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The Melting Blog

Musings on the Intersection of Marketing, Culture, and Research

Thursday, May 27, 2004

I Ain't Goin' Out Like That

(rather symbolic of Bush's immigration proposal, no?)

That's right kids, I'm back from blogging limbo -- that place you go to when you don't have your own laptop (or the computer you regularly use) and therefore don't feel the same sense of urgency in updating your withering, sorry blog page. I don't know about you, but my ThinkPad is nearly like my 5th appendage, and when all its contents were violently ripped asunder a few weeks back, it felt like someone tore off a lobe of my brain. I have everything, I mean everything, in this sonafabitch --- critical documents, financials, music (!), photos, and incriminating evidence of politicians and colleagues (you never know)... frightening.

Them kind folks at Kroll Ontrack did wonders, and now all of my contents have been safely restored this past week -- unharmed and intact. If you're wondering: yes, it cost a fortune. (This will teach you to back that shit up -- ed. You'd think!)

I will be back on a regular blogging schedule soon (the Lakers are currently marching headlong toward another NBA title afterall). However, I did want to briefly highlight a couple of noteworthy studies on immigration that just surfaced today. First, according to this joint AP-Ipsos poll, immigrants are generally unpopular in most First World nations. No surprise, same ole' same ole' tepid reasons. Check out the following graphic:

Now, let me tell you why this is bogus. The real reason why nativists (particularly the North American variety) dislike immigrants? Here it is:

Immigrants who come to the United States live an average of three years longer than people born here, new research shows in a surprising finding that challenges some common beliefs.

A growing body of evidence indicates the life-span difference reflects both immigrants' innate vitality and their reluctance to embrace Americans' drive-through, drive-everywhere mentality. They also smoke less.

The life expectancy deficit is true for all races but is most dramatic among blacks. Immigrant black men live nine years longer than black men born in the United States, according to an analysis by a National Institutes of Health researcher.

The study reviewed millions of death and health records from 1986-94. Though the numbers are old, more limited studies of recent data suggest the same patterns hold true, although life expectancy is generally rising.

It gets even better if you're an immigrant of Indian extraction. Read the whole article here. Definitely more on this later from me. I'm now off to Game 4 at the Staples Center!

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 5:33 pm

Friday, May 14, 2004

BOO-YA!!!

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 8:47 am

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Tracking TV Ratings For People of Color

Into the Digital Era, At Last! The early results of Nielsen's Local People Meters from New York are in and guess what? The new electronic box-top devices are far more accurate in tracking what people actually watch on TV, as opposed to what they say they watch -- which is how TV ratings are recorded under that crusty, old pencil and paper diary system. Duh!

More interesting from an ethnic marketing point-of-view is that -- despite the early uproar over how People Meters undercounts minority TV viewing habits (and the subsequent addition of another layer of minority households as a correctional) -- results show African American and Hispanic boob tube devotees viewing more cable TV, Spanish-language stations, and leased-access networks than previously captured under the (crusty, old) written diary format. Here's the topline from Nielsen's press release:

NEW YORK – Nielsen Media Research today said that African American and Latino television viewers are watching a more diverse range of television programming in New York than has previously been reported by paper diaries. The analysis, which reviewed the recent March data from electronic, Local People Meter (LPM) measurement in New York, found that:

People of color are spending more time watching cable networks, English-language and Spanish-language broadcast networks and leased cable access and open channels.

There are significant increases for networks geared toward African American and Latino audiences, including BET, Telemundo and Telefutura.

Shows with African American themes have a larger percentage of non-African American viewers than reported by paper diaries.

These resutls bode well for ethnic television media across all categories: from Spanish-language juggernauts like Univision and Telemundo, existing cable stalwarts like BET, new cable upstarts like SiTV and ImaginAsianTV, and local access stations such as LaTV (hoping to make the leap onto cable later this summer). As People Meters continues to roll out, it will be fascinating to track the degree to which ethnic-specific programming -- content geared to a targeted race/ethnic group, like BET -- attracts a crossover audience beyond its intended demo. As hinted by the third bullet point above, the size of this audience may be considerable.

