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The Melting Blog

Musings on the Intersection of Marketing, Culture, and Research

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Hooray for Bollywood

On the heels of Newsweek's 'American Masala' article from several weeks back, my hometown paper follows suit in covering the growing Bollywood influence on U.S. pop culture and the local entertainment industry in this morning's daily issue:

Bollywood — that mega-billion-dollar moviemaking behemoth long popular everywhere else in the world — is finally touching America. The evidence is everywhere. Indian film stars are beginning to pop up on TV shows and in Hollywood movies. Bollywood composers are collaborating with megastars like Michael Jackson and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Bollywood singers are sampled in American hip-hop and movie soundtracks, and choreographers are working with stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

Scratch a little deeper and you'll find the Bollywood aesthetic popping up all over the place: There is an all-Bollywood dance studio in Artesia and a Bollywood comic book out of the Bay Area. The style is being picked up by everyone from Dolce & Gabbana to Target. It's even part of the décor at Tantra, a hip Indian restaurant in Silver Lake that continually plays classic Bollywood films on plasma screen TVs.

Guess who the ambassadors are who feed the popularity of this genre? Yes, of course it's partly Asian Indian folks themselves -- now the third largest Asian population segment in the country -- BUT, and this is an important distinction, it's predominantly them younger 'uns who expose the Desi-coolness of it all to their non-Desi peers (before one of them, a Tarantino-type usually, who channels it to the broader network and into the mainstream):

Indians have long wielded cultural influence all over the globe — everywhere, that is, except the U.S. The Internet and satellite television, however, are changing that, making Indian entertainment accessible to anyone who wants it. Oftentimes, that's Indians themselves, who in turn influence Americans.

"A whole generation of Americans have grown up with Indian friends," says Makhijani, 31. "Kids come over to their friends' houses and hear the music. They see someone's mom dressed in a sari and they see it on TV. It's not totally alien."

That's how Antony Mazzotta first learned about Bollywood. When the 28-year-old comic book artist was studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, "I knew a lot of South Asian people. We'd just have nights where we'd rent movies, and sometimes it would be Bollywood movies," says Mazzotta, who was so touched by the films' colorful spirit and universality of the stories that he created the Bollywood-inspired comic series "Bombaby."

"All the South Asians who live in North America, they retain a very vibrant link with their motherland through Bollywood. That's basically how they keep their culture alive, by watching movies," said Danny Dandona, producer of the Bollywood Fashion Awards and Bollywood Awards, taking place April 30 and May 1 at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, N.J.

Like other pop imports before it -- Japanese anime, Hong Kong action, yakuza flicks, Bruce Lee, etc. (all these influences are now patently obvious in mainstream Hollywood faire such as The Matrix and Kill Bill) -- it all starts with a handful of obsessive, compulsive champions (a geek contingent) before it gets really big. If it really catches on, the Bollywood-style may eventually become absorbed (some would say sullied) into some kind of American cultural mish-mash. The results will both astound and repulse I'm sure -- it's the American way.

Read the whole article here only if you have Calendarlive access (paid subscription required).

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 12:14 am

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Let's Get Sensitive

Here's a text book case study of a targeted ethnic sales/marketing program gone awry: Wondries' Toyota dealership in Alhambra, CA (which has one of the highest Asian populations in the country), just settled out of court a first-round of consumer grievance lawsuits. The car dealer was known to cater to Asian customers, but also swindled many Chinese-speaking auto buyers with limited English-proficiency by jacking up their interest rates. Read on:

In its advertisements, Wondries Toyota in Alhambra urged Chinese-speaking car shoppers to visit the dealership because it offered Mandarin-speaking salesclerks.

But it was that language expertise that, according to a lawsuit, allowed the business to use bait-and-switch tactics on unsuspecting Chinese immigrants who were falsely told they had poor credit and had to take loans with high interest.

Financial terms of the settlement are not disclosed, but the dealer has issued a public apology and now must undergo one of the chief indignities of any modern American company: Yes, I'm talking about "sensitivity" training:

The automobile dealer also agreed to provide sensitivity training for its sales staff on how to deal with customers who do not speak English.

Isn't that so, like, '90's? What's even more pathetic than that is the sales perpetrators who are guilty of Wondries' lecherous practices are Mandarin-speaking -- and, one assumes -- Chinese themselves. Sad, but true.

In August 2001, the 40-year-old import/exporter from China's Sichuan province said, he was told by a Mandarin-speaking Wondries salesman that he would have to pay interest rates as high as 14.9% on a 1998 Camry sedan. A bank officer later told Li that he had excellent credit and qualified for 7.25%.

"Wondries should have apologized to the entire community, not just us," Li said. "There's no repercussion on the salespeople. On those grounds, I'm still not satisfied."

