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Ethnic Marketing in the United States( Télécharger le fichier original )par Lely Université Paris X - Master Echanges Internationaux 2008 |
The enforcement of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, in the nineties, made it easier to import Latino items. The big alimentation giant, Nestlé, became conscious of the potential of the Latinos and understood that the best way was to import items already appreciated in America Latina in cities with a big Latino population like New York or Miami. Nestlé is 27th among a list of the 60 biggest advertisers on the Latino market. Aware of their love for coffee with cream, sugar and cacao or cinnamon, Nestlé created Nescafe Frothe to seduce the Latino market. According to an article, Nestlé launches Nescafe Frothe in US 19(*), Nescafe Frothe was first launched in 2001 in Los Angeles, a test market.Nescafe understood as well that in order to have success, the brand should implant among the community thanks to the grassroot marketing. For example, during a charity celebration-Church has an important place among the Latinos and Nestlé distributed many samples of Nescafe Frothe.?The case of SearsSears, the American mid-range chain of international department stores and the largest retailer in the United States is also responding to the demand in Asian communities for a larger selection of smaller sizes for all apparel categories. Moreover, Sears launched a pantyhose line with a variety of shades and sheer textures to complement a black woman's skin color and accommodate her figure. Black women tend to have fuller hips and slimmer ankles than the mass market.F- The limits of ethnic marketing Ethnic marketing is a delicate art. No matter how important the minorities love to be cuddled, they are not dupe and don't hesitate to boycott a brand if they judge it impious. So companies have to deal with them carefully. Moreover, some companies are afraid to resort to ethnic marketing in order not to be accused of racism in case of heavy-handedness. Humor has to be handled with caution. The thing to avoid in the world of ethnic advertising is of course the literal translation. Certain companies learned it at their expense. Bill Imada, expert in the Asian market, gave the example of a company that wanted to translate «do you have a minute?» in Korean. In Korea, this expression is used to solicit a woman in a bar. The other trap is the use of stereotypes. In the eighties, Chevrolet, the American car brand, broadcasted a TV advertising directing a black woman using her posterior to shine her car-a joke that the black community didn't appreciate. Moreover, the cultural sensitiveness has to be considered as well. General Mills, a company mainly concerned with food, intended to woo the Hispanics in the beginning of the nineties with the Bunuelitos breakfast cereals. The campaign directing a grandmother burying the cereals in her garden in order to put them out of her grandchildren's hands has been a real failure. Indeed, the advertising hurt the Hispanics' feelings because they are Catholics one hand and on the other hand, it wasn't realistic. Felipe Korznny 20(*) adds that a Latino grandmother would prefer to die rather than depriving her grandchildren of food. Finally, those who do not consider the various backgrounds and cultural nuances in their marketing are making a big mistake. Indeed many marketers tend to put a Korean, a Chinese, a Japanese in the same category whereas they are very different from each other (the language for example) and don't have the same needs. IV- THE MEANS TO REACH THE NEW AMERICA A- The history of ethnic advertising The arrival of television in the houses conducted the black community to not only long for respect and equality but for material things as well, for external signs of wealth proper to white consumers. The Afro Americans want to reach the American dream as their fellow countrymen. Blitzed by advertisings and programs made for the white population, black people wish to be described as full-fledged consumers. It is only since the middle of the sixties that the ethnic minorities have been represented as consumers in ads, broadcasted in the Media. During the proslavery period, Afro Americans didn't appear in the advertising industry which was only for the white population. When the Afro Americans took their first steps in the advertising campaigns, they were usually represented as servants, domestics or as matter of distraction for white Americans which was not benefit for them.
An ad for NHM hotel in 1936 Until the immigration Reform Bill in 1965, marketers used to estimate that the best way to earn money was to target the white population. As a consequence, the black population was ignored by the Media. In 1963, the first positive ad for a black appeared in a New York newspaper. It represented an elegant black man making a call for the New York Telephone Company. Then they started to appear in ads for alcohol, tobacco and fast foods. In 1956, Coca Cola Company started to target ethnic groups, beginning with Afro Americans 21(*). At the end of the sixties, marketers began to wonder whether they had to represent Afro Americans in mass media or in specialized media like Ebony magazine. The Black community has then been neglected by the media in favor of the Hispanic community.