In the meantime, as Nielsen introduces People Meters to other cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, there continues to be staunch resistance by some advocates who continue to insist the new system undercounts minority households.

"This is a civil rights matter. This is no longer just about television," Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition told Media Daily News on Monday. "We are not represented. [Nielsen] is a monopoly."

Hey, that's great, fella -- the pressure kicked up by your organization worked in forcing Nielsen to upgrade the number of representative Black and Latino households -- but this still hardly qualifies as a civil rights issue!

This is a civil rights issue. This has the potential to be one. But People Meters isn't, Rupert.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 3:38 pm

Monday, May 10, 2004

TMB Technical Difficulties

Boy, am I unlucky with technology. Over the weekend, my laptop went completely kaputs. Our IT guy is telling me I may have to take the computer to a data recovery center in order to retrieve all the valuable contents of my harddrive. Believe it or not, this is the third time this has happened to me in three years -- yes, that's three different laptops!

Needless to say, blogging will be light until the situation can be remedied. But fear not, TMB will not be deterred! More later... if I can coax more online time!

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 12:38 pm

Wednesday, May 5, 2004

The Golden State and Her Children

The Economist this week features a special "survey" containing multiple articles about California, the nation's largest state and sixth largest economy in the world. Of course, you can't talk about the Golden State without mentioning its ascending Latino population -- one third of all U.S. Hispanics call California home afterall. In other words, if you want to see what the future of America looks like, look no further than California. Some highlights from the state of the Latino state:

Rather than trying to fight against Americanisation, Latinos seem to be welcoming it. Gregory Rodriguez at the New America Foundation points out that Latinos have made absolutely no attempt at political separation; nor have they tried to set up Spanish-language schools to teach their children their mother tongue, as, say, Chinese immigrants have done.

Indeed, those Spanish voices may be silenced surprisingly soon. As things stand, nearly three-quarters of first-generation immigrants speak a language other than English at home; by the third generation, two-thirds speak only English. America, Mr Rodriguez points out, is a language graveyard.

Besides, what kind of Spanish would a Mexifornia speak? One of the secrets of multiculturalism is that many Latinos speak Spanish rather badly. Many of the new immigrants come from poor rural areas not famed for their elocution; but middle-class second- and third-generation Latinos are not that much better. Several prominent Latino politicians speak pretty dismal Spanish.

Arguments about race remain immensely complicated. For every bad sign (battles have broken out between blacks and Latinos in prison) you can usually find a good one (in Stockton, gangs are defined by geography rather than by the colour of their skin). Yet it is hard to believe that Latinos will not become ever more American, simply because it is so much easier and more profitable for them to do so. Their integration may take a little longer, but they are not indigestible.

Incidentally, the cover of this week's issue features a rather smug, but serious, portrait of Arnold Schwarzenegger trying to look focused, determined and, well, gubernatorial (trying real hard!) Our guv's real pleased with himself these days due to a recent string of high-profile political victories in the state legislature (that workman's comp bill and a $15 billion bond measure). I didn't vote for the guy, but credit is due. I'm surprised he's gotten as much done as he has. Still, I'm not voting for the guy as President!

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 6:02 pm

Immigration Across the Atlantic

My friend Gregory Rodriguez, fellow at the New America Foundation (how's that for cross-promotional branding?), has an opinion piece in today's L.A. Times about the struggles over immigration in Europe. Yeah, the issue is still contentious on this side of the Atlantic, but the debate contains severe consequences for the E.U.:

In a word, Europe is imploding. With their aging populations and declining birthrates, the nations of the EU have been forced to look beyond their borders to build a labor force large enough to sustain long-term economic growth. In the 1990s, an average of 857,000 immigrants a year changed the face of the original 15 nations in the EU, and the migration will continue.

