As advertisers continue to digest the 2000 Census data that show America is increasingly a multicultural melting pot, more dollars are being shifted away from general market budgets to those targeting Hispanics, African Americans, and Asian Americans.
According to a new survey done by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), 72% of advertisers are now specifically targeting the multicultural marketplace. It also indicates marketers are being most aggressive about going after Hispanic dollars. With a rapidly growing population that has attractive qualitative statistics and a typically larger household size, many companies see a marketplace that has still been virtually untapped. According to the ANA, 70% are specifically targeting Hispanics, followed by 59% for African Americans, and 27% for Asian Americans.
Marketing and advertising executives are also tapping the burgeoning media market targeting various ethnic groups in their native languages, the ANA research found. To reach the multicultural groups, the survey finds buyers are most often counting on targeted television (76%); followed by targeted print (76%); targeted radio (68%); sponsorships (57%); and grassroots efforts (56%), running mainstream advertising on “ethnic†programs (39%); out of home in ethnic neighborhoods (39%); targeted newspaper (35%); and targeted online (35%).
For those targeting a small demographic subset, nearly half of the respondents to the ANA survey felt that their mainstream agency is not capable of creating an effective multicultural campaign for their product. It is no surprise then that nearly eight-in-ten use a boutique agency to craft a more targeted message.
“The survey results confirm what ANA members have been telling us. Multicultural marketing and advertising is a key priority,†said ANA president/CEO John Sarsen.
The one a caveat is that numbers remain small. The survey shows an average of $4 million, or just 8% of the total advertising budget, being spent to target a specific group. That may change, however, as over half (54%) expect to increase the amount of the budget that is move into the multicultural ad budget, with another 26% saying they plan to keep it at roughly the same level. The small number (6%) that expect their multicultural marketing budget to decrease say their limited ad budget simply does not afford them the opportunity to expand their message.
It was the top complaint cited by 39% of those surveyed. Among their other concerns were the lack of market research on the particular ethnic segments and the inability of top management to commit to such ad campaigns.
© By Frank Saxe