Pioneering Multicultural Marketing with $6,000 and a Dream!

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Welcome to Canada's first ever multicultural marketing podcast.
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I'm Sharifa Khan, founder and president of Balmoral Multicultural Marketing.
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In each episode, join me as I interview high-profile marketing executives, where they will be sharing their experiences in reaching Canada's diverse community.
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Gain valuable insights and lessons and grow your multicultural affluence.
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Let's get started.
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Welcome to the very first episode of the Multicultural Marketing Podcast with Sharifa Khan.
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My name is Keka DasGupta.
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I have been working in multicultural marketing and marketing in general for 25 years.
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I've had the honour of working with our special guest, Sharifa Khan, for 16 years now.
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Sharifa is the host of this podcast, but I have the distinct privilege today of being your guest host, because this gives us a chance to learn a little bit more about you, Sharifa.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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Thank you, Keka, for being the guest host.
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It's my pleasure.
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I'm really excited.
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So for our listeners today, I wanted to talk a little bit about your bio for people who might not know much about you.
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Many people across the industry have widely recognized that you founded the multicultural marketing discipline in Canada.
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So 40 years ago you were talking about multicultural marketing when most people didn't even know that it was a term.
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So for our listeners who don't know much about you, I would want to share that you're not only the visionary founder of this marketing discipline.
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You're the founder and president of Balmoral Multicultural Marketing, which is the largest and longest running multicultural agency in Canada, still at the top of its game and continuing to innovate.
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But you know, what I love about working with you is that in how you formed this discipline, you've been responsible for helping to generate over 5,000 jobs in this industry.
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And for people who want to know more about Sharifa, you give so much back to the community.
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I remember one day we were looking at all of the work that you've done over the years and we calculated that it was over 40,000 hours of your personal time that you've donated to charities and boards and initiatives.
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I think for anyone who comes to Toronto, they will see the Toronto Waterfront that has a water track that does all kinds of international water sports, and you were responsible for that.
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Thank you, yes.
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You raised $23 million with the various levels of government across Canada and brought the Toronto International Dragon Boat Festival to our country, and the one thing that I think I'm so incredibly you know proud of you, but I think what is amazing is that in 2021, you were inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends.
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So, for me, every day that I've had a chance to work with you for 16 years now, I've come in and felt like we're working for a bigger cause.
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Likewise with you, Keka.
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Thank you, thank you.
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So let's jump in.
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I've got some really good questions I want to ask you!
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get and sponsored by my sisters at that .
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time My my parents felt that I should immigrate to Canada because they were afraid of how the 1997 China would takeover of Hong Kong, and they knew that Canada is one of the safest and most diverse country in the world that embrace multiculturalism, and also at that time the Act of Multiculturalism was already introduced by Pierre-Eliott Trudeau.
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So then I started my journey as a young adult here and I landed in April and, I was supposed to go to U of T in September.
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So I said, well, I have a couple of months left, let me find a summer job.
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And I immediately, within that week, found a job at one of the most reputable, at that time, a corporate communication agency, and I started with them, from the bottom I worked my way up in the agency.
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So let's get into Balmoral and how you started that.
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I'm preempting this a little bit.
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You had said to me once it was $6,000 and a dream?
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Yes, absolutely, 35 years ago I launched Balmoral Multicultural Marketing.
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I wanted to prove to Canadian companies that we as immigrants mattered and so many of us were contributing to the economy, contributing culturally to across the country.
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But at that time, of course, the brands didn't see it, so when they didn't see it, they wouldn't be speaking to us at all.
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So I realized through my own experience that Canadian companies really need to have a better understanding of us, as opposed to a misunderstanding of us community and we have our language, we have our culture and we also are consumers that spend money in this country.
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So it fueled me to start what I call multicultural marketing.
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It wasn't even called that at that time and it became a calling for me rather than a business and career me rather than a business and career.
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So that's right.
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I started a company with only $6,000 and a dream, and the reason for it is that I want to be the bridge that would connect the mainstream community, the brands, the companies and with the diverse community.
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You know, for many of us we don't know what we don't know.
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But when it comes to international markets, there was a real lack of understanding, just even in background, like you had said at one point.
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I think you said to me somebody had talked about how well you spoke English.
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Oh, absolutely so.
