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CONSUMER INSIGHTS: Land of Confusion by Robert Klara
15 February 2005

Few (or unemployed) are the marketing executives who dispute the importance of ethnic marketing today. The 2000 Census proved that the "browning of America," as it's come to be known, is the most important demographic trend since the invention of immigration. In fact, the Caucasian stake of the American majority has slipped over 12% since 1970, from 87.4% to 75.1% of the total population.

Yet an old question remains: How best to reach out to the dizzying array of ethno-cultural groups out there? Marketers first scratched their heads over the question decades ago, initially content to shoehorn the obligatory customer of color into a commercial, and hope for the best.

These days, however, two schools of thought have emerged on how best to tap your ethnic customer. Both camps have compelling arguments and statistics to back up their approaches. The only bad news for restaurant owners is that the two schools just so happen to thoroughly disagree with each other.

For some time now, marketers have preached about the importance of targeting ethnic populations as specifically as possible. They're quick to point out that Hispanics include, for example, both Puerto Ricans living in the Bronx and Cubans living in Miami -and that both groups have obviously different cultures, customs, and preferences. The gargantuan category of Asians embrace roughly two dozen ethnic groups, from Mandarin Chinese to Indians.

It's probably no surprise, then, that the U.S. Small Business Administration counsels thus: "It is virtually impossible to create generic advertising or promotional tools that appeal to all segments of this diverse ethnic market. The solution is to pick a very specific target -a particular ethnic group in a particular location."

And indeed, there's much to validate such an approach. Despite the common wisdom that all ethnic groups assimilate, in time, into the American mainstream, it's also clear that many groups hold tight to the mores of their specific cultural ancestry-and hence can only effectively be reached by advertising that does, too. Legion are the stories of what can happen when a company fails to sufficiently tailor an ad campaign to suit a targeted ethnic group. The most notorious is still that of a certain soft-drink company which tried to bring its slogan-"Come to Life-to the American Thai community. Translated, the slogan promised to bring customers' dead relatives back from the grave.

In recent times, a school of thought has emerged that teaches the opposite of what sophisticated marketers have held for years. Its proponents argue ethnic segmentation is important if you want to reach adults and seniors. But if you want to appeal to minority youth, all the traditional rules are useless.

Why? Because children are growing up amid greater cultural mixing than ever before-courtesy of everything from the internet to the breaking down of social barriers which once prevented racial intermarriage. And while interracial minorities can't cling to a single racial identity, even single-ethnicity individuals no longer want to. Demographic experts Joel Kotkin and Thomas Tseng have termed this phenomenon "Post-Ethnic America"-a society defined by the cultural and biological intermixing of so many ethnicities that it's superceded the boundaries of any one of them.

If this seems a bit abstract, consider the evidence: Census 2000 was the first ever that allowed respondents to identify themselves as more than one race-creating no fewer than 126 possible race combinations. According to the Pew Hispanic Center and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, despite the prevalence of Spanish-language usage among Latinos, 93% of them consider themselves bilingual or English-dominant. Nearly a third of both Latinos and Asian-Americans now marry people from outside their ethnic group. And while marketers debate how best to reach inner-city African Americans, the fact is that 32% of them now reside in traditional suburbs.

To reach these groups, Australian advertising executive Martin Lindstom not only emphasizes the need for what he terms "broad brush communication," but warns against adhering to traditional, narrowed
approaches: "Ethnic marketing could very easily inflame a diminishing problem which, according to the next generation, was never a reality at all," he writes. "Racial differentiation is subsiding in the hands of the emerging generations. Think of the damage an ethnically-focused campaign could cause... Would kids in the upcoming, inclusive generation find it flattering to be singled out in an ad?"

But what is "broad brush" communication other than just the sort of diffuse, untargeted campaign that many marketers say is a waste of money? Perhaps an example can be found in a recent Burger King promotion in which the company underwrote a documentary entitled: "We Sing En Espanol...And English Too." The short film-distributed to some 800 public schools nationally-was not only a fete for Latin music featuring Latin Grammy nominees, but an examination of the multi-cultural influences that led to its contemporary development. The documentary's success isn't quantifiable, but BK headquarters was clearly trying to supply something for everyone. And given that 24.8% of the American population now identifies itself as African-American or "Other," that's probably a wise approach.

Copyright 2005, VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved.

Why Traditional Ethnic Segmentation Will Not Work In Today's Multicultural Youth Market by David Morse & Thomas Tseng

"They are highly coveted. They are often elusive. Their constituency is known by a plethora of fancy monikers: Urban Youth, the Hip Hop generation, Gen X, Y, and ñ. They are global, they are technologically sophisticated, and they are extremely media savvy. What seems to confound and humble the most seasoned, practiced marketers is the fact that they are-more so than any other American generation before them-truly multicultural."

Continue reading: "Why Traditional Ethnic Segmentation..."

Tapping Into Tomorrow's Mainstream Markets by Jennifer Adriano-Martinez

This is a feature article in Emerging Markets Magazine about us before we became New American Dimensions:

"Our senior management team is somewhat younger than those who head up our competitors' firms, so we have a youthful, hip vibe to us. We like to think we represent the Next America and inject the ethnic marketing world with a fresh perspective,” Tseng concludes. As tapping into the pulse of multicultural power markets becomes more essential than elective for improving the bottomline of 21st century businesses, CAG and other market research and consulting companies like it certainly still have a long and interesting journey ahead."

Continue reading: "Tapping Into Tomorrow's Mainstream Markets"

Happy To Mix It All Up by Joel Kotkin & Thomas Tseng

For Young America, Old Ethnic Labels No Longer Apply

"LOS ANGELES - Romulo "Tim" Cisneros grew up in an intensely Mexican American family in San Antonio. His brother, Henry, grew up to become the city's first Latino mayor in recent history. Now an architect in Houston, Tim is married to a woman who is also Mexican American. For most of his life he's viewed himself, and his experience as an American, through the prism of his ethnic identity. He's Latino, and proud of it. But Cisneros doesn't expect that his three children will be nearly "as Latino" as he and his wife. In their old tree-lined neighborhood close by Houston's high-rise towers, his kids live and go to school amid a diversity of races -- Anglos, Asians and African Americans as well as Hispanics -- and within a culture that's rapidly transcending old racial barriers and redefining familiar racial themes."

Continue reading: "Happy To Mix It All Up"