Dong Bai, a 40-year-old immigrant from Beijing interested in a Rav 4 sport utility vehicle, said she was tricked by a Mandarin-speaking salesclerk into a higher interest rate and a $599 car alarm that she was told would be free.

The picture of these Chinese salesmen being subjected to an education 101 about their own cultural heritage and getting sensitized to their own community is ironic on so many levels, it makes me chuckle. This Wondries case has actually spurred a state policy change in the form of AB309 -- the Asian consumer protection initiative -- to be enacted within 3 months:

Although state laws requiring contracts to be translated into Spanish have existed for nearly 30 years, it won't be until July that the same protection is applied to consumers who speak Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese, the four most common Asian languages in California. That's when AB309, a bill that was introduced by Assemblywoman Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), is fully implemented.

Signed into law by our recalled governor last September, the new legal statute in California will now require certain types of businesses in the state to have written contracts available in the above-mentioned languages.

Read about this entire episode here and here.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 3:14 pm

Workin' It

Isn't it funny how celeb-athlete endorsements (with the occasional exception of a Lebron James) don't make this kind of news anymore? The marketing of Ms. Misdemeanor herself, as told by the New York Times:

Last year, the hip-hop artist Missy Elliott fused her image with that of Gap, striking a pose with Madonna. In that much-publicized advertising campaign, each flaunted a pair of Gap monogrammed jeans. This year, Ms. Elliott hopes to top that act by collaborating as a designer of her own fashion line. Her new partnership with Adidas will include sports-inspired footwear, apparel and accessories bearing Ms. Elliott's signature and streetwise fashion imprint.

Ms. Elliott has endorsed the brand informally in the past. According to the company, she has worn Adidas footwear almost exclusively in the last three years, most prominently in videos like "Work It," "Gossip Folks" and her latest, "I'm Really Hot." The new line, under the umbrella of Adidas Originals, is the company's most recent bid for street cred. It represents, said Lee Krispin, an Adidas spokesman, "a true fusion of sport authenticity and global street style."

Apparently, these things run full circle. Run-DMC's 1986 classic ode to their Adidas anyone? This lastest ploy is an attempt by Adidas to recover some of that hip, urban sheen they lost since the 80's by turning to Missy. No doubt they're also looking on with sheer envy over Reebok's astounding success with Jay-Z's S.Carters.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 1:44 am

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Got Propaganda?

And here everyone was worried about the ramifications Huntington's essay would have in the U.S.? Today's China Daily (the official propaganda machine of the Chinese government) offers an "opinion" piece that decries the invasion of bilingualism (that's right, not just English but bilingualism) in China -- citing the purportedly ill-effects Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants have had on American politics and economics. Key grafs:

The population of Mexicans in America have reached a critical mass at which point politicians have to cater to their wishes and enact laws favoring their group if they want to be successful in their political campaigns, even if the enactment of such laws are not in the larger interest of mainstream Americans.

The granting of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants is such a case in point. Without such a license, an illegal immigrant will find it very difficult to find any decent job or even live normally in the Southwest. With the enactment of laws granting such licenses, illegals are encouraged to enter into those states bordering Mexico. That's how the Mexican population in America has expanded exponentially in the last five years.

It is a vicious cycle in which the more laws you enact favoring the Mexicans the more illegals will arrive; the more illegals arrive the worse shape the economy will be in because of back-breaking fiscal burdens in the education and health sectors.

Sounds like Pat Buchanan, doesn't it? But less nuanced. Here's a huge leap in logic:

The politicians have to do this in order to win an election. Yet the more these politicians win the more they have to give in to the special interests of the Mexican lobby. Sooner or later they will have a Mexican-born governor in a major state such as California. The legislation of more laws favoring the Latinos, including that of the use of Spanish in officialdom, will eventually come to pass.

No Mexican-born governor yet, but an Austrian-born one we do have. Finally, it all comes down to this:

It is time for China to step back from the edge of the precipice by forsaking its priority on English in its educative processes and to stop the rise of bilingualism in its track, and to reject Western democracy outright as a possible form of government in our nation's future.

I truly doubt China plans on returning to an isolationist position in its global relations, so take the article with a grain of salt. Plus, it's chest-beating propaganda afterall. Spotted by Latino Pundit (who has all of the U.S., Latin America, and now China covered).

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 12:03 pm

Monday, April 12, 2004

Spanish Print Wars Heat Up

When Sam Huntington said the influx of Hispanic immigrants threatens to turn the U.S. into a nation of two peoples, two cultures, and two languages, one thing he neglected to mention is that two print media empires would also emerge as a result. The English-language print media y'all already know about -- it's readership is shrinking. Spanish-language print media, au contrare, is exploding.