Hispanics
Since the sixties, Hispanics began to be the favorite ethnic group for marketers thanks to their rapid growth rate. Conscious of the language barrier, in 1986, publicists started to translate their advertisings in Spanish. Surveys show that the language of Hispanic immigrants on the American territory is above all their mother tongue. Thereby, in 2000, a study on Hispanics showed that 58% prefer to speak Spanish rather than English. 80% speak their native tongue among their family. 4% of Hispanics consult ethnic Medias and 63% declare to be more likely to buy a product if the advertising appears in a Hispanic media. Today, the adverts towards the Hispanic market are still few but the number is expected to increase. Big companies like Chrysler and Polaroid have increased their advertising campaigns budget. In 2000, the Roslow Research group made a survey with 600 persons. The aim was to prove the effectiveness and the impact of advertisings in Spanish against English. The result is that an ad in Spanish is four times more convincing than an ad in English. Latinos remember more ads in Spanish than in English. As a consequence, the increase of ads in Spanish is necessary to reach the Hispanic market. Afro Americans Afro Americans spend 40% more time watching television than the national average. Thus, they are easy to reach and are more likely to watch TV adverts. However, if the advert is not directly made for them, it won't have the same impact. Indeed, according to a survey led by CAB Multicultural Marketing Resource Center, 56% of Afro Americans are more attentive to ads where the casting is mainly composed of Blacks. Asians Asians buy many magazines and news papers. They watch television in English and in their mother tongue as well. However, they prefer to watch TV ads in their own language because if an advertiser makes the effort to speak to them in their language this means that he respects them and see them as consumers. Thus, an ad in Korean, Chinese or Japanese will be better kept in mind. However, advertisers only devoted an insignificant part of their budget to ethnic marketing: 1% according to estimations, a ridiculous figure especially as the ethnic groups buying power (79 million of Americans out of 281 millions in 2000) is estimated at $ 1 trillion per year. 22(*) B- The television There exist a great number of ethnic televisions especially Hispanic televisions.23(*) Today, ethnic minorities are more represented in television ads. According to a survey realized in the magazine Marketing to the Emerging Majorities (2001), 36% of ads appear with ethnic minorities during primetime in New York City. One commercial break out of three appears with Afro Americans as a leading role. Asians appear in 6% of the ads and Hispanics appear in 3% of them. WB and UPN are the television national networks with more ethnic advertisings. Many ads addressed to ethnic groups are shot by celebrities like Serena and Venus Williams for Wrigley's gum and Penelope Cruz for a perfume by Ralph Lauren. This chart represents the percentage of TV ads where appear the different ethnic groups during primetime. What is obvious is the predominance of Afro Americans on the small screen.
The survey led by Marketing to the Emerging Majorities revealed also that ads for the Blacks are broadcasted during the Afro Americans series (54%). The Hispanic community is almost away from advertising during prime time because on the one hand it is difficult to distinguish them physically from the Whites and on the other hand, because they prefer to watch the Spanish television whereas the Blacks are very close to the American TV programs. The number of Hispanics who watch television in Spanish grew from 33% to 39% since the birth of Hispanic television. Moreover, the Golden Globe, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning American television comedy-drama series starring America Ferrera in the title role, Ugly Betty, brought into the fashion of time the Latino culture. It follows the life of the Hispanic unglamorous and good-natured Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), and her incongruous job as the editor in chief personal assistant at the ultra-chic New York City fashion magazine Mode. The series is an adaptation of the Colombian telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea ("I am Betty, the ugly"), also simply known as "Betty la fea" ("Ugly Betty"). C- The magazines According to a survey carried out by Marketing to the emerging majorities over 17 magazines destined to the mass market, the advertising with ethnic people only represented 19% out of 435 advertisings. They moved to 29% in 1999. We notice that People, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and US Weekly have the biggest number of advertisings targeting the ethnic communities. The Time magazine, Elle, Ladies Home Journal and Esquire target less these communities. Entertainment Weekly and Cosmopolitan are both the only magazines targeting more the ethnic communities in 2001 rather than in 1999 with an increase of 25%. Despite the 39% of advertising towards the ethnic communities in 1999, the Time magazine doesn't use anymore ethnic advertisings since 2001. The Oscar awarded actress for Die another day 24(*), Halle Berry, was the fifth black to appear on the cover of the Cosmopolitan magazine since 1964, preceded by the top model Naomi Campbell in 1990. Halle Berry is part of a tiny cadre of nonwhite celebrities who are considered to have enough crossover appeal to appear on the cover of mass consumer magazines. According to an article in the New York Times, «even as black and Hispanic women slowly make their way onto the covers of magazines of various genres, black males still find themselves mainly confined to a ghetto of music and sports magazines.»25(*) Since the beginning of the 70s, the number of newspapers for Hispanic community increased by 219% and the number of radio channels has been doubled since 1990. Here is a list of all the magazines created especially for the ethnic communities.
