Most brands think about multicultural advertising as a media buying exercise. Book the space, translate the copy, tick the box. What they miss entirely is the other half of the equation, editorial and PR.
In multicultural media, editorial and advertising are deeply intertwined. The outlet running your ad is the same outlet whose editor has spent twenty years building trust with their community. When you earn coverage in that publication, on that radio station, through that digital platform, it carries weight that a paid placement simply cannot replicate.
What Is Multicultural PR?
Multicultural PR is the practice of earning media coverage and community visibility within culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities through relationships, relevance, and newsworthy communications, rather than paid advertising alone.
It includes press releases distributed to ethnic media editors, spokespeople appearing on multicultural radio, community event sponsorships that generate editorial coverage, and brand stories told through the lens of specific cultural communities.
The goal is the same as mainstream PR: generate trust and visibility without paying for the space directly. The difference is the landscape you’re operating in and the standards that landscape applies to what it considers newsworthy.
Why Editorial Coverage in Ethnic Media Carries a Different Weight
Think about what multicultural media actually is.
A Vietnamese-language newspaper in Melbourne is not a generic news outlet that happens to publish in Vietnamese. It is the primary trusted news source for a specific community. Its editor knows the readers personally. It has earned its credibility over decades.
When that publication writes about your brand, genuinely, editorially, the response from readers is fundamentally different to seeing your ad elsewhere. Trust transfers. Research backs this up: 75% of CALD community members cite ethnic media as their most trusted source of news and information (Seale et al., 2022). That trust transfers to the advertisers who earn a genuine place within it.
How to Get Editorial Coverage in Ethnic Media
Getting editorial coverage in ethnic media is not complicated. It does require respect and preparation.
Pitch in language. A press release sent in English to a Vietnamese-language newspaper signals that you don’t take the outlet seriously. Translation is non-negotiable, and it needs to be professional, not machine-generated.
Make it community-relevant. Ethnic media editors are not interested in a generic product announcement. They want to know why it matters to their specific readers. Find the angle that connects your story to their community’s lives and lead with that.
Respect the editorial calendar. Chinese New Year, Diwali, Eid, Holi, Lohri, these events drive editorial content in their respective communities the same way Christmas drives mainstream editorial. If your brand has a story that connects to a community’s major cultural moments, plan for it months in advance, not weeks.
Build real relationships. Multicultural media editors are not anonymous contacts on a distribution list. This is what Leba does best. For the past 50 years, we have worked hand in hand with all of these organisations, allowing us to have honest insight into what will and won’t be acceptable.
Editorial, Sponsored Content, and Paid Advertising
Editorial is coverage earned because your story is newsworthy. You don’t pay for it. The credibility is highest here.
Sponsored content resembles editorial but is paid for. Done well, transparently labelled and genuinely useful, it can be very effective. Done poorly, communities notice immediately.
Paid advertising builds awareness and drives action, but doesn’t carry the editorial weight of genuine coverage.
The most effective multicultural campaigns use all three in the right proportion. Editorial builds trust. Sponsored content extends reach with authority. Paid advertising drives conversion. Running only paid advertising and ignoring editorial entirely is like arriving at a community gathering and immediately handing out flyers. You might get some attention. You won’t build a relationship.
Community Events and Chinese Social Platforms
Community event sponsorships are among the most underutilised PR tools in multicultural marketing. The editorial coverage that flows from a well-executed sponsorship, mentions in community newspapers, visibility on radio, genuine presence at an event thousands of people attend, reaches deep into a community in a way no media buy can replicate.
For Chinese-Australian communities specifically, WeChat and Little Red Book operate almost entirely outside the mainstream media environment. Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) on these platforms carry significant editorial authority. A genuine KOL endorsement reaches audiences that no mainstream placement can touch.
The Bottom Line
The communities you are trying to reach have media they trust, editors they respect, and platforms where they share what matters to them. Earning a genuine place in that conversation through editorial, through community presence, through real relationships produces a qualitatively different response to anything a media buy alone can achieve.
We have watched brands build extraordinary loyalty within multicultural communities over decades. Almost without exception, the ones that got there treated editorial and PR as seriously as they treated advertising.
Leba Ethnic Media has been supporting multicultural communications strategies across Australia’s CALD communities since 1975. Contact us to discuss your multicultural PR and editorial strategy.