Now, with the ensuing Spanish newspaper wars -- waged primarily between the Tribune's Hoy and the venerable La Opinion (now a part of Impremedia) -- just getting underway, the industry gets an unexpected twist with this announcement that several former Wall Street Journal alumnus are also trying to break in on the action with the pending launch of their Meximerica Media, which plans on pursuing the proliterating Mexican-American market, starting with Texas:

The new venture, Meximerica Media, is expected to announce in the next few weeks that it intends to create Spanish-language, tabloid-size newspapers in several Texas cities, according to several people briefed on the plans. Among the cities under strong consideration are Austin, Houston and San Antonio, to be followed by others in the West and Southwest where Mexican-American readers are thought to be underserved.

Needless to say, none of this positioning and jockeying would be happening if there wasn't a sizable market opportunity at stake here:

Driving all this maneuvering, in large part, is the lure of advertising revenue. According to the Latino Print Network, the more than 650 Spanish-language newspapers in this country - including 40 that publish daily and 304 that publish weekly - earned an estimated $854 million in combined advertising revenue in 2003. That represents an industrywide increase of $743 million, or 670 percent, since 1990, and $258 million, or 43 percent, since 2000.

Over the same period, the readership of Spanish-language daily newspapers has grown - from 440,000 in 1990 (when there were 14 such publications) to 1.4 million in 2000 (when there were 34) to 1.8 million last year, according to the Latino Print Network.

Is this market a growing pie ready to be sliced and diced by multiple competitors? It looks to be the case. Will it be a cakewalk as this frenzy of new newspaper entries suggests? Hardly. The Latino Print Network's Kirk Whisler gives everyone a reality-check:

But newspaper industry analysts cautioned that the quest for Spanish-speaking readers is a complicated one, particularly for any media company that perceives the nation's nearly 40 million Hispanic Americans as monolithic. Such companies, if they move too quickly, also risk being viewed as interlopers who could alienate the very readers they are trying to reach.

Those readers are "very sophisticated, and they're very much in tune with their countries of origin," said Kirk Whisler, the president of the Latino Print Network, a research and marketing affiliate of the National Association of Hispanic Publications. "And in the case of Mexico, it's their state of origin."

"Just the fact that you throw in coverage of Mexico - and in your market there may be four states in Mexico that 80 or 90 percent of the residents are from - is not enough," Mr. Whisler added. "You need that localized news. That's really what they want to see."

What he said, plus the fact, I must add, the real growth of the Hispanic population on the horizon won't be coming from new immigrants (though they will always constitute an important, substantial market). Nay, the biggest growth in this market is coming from the second and third generation (60% of the population, many still in diapers) who are unlikely to become regular readers of Spanish-language print media as they come of age. They got next.

Read the entire article.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 9:06 pm

The Two Americas

Thanks to Richard Nixon, America became a nation designated into five colors in 1973: White, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Red. The essayist Richard Rodriguez thinks we're becoming a nation that's ultimately "browning." Bush-whacker pundit, Michael Lind, warns about the future of "the beige and the black" alchemy as America's primary racial dichotomy.

But for many high-minded trainspotters who's job it is to gauge the national condition, these colors -- based on race and ethnicity -- are an interesting, but inadequate, way to describe the American landscape. For them, the primary color/culture divide in the U.S. is the distinction between Red and Blue. You've heard it before: Red America is that part of the country that drives pick-up trucks, lives in suburban (or exurban) tract homes, believes in old time religion, and shops at Wal-Mart. Blue America, in contrast, lives in urban (or major metro) areas, drives imports, listens to NPR, goes on self-realization retreats, and is otherwise culturally and socially heteregeneous. A radically simplistic bifurcation, I know, but our national dialogue is dominated by references and allusions to this Red/Blue America divide.

Now, apparently, there are two recently launched magazines that speak to each side of these two different Americas. The New York Times has the details:

The magazines, with names separated by nothing more than a single letter, will probably not share a single reader. That two publications with so little in common have chosen such similar names says something about the mutability of the word "America" and the bifurcated republic it represents.

The two magazines nicely convey the dyads: rural and urban, mass and elite, red and blue. America's America is sleek, multiracial and wonderfully coiffed. The images on the oversize, foil-edged pages are outré; in one photo essay the actress Juliette Lewis is curled up in a refrigerator, having a moment with herself. Using hip-hop as its motif the magazine roams across fashion, film and technology. It takes the reader behind the velvet ropes and assumes anyone who is reading it belongs there: America magazine defines and covers its own species.

American Magazine's America seems more like a teddy bear you can hold on your lap. The January-February issue was anchored by photographs of Valentine's Day cookies, with 40 or so hearts sprinkled through pages that included a paean to the world's largest snowman and a story about being nice to strangers. This is a magazine in which nobody is special because everybody is special, in which warm, friendly people move through vast, pretty landscapes.

In other words, the magazine "America" is pursuing the same multi-ethnic, younger urban demo we talk about a lot here at TMB. It's a far different audience than the readers who will likely gravitate towards "American Magazine," which, in contrast, appeals far more to the Martha Stewart demographic. Each side believes they are capturing the core of what America represents:

Mr. Fontaine, who is also the chief executive of the magazine, said that the invocation of "America," with all its baggage and allure, was intentional.