V-THE EXCEPTION OF FRANCEContrary to other European countries as England, Germany or Netherlands, France continues to stand up to the temptation of ethnic marketing. At the origin, France wants the immigrants to assimilate into the French culture and to adopt the American melting pot concept. The first article of the fifth French Republic Constitution which specifies that: « La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale. Elle assure l'égalité devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction d'origine, de race ou de religion. » is the first obstacle to ethnic marketing in France. Indeed, according to Pascal Blanchard, targeting the other is making a difference. Thus, ethnic marketing runs counter to the republican principles. It is almost impossible in France to know officially how many immigrants are on the French territory. It isn't politically correct because the French Republic only recognizes full-fledged French people no matter what your race, origin or religion is. There are no official statistics, and no integration balance sheet. «Il y a un tabou dans ce pays qui consiste à dire : si vous créez des catégories en fonction de l'origine ethnique, vous stigmatisez le sentiment d'appartenance à une communauté et vous aurez des revendications de type quotas positifs » 26(*), explains Philippe Bataillle. It is only since 1992 that a researcher from INED 27(*), Michele Tribalat, published a survey over immigration in which she talks about new criteria like the ethnic belonging based on the mother tongue and the criteria of the ethnic origin. She adds a new category native born Frenchman which triggered a real controversy among the demographers because they found it racist. Hervé Brad, another INSED researcher will say a few years later that the demography is a new way for racism expression in France. Since this media blitz, there has been no survey in order to have official figures over immigrants and companies don't take the risk because they can't evaluate the financial power of the different groups. However, ethnic marketing elbows shyly in France. It is a new phenomenon, especially since the victory of France during the 1998 World Cup as the French team is composed of members of ethnic minorities. France is more heading toward the multicultural marketing this means that all the ethnic groups are mixed together following the melting pot technique. What is striking is that France welcomes more immigrants than any other European country, mainly from North Africa (Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians) and from Sub-Saharan Africa. There were already 1 million immigrants in France in 1881. The Sopi Communication Agency, created in 2003 is the first pioneer for ethnic marketing in France. It believes in the potential of ethnic minorities. In France, the Mecca Cola drink is a good example of ethnic marketing. «Don't drink idiot, drink committed!» This drink was created in 2002 for the North African community and lauds the humanitarian aid. Another example is the milk laban with Bridel. The only ethnic television is Beur TV and for the ethnic radio we can find Africa n°1, Radio Orient, Beur FM and ethnic magazines like Amina for African women and Yasmina for Arab women. In some supermarkets we can find a halal 28(*) and a kosher 29(*) section. * 19 Nestlé launches Nescafe Frothe in US, http://www.foodanddrinkeurope.com/news/ng.asp?id=15815-nestl-launches-nescafe, 24/09/2002* 20 Felipe Korzenny is the president of Cheskin, a consulting agency in Californian, expert in the Hispanic and Asian market. * 21 See annex 7 * 22Commentary: Minorities: An Almost-Invisible $1 Trillion Market, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_24/b3736121.htm, 11/06/2001 * 23 See annex 7 * 24 A James Bond movie in 2002 * 25 Carr, David, The New York Times, On Covers of Many Magazines, A Full Racial Palette Is Still Rare, 18/11/2002* 26 Les fiascos de l'intégration, http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-societe/les-fiascos-de-l-integration/920/0/61948,12/04/2002* 27 French research institute specialized in demography and population studies * 28 Halal means food that is permissible according to Islamic law. * 29 In Judaism, Kosher is the set of dietary laws governing what can or cannot be consumed. |
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