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In this first agency, some of my well-meaning colleagues were saying to me oh, you speak English so well, knowing that I just landed in Canada, and they sort of knew that I was from British Hong Kong.
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Like they see you as Asian and they don't know, they're not necessarily cognizant of the fact that this is a British colony, Hong Kong, that you're coming from versus China.
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They're not recognizing that.
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Yes, and also they don't understand, of course, my language and also don't understand my ethnicity, which I am actually Chinese and South Asian, as you can see from my name, sharifa Khan.
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So they don't know the difference between Hong Kong and China and the politics around it.
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But I forgave them because they don't know what they don't know.
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So this is what I find fascinating about your story.
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You often use the term when we say you know what's most important to you.
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You've said that you've dedicated your life to building bridges of understanding and that those kinds of experiences seeing colleagues just not knowing and, like you said, they're well-meaning.
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It's not like they're not bad people.
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They just didn't know that you've built Bridges of Understanding to help bring brands, government organizations and companies together with these audiences.
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Can you tell me a little bit more about what that means to you, that term Bridges of Understanding?
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Because of this conviction of building relationships it has become my North Star.
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So this is what I've charted my career and my mission in life.
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Building bridges of understanding means cultivating mutual and appreciation of both sides, the value of both sides.
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It's not just one-sided.
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It is for companies to be able to connect with the communities in a very authentic way, not just superficial, not just in a lip service, but also accepting these communities and want to embrace them.
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So building a bridges of understanding is to not just for mainstream and diverse group.
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What I did also was able to help different diverse groups to understand each other, because they do have different cultural value and it is important that within Canada the multicultural communities understand themselves.
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Actually, it feels like that building the bridge of understanding is not just bringing people to meet at the bridge, but to like cross over the bridge in each other's communities.
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So you told me a little bit once about your first client and how you got multicultural marketing started.
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Can you share a bit more there?
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So my first client is actually Bank of Canada, and it's, of course, a very conservative institution not known for charting, you know, uncharted waters.
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They're not risk takers.
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At all not risk takers, but we were so proud to have them as our client because we learned and also shared.
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My team shared with them.
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Some of the insights that we did got captured through research and we have found out how immigrants value safety when they move to a new country and they are actually interested in investing in Canada.
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Savings Bonds of Bank of Canada To them if, by investing in it, they feel that the product offer is from is very safe, from a stable country.
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And also we have a very stable banking system, which is unlike where all these, most of these immigrants come from, where they don't have stability and there are a lot of fly-by-night financial institution that they have lost a lot of money.
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So this campaign was actually groundbreaking, you know, because we look into the insights and the behavior of these different, diverse groups and we put it into a creative that speaks to them and also put out the product proposition what exactly these immigrants will have if they invest in a government product as such.
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So we're very proud of it.
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It had gained tremendous results, but actually at that time, the immigrants that were here were also the Italian, the Portuguese, the Polish, the Ukrainian, and then it was followed by the Chinese that was immigrated then.
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So we are very proud of it and also it's the fundamental moment that I can say that, haha, we have already achieved by implementing multicultural marketing for our first client.
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Your first client and one that typically is so conservative, and you were doing such groundbreaking work there, so that's amazing.
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Now, when we look at the body of your work and all of the different clients and campaigns you've worked on, is there any work that you look at and say, oh, this feels like this is at the top, like this feels like a personal victory.
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Well, absolutely.
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There's one client that we have for over 20 years and it's actually one of those clients most people wouldn't even touch.
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It's actually the Mount Pleasant group of cemeteries, where they were encouraging communities at large to be pre-planning funeral services in case anything happened.
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It would be to their advantage from a monetary perspective and preparation perspective to be pre planning.
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So they want to target the up-and-coming communities, diverse communities like Chinese and South Asian.
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But we know for a fact with all these communities that it is quite a problem because, understandably, it is totally, totally taboo.
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They just don't talk about it.
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It's not a topic the children should raise because the parents say, oh, what do you think I'm going to pass?
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My mom would say you're bringing bad luck yes.
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Just by talking about it.
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Yes, so it was actually a challenge, but it's a challenge.
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I'm never afraid of challenge.
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I will also always take it on, you know, full frontal.
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And so we dive into once again research.
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Research is that we dig into the behavior of parents is that they always want to leave a legacy for their children because it's considered as a blessing, and also they would never want to have the children to have any financial burden.