"The name is part of the common vocabulary," he said. "Different generations and different groups will bring their own meaning to it. I was born in London, and my father was white, and my mother was black. I moved to New York when I was 6. And I think that among people of color we are just as American as what we preface it with, whether it be African-American, Asian-American or Latino-American. I have always thought that the hyphen that divides those words is as much of a connection as it is a separation."

It is easy to root for both magazines and their founders. Ms. Wright, 30, and Mr. Fontaine, 32, are working on versions of the great American success story, and each is looking for readers who buy into their vision of what the country is about. They publish boutique magazines — America distributes 50,000 copies, American Magazine 100,000 — in an industry dominated by behemoths. But America has a cover price of $8 and will be sold or provided to a rarefied, highly selective audience. American, with a cover price of of $3.95, inhabits the aisles of chain stores, including every Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest company, which has managed to brand itself as a small-town booster.

Reality will always chew away at the edges of the Hallmark card ethos that drives American Magazine. And America's unified theory, that hip-hop brings everyone together, has proved to be mortally wrong on occasion. But like most magazines they are aspirational. America depicts a hip, unattainable place, and American is marketing an ineffable state of being.

You can check out "American Magazine" here. As far as I know, "America" the magazine has no website yet at this point in time. BUT, I did some sleuthing around and managed to dig up their Pharrell Williams cover story from their inaugural issue (checked it out from the Star Trak Music site).

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 11:31 am

Friday, April 9, 2004

Would You Buy Chocolate From This Woman?

I know I would buy a few bars! And I'm not even that fond of the stuff. Advertising Age breaks the news that killer Mexican soap opera diva and chanteuse, Thalia Doti, has signed on to Hershey Foods as part of the candy company's Hispanic marketing campaign:

With the continuing expansion of the domestic Latin market, growing numbers of U.S. marketers are increasingly taking advantage of the crossover appeal of Hispanic stars. For instance, a recent Coca-Cola Co. commercial starring actress Salma Hayek, broke simultaneously on Spanish and English-language TV and had dialog in both languages.

Hersheys’ new star Thalia already has her own clothing line at Kmart, where she competes with Spanish-language TV host Lucy Pereda’s women’s apparel line at Sears Roebuck & Co., and a clothing range from Daisy Fuentes that is appearing in Kohl’s stores now.

Rival's Hispanic strategy
Late into the Latin market, Hersheys hired a Hispanic agency, Dieste, for the first time in 2000 but has not been very active in Spanish-language advertising, unlike rival M&M Mars. Mars supports several brands in the Hispanic market and has tested Latin-oriented products like dulce de leche M&M’s, a caramel flavor popular among Hispanics.

If you remember, Thalia made her crossover attempt with a U.S. album release last year, spearheaded by the single "I Want You" with South Bronx rapper, Fat Joe. I don't know how it performed on the charts, but really, who cares? She's record-impresario Tommy Mottola's wife afterall, so it's not like her pretty ass will get dropped from the label if it sucked. I'm sure he's masterminding the entire process to make her the next J.Lo.

One thing that does strike an odd chord with me is the article mentioning that Hershey's general market agency, Omnicom's DDB Worldwide, will handle all advertising, while their Hispanic agency, Dieste Harmel & Partners (also of Omnicom), does "promotional support." Strange, particularly if the campaign aims for crossover creative appeal. I would think the Hispanic agency is more fit to handle their Spanish-language advertising.

(Originally spotted in Adrants).

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 12:48 am

Nielsen's People Meter Undercounts Minority Households

I guess I should say something about this issue since it's relevant subject matter to this blog. But I just don't see what the big deal is. In short, Nielsen Media Research, the New York-based research conglomerate that tracks TV ratings, is trying to update their way out-dated, pen-and-paper diary system to an automated electronic measurement box called "people meters." About time, right? The problem is, the new meter technology seems to undercount minority households (or programs they watch) -- which has generated a tizzy among some network execs. Now, politicians and civil rights advocates have gotten involved. Threats from global media conglomerates have been made. The rollout is now delayed.

Am I missing something? Sure, it's important (especially for us in ethnic marketing) to get accurate, valid measurements about minority media habits. The data from Nielsen ratings determine everything from advertising rates to whether programs continue to remain on air. Of course, shows that appeal to ethnic or urban audiences are right to panick if they're not getting an accurate measure of their ratings.

But doesn't the uproar over this seem just a tad bit out of proportion to the gravity of the situation? I mean, Hillary Clinton and the NAACP getting all hot-and-bothered over the fact that some network TV ratings have dropped among minority households using the technology (for still unclear reasons)? This isn't the Census we're talking about here, folks. Plus, one of the chief explanations for the "undercount" could very well be due to the migration of viewers to cable, which is captured by people meter.

