• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 7, 2017

The ANA Alliance for Inclusive & Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) announced this week that it is opening membership to a wider circle of industry participants.

The initiative was founded last year by the ANA In a bid to help strengthen multicultural marketing efforts by brands and agencies.

At the time, membership was restricted to a small list of “invitation only” participants. Charter members at launch included AHAA: The Voice of Hispanic Marketing;  Anheuser-Busch, Burrell Communications, Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, IW Group, Kaiser Permanente, Kellogg, López Negrete Communications, NBC Universal, OMD, Procter & Gamble, Target 10, Univision, Video Advertising Bureau and Wells Fargo. 

The decision to open membership to a wider group was unveiled Monday at the ANA’s Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference held in Miami.

“Expanding the AIMM’s membership roster allows us to reach critical mass in our continuing efforts to address the increasingly important issues of diversity and multicultural influence in our industry,” stated ANA CEO Bob Liodice. “And our key priorities will help marketers energize their multicultural marketing efforts as a pathway to increased growth, which has suffered industrywide for the past few years.”

Effective immediately, AIMM membership will now be open to all ANA members as well as a select number of agencies, media companies, research companies, and trade associations.

Liodice also announced at the conference that Tony Rogers, chief marketing officer at Walmart Stores, Inc., has been appointed AIMM vice chairman for 2018 and will be named chairman for 2019–20.