Ethnicity in advertising and millennials: the role of social identity and social distinctiveness

Abstract Underpinned by the social identity theory and distinctiveness theory, the research examines the effects of mono- and multi-ethnicity advertising on brand evaluations among millennials. We conducted two experimental studies with Asian and Caucasian millennial consumers in Australia to test our hypotheses. The objective of Study 1 was to test the effectiveness of ethnic marketing among millennials using six different advertisement copies for a lipstick brand. In Study 2, we aimed to substantiate our predictions using another type of product (i.e. soap) and ascertain the impact of the product context on ethnicity marketing. Overall, the results of this study support that millennial consumers prefer multi-ethnic advertising to mono-ethnic advertising. The effect of body image is not significant in multi-ethnic advertisements. Social identity can influence the attitudes of socially distinctive consumers toward mono-ethnic advertisements. Finally, multi-ethnic advertising is an effective strategy for both publicly and privately consumed products, while mono-ethnic advertising is more applicable for privately consumed products.