Methinks this whole debacle has more to do with one company's savvy political machinations than anything else.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 12:22 am

Wednesday, April 7, 2004

LATV's Mex 2 the Max

I was wondering how long it would take to hear from LATV on the heels of SiTV's conspicuous announcement this week. The "L.A."-based television network -- which hopes to launch itself nationally later in the year -- trumpets the fact that it's Mex 2 the Max program rates No. 1 in its time slot among the 18-49 Hispanic demographic, beating out competitors MTV, VH1, and mun2.

LATV, which recently launched as a 24/7 network in preparation for a national rollout, has just signed an agreement with two top Latino talents. Comedy pioneer and award-winning writer, Rick Najera, who most recently was nominated for a prestigious Writer’s Guild Award for his work on the national sketch variety show Mad TV, will develop original cutting edge programming for LATV. Najera is also known for his hit comedy show, “Latinologues(TM),” the number one showcase for Latino talent in America.

LATV is also partnering with Omar and Adolfo Valenzuela to create a reality series similar to MTV’s Making the Band. The Valenzuela brothers’ credits include Thalía's Latin Grammy-nominated Con Banda: Grandes Éxitos and a remix of Paulina Rubio's Si Tú Te Vas. Both new programs are expected to debut in July 2004.

“Rick Najera and the Valenzuela’s are leaders in their respective industries and work at the cutting edge of the creative world. Partnering with them is an important stage in the evolution of LATV,” said Danny Crowe, president of LATV. “We are very excited to have the opportunity to bring this new programming to our audience.”

As measured by Nielsen Media Research, the leading provider of television ratings data, LATV consistently ranks high among Hispanic cable viewers during prime time. In March LATV’s “Mex 2 the Max” was #1 (averaging 70,000 viewers and peaking at 96,000) among viewers aged 18-49 during the prime-time slot as compared to mun2, VH1, MTV, MTV2 and Fox Sports.

You'll recall that LATV is one of the earlier pioneers of Spanglish/English programming targeted at Latino youth. They've been doing it for barely 3 years. No doubt this announcement sets the platform for their national launch. More news to come I'm sure...

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 3:25 pm

State of America's Race Relations

Yo, check it out: Read this article on racial attitudes on the AARP Magazine website. Yes, that's right: AARP. Last December, AARP and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCC) commissioned a Gallup poll to undertake one of the broadest, most comprehensive surveys ever among Whites, Blacks, and Latinos (where are the Asians people?) about the state of America's race relations -- half-a-century after Brown vs. Board of Education. Unsurprisingly, it's a mixed bag: there are some key findings that denote real progress; other results are discouraging. I'll stay on the positive tip for now:

The most astonishing progress has been made in two areas that hit closest to home for most Americans: interracial relationships and the neighborhoods we live in. Consider that 70 percent of whites now say they approve of marriage between whites and blacks, up from just 4 percent in a 1958 Gallup poll. Such open-mindedness extends across racial lines: 80 percent of blacks and 77 percent of Hispanics also said they generally approve of interracial marriage. Perhaps even more remarkable, a large majority of white respondents—66 percent—say they would not object if their own child or grandchild chose a black spouse. Blacks (86 percent) and Hispanics (79 percent) were equally accepting about a child or grandchild's marrying someone of another race.

When it comes to choosing neighbors, an inclusive spirit again prevails: majorities of blacks, whites, and Hispanics all say they would rather live in racially mixed neighborhoods than surround themselves with only members of their own group. "It's hard now to imagine the level of fear and anxiety that Americans felt about these issues just a few decades ago," says Taylor Branch, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his history of the Civil Rights Movement, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963. "The idea [among whites] that you might have a black colleague or customer or neighbor has now become relatively commonplace except in a few scattered pockets." Similarly, slight majorities of whites and Hispanics and a little less than half of blacks think that minorities should try to blend in with the rest of American culture rather than maintain their own separate identities.

Read it all as they say. There's some rich, insightful stuff produced from the survey, and it's a good benchmark of where things currently stand in terms of attitudes and perceptions about race and ethnicity in contemporary America -- for better or for worse (I'll save my rants later about why Asians weren't included in it). Interestingly, some results run counter to established thinking about interracial intimacies.

On an aside, when the L.A. Times wrote this past Sunday that AARP was revamping its magazine to be sleeker and hipper (catering to those aging baby boomers now entering into their, ahem, "mature" years), I thought it meant more celebrity profiles, "Viagra etiquette," and new yoga poses. I didn't expect this -- articles about racism's roots, tolerance in Charlotte, Danny Glover's activism, etc. Also hard to dismiss is the fact that AARP's rag has a circulation of 22 million readers -- the largest in the country. Damn, and a full page ad costs 385,000 bones.