Italy, for example, has the dubious distinction of having both the oldest population and the lowest birthrate in the world. Without immigrants, its population will shrink from 57 million today to 41 million in 2050. In Germany, the EU's largest nation, the number of senior citizens is projected to increase by 50% over the next three decades. A 2000 study by the United Nations concluded that if Germany did not accept 500,000 immigrants a year, it would have to raise its retirement age to 77 in order to have enough workers to finance pensions for the elderly.

A recent poll commissioned by the European Commission revealed that although 56% of Europeans understood the need for more immigrant labor, 80% favored more stringent immigration laws. Part of the problem is that most Europeans, with the exception of the British and the French, cannot grasp the idea of assimilation, the process by which "they" become "us." There is no civic myth — like the U.S. "melting pot" — that would enable them to envision unity in diversity. Nor is there an acceptance that minority and majority cultures can converge and influence one another. Immigrants are often seen as threats to social stability and national identity.

These challenges aren't unique among Europe; the same issues are grappling Japan too. Although unfettered immigration growth creates its own set of challenges, maybe there's something the E.U. can learn about immigrant absorption in the U.S.? Read on:

Though the standing of all things American is at a 10-year low in Europe, there is some acknowledgment that, when it comes to immigrants, we may have a model worth studying. Last weekend, a group of 70 Italian intellectuals and opinion makers gathered in Venice at a conference hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Rome to consider that possibility.

Intimately familiar with the successes of Italian Americans from Frank Sinatra to Sofia Coppola, many of the Italian attendees were indeed impressed by the assimilative capacity of the United States. Americans may still be fighting over the desirability of more immigration and over how to integrate newcomers, but history and national folklore have taught us lessons about multiethnicity that many Europeans know they don't yet understand.

"We are beginners in terms of [ethnic] integration," said one of the participants, Giulio Bosetti, managing editor of Reset, an Italian literary magazine that focuses on multiculturalism. "We have to compare our experience in dealing with [ethnic] differences with that of the United States."

Read the whole thing. In contrast to Europe and Japan, U.S. ethnic populations are soaring. During the nineties, close to 70 percent of U.S. population growth came from immigrants and their offspring. Unlike the prospect of retrenchment many other first world countries are facing, the American population is projected to grow from its current 280 million to nearly 420 million in 2050. And guess what? By that time, a majority of the country will be non-White (to the utter dismay of Pat Buchanan and his ilk).

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 9:03 am

Tuesday, May 4, 2004

Ethnic Marketing Leftovers

Some skimmed-over headlines for y'all in the ethnic marketing profession:

From the No-Duh department of research: Spanish-speakers prefer advertising in Spanish, according to the latest Simmons Hispanic study. Like they really needed a study to tell us that. At least they didn't say "Hispanics in the U.S. prefer advertising in Spanish," which isn't true. Actually, what the study shows is that Hispanic Spanish-language viewers (first-generation immigrants) pay far more attention to Spanish-language advertising compared to their jaded English-speaking American counterparts.
Still Pimpin' rides: Here's another in a continuing flood of articles documenting the impact that hip hop is having on automotive marketing. Incredible, ain't it? How one industry is so enraptured by the hip hop demographic. If you peek over at Agenda's American Brandstand, you'll see that one-half in the top ten of the most name dropped brands from the Billboard charts are automobile companies. (originally spotted at Hip Hop Logic.)
Beauty and the Business: Dove, global purveyor of beauty products, just released this study of 1,600 surveys across the country to understand how American women think about beauty. Interestingly enough, Latina and African American women (no Asian Americans tracked) are generally more satisfied than Caucasian women with how they look (around 60% for the former two groups, compared to 51%). Not surprisingly, women of color are nonetheless frustrated by the gaps between their definition of beauty vs. that of the rest of society. Download the report here (pdf required).
Last month I mentioned the uproar over Nielsen's People Meters, the electronic box device slated to replace the primitive pen-and-paper diary system used for tracking household television ratings. For reasons still unclear (and suspicious) to me, the device undercounted minority households. Well, it appears the storm kicked up by Fox TV, Hillary Clinton, and the NAACP (how's that for strange bedfellows?) worked: Nielsen recently announced they will now be incorporating more robust samples of African American and Hispanic households into their people meter system. I never doubted you, Rupert.

