What to know

Total market is an umbrella term that includes all or several diverse consumer groups in one strategy campaign from the inception and includes culturally relevant cues for each group. The total market approach was meant to create strategies to effectively center diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

While it may be more relevant and effective today than the general or mainstream market approach, a potential pitfall of the total market approach is trying to target too many consumer segments at the same time and failing to actually connect with any of them deeply. Target audiences are diverse on myriad levels, and trying to compact them into one campaign can result in marketing efforts that feel incomplete, overly general, and restrained. 

The total market approach also still operates from an unsupported assumption that campaigns that center on one non-dominant audience (with “dominant” often defined as white, cisgender, male, and straight) cannot have mass appeal. Increasingly, consumers are demanding more diversity and inclusion in marketing and advertising, even consumers who may be considered part of the dominant audience.

Additional resources

• Total Market Approach (Marketing Resource Directory)
• The Promise and Reality of ‘Total Market’ and How CMOs Need to Address It (Forbes)