More info on the study from the press release. More later from me.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 1:18 am

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Twenty-Billion Reasons

Ad Age is on the TMB tip today looking at the new wave of Hispanic advertising among major U.S. banks, who are targeting the $20 billion money transfer business sent by Latinos in the U.S. back to family and relatives in Latin America. This remittance market has long been dominated by Money Gram and Western Union, but now Bank of America, Citibank, and others want a cut of the action. It's $20 billion afterall. Here's a description of Citibank's creative strategy:

Some striking cultural insights emerged in the research done by Citibank and its Miami-based U.S. Hispanic agency, La Comunidad. For instance, recent immigrants' reasons for coming to the U.S. -- to earn money and create opportunities for their families -- are so obvious that they underlie Citibank's campaign without needing to be directly stated. And American life is strange, often bewildering, to a homesick outsider.

Absorbing those insights, La Comunidad's ads first show the downside of American life, then explain how Citibank can help with the real, economic goals that brought immigrants here. In a humorous radio ad, a recent immigrant is confronted by the arbitrary 10 a.m. cutoff of breakfast service when he tries to order scrambled eggs at 10:03. In other radio spots, ordering coffee triggers an insane number of choices, and choosing the "For Spanish, press two" option on a phone call leads to a recorded customer service message in garbled, incorrect Spanish.

Ads end with the sympathetic tagline, "There are better reasons why you chose to live in the United States. Citibank Access Account. Access to what you came here for."

"We thought, from a strategy point, Citibank tells them, 'We understand how you feel about being in the U.S.,' " said Jose Molla, La Comunidad's founder and creative director. "There's not much we can do about the downside of being here, but a lot we can do to make it worth it, like access to the financial system."

Be sure to check out one of the Citbank ad spots here developed by their Hispanic creative agency, La Comunidad (Windows media required).

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 4:38 pm

Those Hmong Us

Incredible. With all the hubbub raging over immigration these days (the loudest, most shrill squawkers have been those on the nativist right), I'm surprised I've heard nothing about what's going on in St. Paul. Flying back from Motor City yesterday, I was catching up on some weekend reading, and this story caught me by surprise (it was buried deep in the nether-pages of the Times). If you are unaware of what I speak, here's the skinny:

This summer, as many as 15,000 Hmong refugees will arrive in St. Paul and communities in California, Wisconsin and North Carolina. They have been living in limbo at Wat Tham Krabok, a camp in Thailand, after being driven from their mountain homelands in the waning days of the war in Southeast Asia. Now the United States has decided to take them in.

In many cities, even the biggest ones, this would seem a prescription for disaster: the instant arrival of thousands of immigrants, most of whom speak no English, lack skills and have little concept of this country, at a time when jobs are few and government budgets are strained.

Let's set aside for a moment the formidable challenge of absorbing such a large refugee population (esp. for St. Paul). When I was doing grocery retail research for the Coca Cola Retailing Research Council project, I specifically recall one prominent executive of the largest grocery chain in St. Paul declare his enthusiasm about reaching the Hmong consumer population. Why? Well, it's partly due to the fact they have gradually become an indelible fixture of the Twin Cities:

At least 25,000 people of Hmong descent live in St. Paul, a city of 300,000. They were drawn by social service agencies and church groups that helped the first arrivals nearly 30 years ago, and, later, by the tug of family who had come before. At least 20,000 more Hmong live elsewhere in Minnesota, and thousands more live around the country, in cities like Fresno, Calif., and Milwaukee.

In the Vietnam War, the Central Intelligence Agency recruited Hmong in Laos to be part of a secret war against the Pathet Lao Communists, rescuing downed American pilots and fighting North Vietnamese soldiers. As the war ended, with Communists in power in Laos, thousands of Hmong fled into the jungles, to Thailand and beyond.

They, and now their children and grandchildren, have left their imprint on St. Paul.

Not unlike most new immigrant populations, many Hmong members, while appreciative of U.S. support, ultimately hope to return to their home country one day. The younger generation, on the other hand, have their own ideas:

But General Pao said he longed for a day when all Hmong — even those still hiding in Laos or living on their own somewhere in Thailand — might return in safety to Laos, which is still a Communist state.

"That is still our motherland," he said, "and hopefully we can go back when democracy rules."

Along University Avenue here, Song Thao, who works behind the counter of the Wung Lee Supermarket and Jewelry store, said she rarely thought of leaving St. Paul.

Ms. Thao is 16 and wears low-riding jeans. She said her friends were mostly white. She prefers rap to the Hmong songs on the cassettes her customers buy. She can speak Hmong, but not write it, and says she plans to marry in her late 20's, not far younger, as is Hmong tradition.

Ms. Thao has never lived in Laos, and at the prospect of living there some day, she scrunched up her nose and shrugged. All she remembers is right here.

