9thWonder's Consumer X Transcends Multicultural Marketing

• by Larissa Faw , October 3, 2019

Agency 9thWonder is introducing a new practice focused on demographics outside of traditional classifications, such as urban dwellers who are rural at heart, or Latinos who are English-dominant.

“Marketers’ biggest opportunities are hiding in plain sight,” said Jose Lozano, CEO of 9thWonder. “They’re the real influencers within groups that marketers know are expanding, but don’t fully activate. The reason is, their one-size-fits-all marketing fails to connect with the X consumers in personally relevant ways.” 

Consumer X will field a dedicated team of researchers and strategists to work across all 100+ clients to transcend the typical processes of multicultural or ethnic marketing.

The practice will be lead by Maria Twena, serving as partner, global head. Twena previously ran GlobalHue Latino, created MRM/McCann’s direct-marketing business targeting second-generation Hispanics online and served as CMO of media companies Entravision and Pulpo Media.

First up, Consumer X will start with the Latin market, where 27 million English Latino First (ELF) consumers are redefining the segment. ELF consumers are immigrants who came to the U.S. before their 10th birthday or U.S.-born children of an immigrant parent.

Twena’s next target will be rural consumers whose mind-sets transcend geography and have profound impact on brand consumption as well as politics.

As a practice rather than a division of a spinoff, Consumer X will not be burdened with a P&L. The team will work with existing client teams, rather than parallel or separately. A further differentiation, unlike multicultural agencies, Consumer X is integrated with a general-market agency enabling it to avoid turf wars.

"Marketers focus on reaching them when they need to touch them," explains Twena. "We’re set up to drive qualitative consumer growth by code-talking to consumers in all forms of brand messaging.”