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So you could see actually a, a lot of real estate being bought.
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The parents, the diverse ethnic, diverse community the parents would always help them to put their down payment.
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It's like a core parental duty to take care of your kids financially.
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Absolutely, of course, if they can afford it.
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So it's also a kind of a legacy to leave them so that they would be set in life.
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So we took this insight, which is so important to the generations, to the older generation, and then we put the creative that speaks to them and dig into these insights and say that if the elder would pre-plan and they would actually be giving the children a blessing, a blessing so that they wouldn't have any more financial burden or woes anymore, and it worked, it worked and it cut through the taboo, because we dig into how the parents feel about leaving legacy for children.
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And the client was absolutely amazed and they were so happy.
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It turned the corner for them and they saw tremendous growth in their businesses.
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So this is really where we talk about the power of multicultural marketing.
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One of the things that is so important is the cultural currency and really understanding how values drive us.
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So it's a great example, I think, of a category where typically many Eastern cultures would consider it taboo, wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
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But what you've done is you've gone into the values that matter the most to these audiences, that drive them and then you created communications that basically change behavior as a result?
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Absolutely, and we are so proud of this and we're still helping them to market to the then we've expanded the group right now.
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I love it.
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So you know, when you've been coming into work every day and pushing for a cause that's bigger than yourself, there's got to be a fire that's, you know, lit inside of you.
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And so I would love to hear what sort of what lights you up every day in doing the work you do.
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Was there a catalyst moment, that sort of, lit that?
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So I think what lit the fire is that, of course, obviously the results that we will bring to the game for our clients, because we went through the trenches with them.
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So some of them would come and said well, you know, we really want to target, but we don't want to fail because they might have dipped their toes in the water before and have failed.
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But if you do it the right way be able to understand what are the cultural currency of the group, what are the nuances, what are the some of the insights, what are the values, whether the behavior if you tap into those and have an understanding of it, then you are going in the right direction.
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What I don't like to see is that, if you want to just have representation, doing so-called multicultural marketing and basically putting diverse nationality into Like talent, into one commercial, into like talent, commercial talent, so, and then yet the messaging is really from a mainstream perspective, messaging which doesn't resonate at all with these groups.
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So, uh, and that's the number one mistake that they have done, and my fire has always been to be educational, be able to help these brands do it in the right way and it's not just a check boxing I just got to do it.
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I just got to check this box because this is a multicultural country.
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I just need to do it and my passion is always to ensure clients are doing it in the right way.
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It's really not about the money.
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It's really be able to be authentically speaking to these community in a serious and authentic and personal way, showing these companies understand them and understand how to even speak to them.
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So it makes me think about the idea of inclusion.
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And you know how you said just because you have representation, maybe in hiring talent, that doesn't necessarily mean inclusion.
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What I'm hearing you say and what I've seen you do in work is really making sure that communities come together.
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Brands go into the community.
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They're part of the community and that's when things make a difference.
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I remember you sharing a story prior to starting Balmoral where you said you really felt a glass ceiling, where you could see that some leaders within the company only saw you belonging to a certain level.
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Right, and I call it the "I'll show you story.
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&amplt hey all knew the leaders, all knew I work hard and I proved myself, but all but there was also still a glass ceiling that despite my hard work, the mentality is that I still don't belong in the higher ranks because they don't understand that, out the ethnicity, they feel that there seems to be still a segregation between so-called mainstream and the others.
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But then of course I know they don't know me because I am very passionate and very ambitious and I've said to myself okay, well, okay, you don't think that I belong, and no problem, I'll show you.
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So at the end, actually at the end of the day, I showed them and actually by the time before I left this company, I also became a shareholder and a partner.
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So I've proven myself time and time again.
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And now you do that with brands.
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Now you're helping to show brands how to be inclusive, how to make sure they're ingratiating themselves into communities.
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So you're now speaking to some of the marketers at the highest levels of the game in Canada and making them feel belonged.
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Yes, and I think that I would like to see some of these brands be able to be more inclusive and be able to put more diverse community onto the board you know, or as their executive we have.
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I think the work that I've done and also many other multicultural agencies have done is that we have changed the landscape Multicultural Agency have done is that we have changed the landscape, we have turned the corner, but have we done all that we have done and be able to be 100%, be a perfect world?
