Black Britain: The untapped 'super segment' beyond the stereotypes

At the biggest attended DMA roundtable event ever held, host Nick Myers, Chief Strategy Officer from OLIVER and founder of the DMA’s Black Marketers Council (BMC) delivered an inspirational talk on the untapped revenue potential of £4.5b, encompassing the disposable income of 10.8m multi-ethnic consumers in the UK. The progressive debate was timely, with palpable signs of DEI fatigue evident across the industry, whilst pressures to significantly improve finances continue to grow.

Joined by award-winning journalist and Public Relations expert, Eva Simpson, and BAFTA Winning Executive Film Producer Andy Mundy-Castle, founder of DOCHEARTS the trio facilitated an engaging debate, decoding the road-blocks that prevent brands from authentically acknowledging the business case for serving Black Britain.

It was made clear that for brands to truly relate to the super-segment of ‘Black Britains’ (who far from being a minority group are part of the global majority), marketers need to move away from reductive labelling that categorises black and brown people into a homogenised identity. Instead, they need to recognise the breadth and depth of what it means to be Black and British.

As Andy Mundy Castle pointed out “we have tribal, regional and cultural nuances, so the conversation and focus needs to be a lot richer to reflect us better”. He added, “if Marketers don’t understand the nuances of being a black person in Britain, they’re starting from a deficit position in creating effective comms and engagement strategies”.

Positively, a new ground-breaking report released by The Voice in collaboration with The University of Cambridge, brings together over 10,000 voices from Black communities across Britain and reveals that 90% of respondents agreed that advertising campaigns are better at portraying Black culture than 10 years ago. However, the overarching sentiment is loud and clear - “Black Britons are still largely misunderstood and misrepresented”.

Despite organisations ramping up visual representation thanks to the work of BRiM, brands still have a long way to go in addressing disparities in how multidimensional identities that make up ‘Black Britain’ are reduced into a single category or label they don’t identify with. The Voice research makes clear that there is still a desperate need for people to “create their own new narrative about how it feels to be black and British”.

As Eva pointed out “of course we have a pride and appreciation for the formidable Windrush generation”, yet young people now want to talk about the future and look forwards, not backwards.

Recognizing the importance of the Black consumer to the marketing industry is crucial for understanding the category’s dynamics and knowing how best to execute intelligent and effective CRM and campaign strategies. During the panel discussion, Andy Mundy Castle explained how “Black Britain provides access to people from all over the world who can communicate different stories and perspectives”.

It was discussed that a British Nigerian person for example will identify very differently from a British Ghanaian or a British Jamaican - the differences are vast and colourful. But it’s the lack of intel surrounding the expansiveness of the Black and British reality, which is limiting the way brands engage with and serve the super segment.

Additionally, it was agreed that there’s a devaluation of the black Cultural Capital, with it being given away too easily and freely without enough appreciation & value attributed to it. The panel highlighted the unjust imbalance between the contribution of Black culture versus the attention paid to Black people.

The prominence of blackness in the UK across music, sport, fashion, film, language, food, spirituality and more offers an undeniably rich contribution to British culture, yet the absence of authentic marketing to this super-segment proves there’s an imbalance in the enormity of what Britain gains from Black people - in both cultural and purchasing power - and how they are in turn underserved and un-acknowledged.

The acumen needed to create innovative, authentic and impactful marketing to diverse audiences is held by black and brown professionals themselves - who are also 24% more ambitious than their white counterparts to reach the top of their careers, as reported by The Black Pound Report. However, Marie Feliho, previously Director of Customer Experience & Engagement at Just-Eat, VMO2 and co-chair of the BMC, emphasised that while having Black voices in the room is critical, they shouldn’t bear the weight of representing an entire community’s experience. “Businesses need to apply the same discipline in understanding the diversity within Black communities as they would with any other audience—using data, research, and real engagement. The work doesn’t stop at having Black voices in teams—it’s merely the starting point.”

The evening's debate couldn’t have built a stronger case for why brands cannot afford to lose momentum in DEI and that a paradigm shift is needed to better support and retain black talent from grassroots entry level up to the boardroom, with Nick Myers iterating that 47% of multi-ethnic professionals are unhappy with their career progress.

With the latest global McKinsey Report - Diversity Matters Even More revealing that global organisations with ethnic representation in the top quartile are 39% more likely to outperform in business versus those in the bottom quartile, it’s clear that a diverse team will always be better equipped to execute a rigorous audience engagement and measurement strategy, delivering more compelling marketing campaigns, as opposed to the “blanket token approach” we often see in advertising. With multi-ethnic consumers being 74% more likely to buy from a brand with inclusive ranges, there’s a lot to be gained for brands who get it right.

Last year, The Guardian reported that “ad agencies aren’t doing enough to attract, retain and advance diverse talent” so how do we grow a sustainable Black capital network? Attendees agreed that empowering black founders and black megabrands with more industry investment will give agency to black professionals to build a powerful and prioritised collective of their own.

When the evening drew to a close, there wasn’t an inch of ‘diversity fatigue’ in sight, just strong, unified desire to do things differently. As Visha Kudail, previously Marketing Leader at Google, Thinkbox and Pinterest summarised “the evening was an excellent reminder of how much we chase progress in tech innovation, yet we haven't fully progressed in our data-driven marketing approaches to deliver creative that reaches diverse audiences who spend money. Until we start reading data, questioning it, bringing it into the right rooms, and including it on the right briefs, we'll continue to leave money on the table.”

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Read Nick Myers' take on the £4.5bn Diversity Gap here.

Check out interviews with the council here and how they responded to Black History Month 2024 here.

Find out more by applying to the council here. Please contact the team if you have any questions.