Back to the issue of immigrant absorption: This has always been the major issue for nativist detractors who claim foreign refugee populations only reproduce their poverty in the U.S. -- they don't assimilate, they are an economic drain, they'll never speak English, ad nauseum. Hogwash. While there's no question St. Paul will have to contend with a major employment and public services challenge from the influx, this is a population that has exceeded all pessimistic expectations. Look at the evidence:

All Figures From U.S. Census Bureau	1990	2000
U.S. Hmong Median Family Income	$14,300	$32,076
% U.S. Hmong with Public Assistance Income	67%	30.3%
% U.S. Hmong Families Below Poverty Line	62%	34.8%
% U.S. Hmong Population in Owner Occupied Housing	13%	40%

While these figures are still below the overall median, Hmongs are making convincing, tremendous gains over a range of socio-economic indicators. Read here for more.

(Figures stolen from the Hmong Cultural Center)

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 2:10 pm

Sunday, April 4, 2004

The Evolution of Ethnic Media (updated)

For years, ethnic media in the U.S. really meant in-language media for new immigrant populations. That's now changing thanks to an emerging vanguard of cable upstarts who are trying to re-mold ethnic media towards cultural relevance instead of catering purely to the in-language facility of its viewers. Specifically, they have their sites set squarely on reaching the swelling ranks of the second generation (third gen, in some cases) -- children of immigrants born in the U.S.

Here's some info on one those networks: a snapshot of SiTV's founder Jeff Valdez in this past week's Diversity Inc. (sorry, subscription required):

Where I grew up [in Pueblo, Colo.] if you spoke Spanish you got beat up," said Valdez. He believes marketers focus too much on Spanish-speaking Latinos, forgetting what shows, such as ABC's "George Lopez" and PBS's "Brothers Garcia" indicate – that there's a U.S.-grown Latino culture unique to the states.

"Everyone is so focused on language they forget that culture influences people," said Valdez. "We're about culture and when you look at it on that perspective you don’t get influenced by the argument that pits Spanish against English."
--

Interestingly, the network’s hosts are a diverse lot both in regards to gender and race. They include Asian Americans and African Americans, reflecting the fact that the Latin population does include a variety of people of color. A lack of such diversity is a common critique of Spanish-language programming, which overwhelmingly features white Latin Americans.

Valdez and producers affiliated with SiTV expect the network's diverse representation to resonate with a broad array of audiences and set it a part from other cable networks.

"In studies on programming it was clear that the [network's] audience was not only Latino but African American, Asian American and the general population, who find the programming and concepts and talent that is going to be displayed compelling and entertaining," said Moctezuma Esparza, executive producer of Esparza/Katz Productions.

Valdez said that such diversity will ensure that no "isms" exist at SiTV.

Readers of this blog know I've been tracking and writing about this trend (download our newsletter for my article "Moving Beyond Language"). To thrive, media startups like SiTV will have to capture a good swath of the youth crossover audience beyond its core viewers (just like BET has successfully done). Given SiTV's deliberate multi-ethnic casting, it sounds like they're on that track.

For some reason, TMB does not receive SiTV although I'm a Comcast customer (not by choice, mind you). So any of you folks out there watching their programming -- TMB wants to know what you think about it! Drop your messages here.

UPDATE: These guys are hot! The New York Times picks up the story today that SiTV has already raised $60 million from a number of investors, including Time Warner and EchoStar Communications. Here's a sampler:

Jeff Valdez, a former comedian who co-founded Sí TV as a production company seven years ago, said the investment was an endorsement of his viewpoint in the contentious debate among Hispanic and more mainstream media companies over which language was more appropriate for reaching Hispanic viewers. The main Hispanic television networks are Telemundo, which is owned by General Electric, and Univision, and both broadcast in Spanish.

Mr. Valdez, however, said a substantial segment of the nation's nearly 40 million Hispanics - particularly those second- and third-generation Hispanic-Americans who are in their teens, 20's and 30's - were more interested in watching television in English than in Spanish.

"A lot of people believe the market is monolithic,'' he said. "We've had to educate cable operators. We've had to educate advertisers. I would hear comments like, 'Don't you people all watch novellas on Spanish TV?' ''

Next up: Waiting to hear from VOY, LATV, and ImaginAsianTV.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 12:27 am

Saturday, April 3, 2004

Montgomery County's Post-Ethnic High School

Meet the students of Montgomery Blair High School, the largest high school in Montgomery County, Maryland, where "everyone is a minority." In this fascinating account by the Washington Post, a little insight is shed in understanding just how today's high school teens -- a few generations removed from sixties-era civil rights advances (formal school desegregation from Brown vs. Board of Education, specifically) -- are grappling with the new realities of cultural diversity. This is a microcosm of America's post-ethnic future:

Enter Erik Li, a lanky Asian sophomore who puts Izal and Jesse to shame with his spinning handsprings. From somewhere outside their circle, a voice calls out jokingly: "You got served!"

