Closing the $1bn gap: General Mills and Marketing to Hispanic and Afro-American Audiences

Report of a presentation by Mark Addicks, General Mills svp/cmo, from the ANA Multicultural Marketing conference.

Closing the $1bn gap: General Mills and Marketing to Hispanic and Afro-American Audiences

Geoffrey PrecourtWarc

For Mark Addicks, General Mills svp/cmo, marketing is about "winning". And in 2010, he told an audience at the opening day of the Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) 11th annual Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference in Miami Beach, winning means realizing that "multicultural is mainstream … You cannot win in today's marketplace without multicultural marketing."

General Mills had an impressive — if sporadic — track record of reaching out to minority audiences. "For 20 years, we'd put it off to the side," said Addicks....

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