tone-deafness in strategic development. This paper considers the market factors at play to present a grounding overview, including what distinguishes it from other branded theories, in order to conceptualise a go-to multicultural marketing strategy approach for right now.