The guys just keep dancing. Everyone knows the enclave inside the front doors of the school is their territory. Behind them stretches the school's main hallway, a multicultural crossroads known as Blair Boulevard. It's lined with students of every conceivable background scarfing down their lunches wherever they can find a space to sit. Hundreds more students are crammed into the cafeteria. Ethiopian students claim the same two round tables every day. Hispanic teens gossip in Spanish by the window, while Asian girls in Abercrombie wander past, and pint-size white freshman boys huddle together. Waiting in line for french fries can take all period.

This is life at Montgomery County's largest high school, where, as one teacher puts it, "everybody is a minority." Blair's 3,300 students are divided among blacks (32 percent), whites (28 percent), Hispanics of either race (26 percent) and Asians (14 percent). One-third are current or former students in the English Speakers of Other Languages program; they speak 50 different languages and come from more than 80 countries.

These are kids two or three generations removed from the desegregation struggles set in motion by the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Their educational experience has been transformed not only by integration, but by immigration -- a wave of diversity that hasn't reached all schools. In fact, many schools in the Washington area and across the country are actually resegregating, studies show, not growing more diverse. That makes Blair and its teenagers all the more compelling. Walking Blair's hallways, sitting in its classrooms and talking to its students offer a glimpse into a truly post-Brown world, a place where race sometimes matters a great deal and sometimes doesn't matter at all.

In many ways, Blair is your typical American public high school -- steeped with its own cliques and divisions that run along familiar color lines:

The academic achievement gap is accompanied by another gap that is not as easily defined. Many of Blair's cliques break down along racial lines, and so do many of its extracurricular activities. The ultimate Frisbee team, for example, is almost entirely white. The tennis and volleyball teams are mostly Asian. The step team is dominated by African American performers.

But there's one space at the school that draws from every hallway demographic (not surprising):

The break dancers, though, are different. The dozen or so regulars who belong to Blair's break-dancing club come from every corner of the school and represent almost every demographic. There's Josh Gist, a sophomore who is half black and half white, half Christian and half Jewish. There's Doula Favian Makao-Scheid, a part-Nigerian, part-German and part-Irish senior who dreams of going to culinary school. And there's Mai Tran, a recent Vietnamese immigrant who is not sure how old she is because her birth certificate has never been found.

"Breaking at our school has nothing to do with anything else, really," says Izal, who has been with the group for two years. "We kinda all meld together."

You really should read the entire piece. A whole generation of kids like those at Blair are growing up quite comfortable in their own skin -- regardless of color or shade. They are traversing the fine line between embracing their ethnic identity and being oblivious to it as well simply because, well, it's pretty much a normal, unremarkable fact of everyday life. They're accustomed to it.

When our company references the "New America" of our namesake -- students like those at Blair high school are who we're really talking about. What's going on at Blair is just a tiny slice of the broader social and cultural dynamics going on in "melting pot" areas across the country.

Make sure you check out Blair's breakdancers in this accompanying video clip. (Real Player required). Hat tip to Negrophile.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 11:52 am

Thursday, April 1, 2004

Drawing Heat For Being Kool

ddd

Images from The Courier Journal

Back from NYC .... to a grey-skied, overcast Southern California. Go figure. Still busy, but at least with a little breathing room to skim over some of the more interesting news headlines.

Here's a doozy: Kool -- the cigarette brand of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. -- is drawing heat from Maine's Attorney General who says the hip hop-themed advertising, promotions, and packaging is a clear violation of a tobacco settlement not to target youth. Executives at Kool, meanwhile, claim their strategy is not focused on kids but is a form of multicultural marketing -- aimed at under-30 adult smokers (heh) in an attempt to lure them away from competitor brands. Read on:

THE KOOL Mixx packs feature images of disc jockeys, hip-hop artists and dancers. They sell for the same price as other Kool products.

Buyers of two packs received a free "stick radio," a tiny radio with ear plugs.

Hemant Bhimani, owner of Heyburn Smoke Shop in downtown Louisville, said the packs have sold a little better than other Kools. Buyers have mostly been blacks between about 18 and 35, he said.

African-American teens have been less likely to become regular smokers during adolescence. A 10-year study by the Rand Corp. showed that by age 15 only 7 percent of black teens were regular smokers, compared to 20 percent of white and Hispanic smokers.

However, in the 1990s the rate of smoking among black youths began to rise, alarming some anti-smoking groups.

Dr. Adewale Troutman, director of the Louisville Metro Health Department, said Kool's hip-hop campaign is an attempt to further break down that resistance.

Kool's cigarette flavors come in Rasberry, Mocha Taboo, Caribbean Chill, Mintrigue, and Midnight Berry. It's considered a "special-occasion" smoke. Heck, I'm more a stogie person myself, but these flavors make me want to try 'em!

More on the controversy via the Associated Press.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 11:52 am