The beginning of each year is traditionally filled with award shows throughout all industries to celebrate the past year’s accomplishments. On February 6, 2023, the 65th Annual Grammys Awards was broadcasted live exclusively on CBS and streamed on Paramount+. There were about 12.4 million viewers according to Nielsen’s reporting.
Out of the 91 total awards given out with over 140+ unique individuals, below is a breakdown based on the race/ethnicity of the awardees:
- 58% of awardees were White Non-Hispanics
- 21% of awardees were Black
- 12% of awardees were Hispanic
- 8% of awardees were Asian
Of these numbers, 3% also identified as mixed race or biracial, and roughly 6% of awardees were part of the LGBTQ community.
Among the celebrations were some historic wins for the Multicultural and Inclusive community. Kim Petras became the first transgender woman to win an award for Best Pop Group/Duo Performance, Germaine Franco became the first Hispanic woman to be nominated for and win an award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, and Beyonce broke the record for most Grammy award wins with a total of 32 Grammys.
Cultural representation in award shows is important, especially among GenZ, Millennial, and Multicultural audiences. GenZ viewers are 1.7x more likely to feel positively about seeing celebrities in the media that share their ethnic background when compared to Gen X & Boomers combined. Millennials are 1.5x more likely than GenX/Boomers to feel this way. When looking specifically at Multicultural audiences compared to White Non-Hispanics, Multicultural viewers are 3.6x more likely to feel positively about seeing celebrities in the media who share their ethnic background.[1]
Although there were many celebratory moments for Multicultural and Inclusive communities, many viewers still felt that The Recording Academy could be doing better when it comes to representation and respect towards Multicultural & Inclusive communities at the event.
When Bad Bunny performed, the closed-captioning stated that the Puerto Rican artist was “singing in non-English”. Many viewers took to the internet to complain about the lack of respect towards both the Hispanic community as well as disabled viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Being inclusive in Spanish-language music is a great way to connect to the Hispanic community, as Hispanics are 1.8x more likely to prefer listening to music in Spanish.
Additionally, when BTS, a largely popular K-Pop band, was nominated for Best Music Video, the imagery shown was not from the ‘Yet to Come’ video but instead from a previous ad campaign they were featured in last year.
It is known through CIIM™ (Cultural Insights Impact Measure) and the work done by the Cultural Inclusion Accelerator that feeling respected and represented authentically are key attributes that make media culturally relevant to the consumer. When it comes to ads in the media, 54% of Multicultural & Inclusive segments feel invisible or under-represented. The backlash from these incidents at the Grammy Awards shows that inclusivity is increasingly important to today’s consumers.[2]
Overall, each award show season continues to shine light and celebrate new accomplishments in different Multicultural & Inclusive segments, as well as where consumers feel improvements could be made. Santiago Solutions Group specializes in segments including all Multicultural and Inclusive, generational, socio-economic, and more. Key insights in segments identify real and effective connections that can be turned into highly calibrated and measurable tangible insights and strategies for business growth.
[1] Source: 2022 Fall MRI-Simmons USA
[2] December 2022 Cultural Inclusion Accelerator™ Tracker (n=2300)