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No, it's not.
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There's still quite a way to go, but I have seen that.
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You know, there we are already.
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I myself has been very fortunate to be at some of the executive board of mainstream organization, but I would like to see many diverse community, the levels that they could reach more.
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But I know that we're going to be working at it and I think that it will be a dream come true.
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We will get there.
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Yeah, absolutely so.
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Actually, that leads into the next question I have.
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Is that when you are working with clients and so often you've been charting new paths and new territories what would you say is an important lesson that you've learned with your client, alongside your client, on a multicultural marketing journey?
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So, most important, like a lot of large organization of course, have mostly discipline in the marketing, in fully integrated campaigns.
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But it can be a challenge for them to be implementing cultural, relevant transcreation into their campaigns because, as I said, they don't know, some of them don't know how, and then maybe some of them say, well, we'll just translate this message and of course it will be the opposite effect.
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But as a trans creation, what you need to do is to transcreate from the language the English language or French language to another language, but implementing cultural, relevant, creative and also with original intent and also with emotion and context.
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So it's not deviating whatsoever what the brand want to say.
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But we have to look at through a cultural lens what you're saying are actually relevant to them at all in your messaging?
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So I learn by examples.
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You know often with this kind of thing and so, just for our listeners, what I'd love to share if you can tell us a little bit more.
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I know with Metrolinx you did some really cool transcreation work with a campaign.
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They're sort of the mass advertising commercial use, the song I'm leaving for, jet plane right, a really well-loved song for many generations in Canada.
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But many immigrant families don't know that song, don't have connections to those lyrics, and so you created creative for the Chinese community, but also for the South Asian community, using unique insights.
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Can you share a bit about that?
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Well, of course, leaving on a jet plane.
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You know, I'm from a generation that understand this song, but it doesn't mean all the immigrants would know this song, depending on where they come from and what generation they are.
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So it didn't resonate with mainstream at all.
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So what we did was they were too creative.
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So we tap into the behavior of South Asian when they travel, especially going to the airport.
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So one of the insights is that they would say goodbye to everybody of the relatives that they are in Canada.
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I have been there, and if you miss a call!
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Oh, that's not good! You didn't want to say goodbye to me, you know so.
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And then he'd keep on and on and before you know, he missed the flight, you know, because it was dragging on and on.
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So, and then, of course, if you take the UPX, the upper express, it's so convenient taking you from point A to the airport.
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You can make all the calls on your way.
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You can do that.
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And it's also, you know, economical.
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It's a better price than taking an Uber, you know, and you will be, it won't be stuck in traffic.
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So for the Chinese community, the insight we always travel in multi-generation the grandfather, the parents, the children and they planned it way ahead of time.
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Let's say, going to Disney, right, so they're planning driving all the way, and then they realize that they're stuck on the highway and then it was.
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The whole family, was all disappointed and distressed and everybody looking at the driver, which is the son, and said why did we have to take this car?
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So it's another message that they can all hop onto a UPX and be able in no time and not stuck into.
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So this shows that we have to know how these communities travel, what's their behavior before travel and what will be some of the hurdles they have to be overcoming in order to reach the destination of the airport.
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So really that cultural currency is all about understanding what resonates right.
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Because those cultural impacts make us see things totally differently.
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Okay, so for marketers who want to jump into multicultural marketing in some capacity like or maybe like dip their toes, but do it in a good way what are some of the ways that they can be more inclusive as they get started on this journey?
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So, most importantly, if you read, it's going back to the building bridges of understanding, which means it's a two-way street that they would actually want to be inclusive in their marketing practices.
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But also, most importantly, is to ingratiate themselves into the community as, as opposed to marketing, just have the ads out but don't know what are these communities about, and never be out in a community nor attend their event.
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So you really will not fully understand the audiences that you're marketing to if you don't create that bridges of understanding, and I mean actually a bridge, so actually being there and being seen Absolutely it's very, very important because when you show that, that these audience will say, oh, we're being heard, we're being understood and we're being valued.
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And this is the kind of things that we at Balmoral do is to be able to feel, make the two sides be connected together and would be connection and understanding.
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There will be long-term relationship, as opposed to a shotgun approach yeah, so you often uh talk about how your.
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You have done this, and I've seen members of the Balmoral team do this.
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You've got your feet on the street.
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Pulse on the beat.