One last item about the image above: it was snapped up by a good friend of mine who recently visited China. The Adidas campaign was plastered on Wangfujing Dalu, the commercial heart of Beijing -- just a hop and skip away from the Forbidden City. What's cool about this is the image a revered American icon -- a Black Muslim, mind you, who gained notoriety partly for his radical politics -- selling his wares to the Chinese public. Impossible is nothing indeed.

More on Adidas' "Impossible Is Nothing" campaign here.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 6:46 pm

Whither Black Leadership?

Although this New York Times piece covers the void of Black leadership on the national political stage, the real subtext of the story (if you read carefully) is an evolving African American identity in which the very idea of Black leadership itself is being questioned by younger generations of African Americans:

"I think the point is, going back to the 1960's we are talking about black people, people who were defined almost exclusively by race," Todd Boyd, an associate professor of cinema studies at the University of Southern California, said at the start of the primary season. "A wealthy doctor or attorney would live in the same neighborhood as laborers. It makes sense to me that at that time you would have this sense of a black leader."

Many say that while racism is still a powerful force, young people in particular have experienced it differently and seek solutions in different ways. "We are talking about a generation of students who have always known black mayors, who always have known black officials, who have always known if you don't like someone, you vote," said Willie Legette, a political science professor at South Carolina State University who, like Professor Boyd, is black. "The idea of the black leader is something they don't relate to the way the older generation does."

-----
That may be true, but it does not necessarily mean that blacks are better served, said Donna Brazile, a Jackson aide in the 1980's who was Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000. It is true, she said, that the age of leverage politics is over. Blacks, she said, "no longer look at every issue through the prism of race."

Most young Black folk have grown up in an era significantly improved from the one their civil rights predecessors were a part of, and the article shows the community now at a generational crossroads. There will be far reaching implications for how this younger generation redefines a post-Black identity for business, politics, and popular culture, which they're already doing.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 4:28 pm

Monday, May 3, 2004

The Last Samurai

Sunday's New York Times Magazine had this Q & A session with the scribe of "The Hispanic Challenge" himself, Mr. Samuel Huntington. He's hardly the cold-blooded intellectual xenophobe we might imagine. If anything, he just comes across as really horribly out of touch. Consider this exchange:

Do you think that there is any truth to the stereotypical view of WASP's as emotionally cold people?

Wait a minute. You're talking about people. I am not talking about people. I am talking about ideas and practices.

What do you say to the fact that about 10 percent of the U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq are Hispanic?

Again you are talking about people.

What else is there besides people?

There is what people believe, what their assumptions are. I am concerned about the degree to which people -- whatever their color -- believe in the American creed and accept American values.

Er, presumably those folks who make up over one in ten of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq (it's actually 12%) do believe in the American creed -- they're putting their own lives at stake under the assumption they are protecting those very cherished American values that Huntington says they repudiate!

Also, Huntington's nativist treatise "Who Are We" has now been released, and the reviews are coming in, including this one in the L.A. Times and another by Alan Wolfe in Foreign Affairs. Wolfe, a secular Jew and eminent scholar of religion and sociology, calls the book "Patrick Buchanan with footnotes." As the author of last year's fab "The Transformation of American Religion" (I'm a fan), he is probably better qualified than anybody to debunk Huntington's venerated Anglo Protestant definition of American civic culture, which he does. He also effectively demonstrates Huntington's sloppy (and selective) use of data. Read it.

Posted by Thomas Tseng, 9:09 am