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Pulse on the beat and I know that you always encourage clients to do the same thing.
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Would you say, if there was one thing that multicultural in the multicultural marketing field, if brands wanted to get started, would that be?
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The first thing they need to do is be there, be in the community.
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Yes, very much so.
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First, you have to integrate yourself into the community, because textbooks will tell you, research will tell you what this community is, that you can draw insights from research.
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But the thing is, it's a different feel if you don't integrate yourself into that community that you're targeting.
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Secondarily, if you can also be hiring be inclusive employees of the different, diverse background.
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So they will be your bridge, they will be going out there and they will know what to do, who to see and also, of course, they speak the language.
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And also, at the same time, you should also be sponsoring some of the very important festivals or cultural events.
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So this is the thing I think for marketers who are trying to expand their horizons and feel more richness by understanding cultures.
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I often in our DEI training that we do together, people say I don't even know where to start, like, if I don't know anybody who is from the Filipino community, where do I even start?
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And so I think and I've seen you do this is say let go out to community associations, go out to festivals there's so many, especially in many of the urban centers in Canada.
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There are so many different festivals and events and community organizations that we can tap into.
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That's a great first place to start.
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Go watch, listen, meet people.
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It doesn't have to be complicated.
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It doesn't have to be complicated.
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It doesn't have to be complicated.
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I think you should have to really personally feel what is this community look like, you know, in the events, what did they do?
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I mean, we have the client that have asked us to actually do a festival Comparative deck.
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What is it that we do in Canada for certain celebrations?
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Where should they be, you know?
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And also they want to look at how big a thing it is for them when they're back home.
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So it gives them insights that these events are one of the top festivals or events that are so important to their own culture.
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And I think another point is that by going out there, you will also be able to meet the who's who there, who are the community leaders, people that the community listened to.
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And if these communities felt that you are integrating with them, they would definitely oh, you're supporting our causes, you supporting our charity, then they are your word of your mouthpiece, that would actually support you and be backing you when you want to go inside the community, you know.
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Then the business part follows.
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So this is interesting.
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In many Eastern cultures.
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I know we have a collective perspective.
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You know it's not just about I, because I know for me personally as a daughter of immigrants.
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I was born in Canada but my parents used to always say to me you know, if I'm not here and you're with your little brother, you are in charge of your little brother Like it is.
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You would be selfish if you didn't take care of him.
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But at school people would say you can't speak on behalf of your brother, he's his own person.
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You can only speak on behalf of yourself.
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So the I and the we perspectives are there on behalf of yourself.
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So the I and the we perspectives are there.
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In many Eastern cultures, I find leaders of a community have a lot of gravitas.
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They, you know people trust what they say because we come from this collective culture.
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So even understanding that sort of nuance is important.
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It's very important because these leaders, community leaders, are the beacon of their own communities.
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They pay their dues already by doing a lot of community work, charities, be president and CEO of community organization.
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So they're well recognized and whenever they said, you know, I think this particular brand or this particular company, they have supported us with us for 20 years, they support us for five years, it does make a difference.
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So when a diverse audience listen to that, well, okay, when I'm making a purchase, so I want to have a service, they, that particular brand do come into their mind and they will say, well, because they've done so much goodwill for our community, I would definitely be able to do business for them.
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And you've been doing this for decades and built strong, strong community relationships.
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I want to thank you for your time, sharifa.
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This has been so inspiring to see the work you do, what lights you up, and the goal of this podcast is really to help everyday marketers at all different levels learn more about multicultural marketing, about cultural values and norms, so we can learn more.
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You've taken us off to a great start today.
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Yes, thank you, Keka, and I want to leave with this.
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Embrace challenges.
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It's not as difficult as you want and this community is nothing more than niche marketing.
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Just as if you are trying to target mothers, you're trying to target young adults or seniors, this is just another piece of niche marketing.
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As long as you're willing to be able to put the time and to do some research and let there's so many multicultural agents that let us be able to help you to dig into their insights and to plan it well, and also be able to ingratiate yourself and interact with them outside in the community, then you can just go a long way.
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I love that: Ask questions, get to know people, and never be afraid of the challenge.
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Thank you Sharifa.
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Thank you for joining us today.
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If you have enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and rate and review the show.
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Join us next time for another journey into the exciting world of multicultural marketing.