Cultural Marketing, Total Market, How and Why?

This has been the year of the debate over the “Total Market” approach.  The idea is to find a common denominator that different cultural groups can all relate to.  That makes some sense at first glance. After all, most people love their children, enjoy being free, enjoy food and other good things of life.

So, finding an insight that would resonate with most people is possible. But let us think again about the nature of marketing and advertising. What brands want is to establish deep connections with consumers, at a level that the consumer feels like the brand understands them uniquely.

So, while the notion of finding a common denominator may be appealing for the good reason of realizing economies of scale and having a great reach, the brand connection may be lost. Why? Because while we all love our children, the meaning is different across cultural groups. It would be trivial to say that because children are generally loved by their parents, life insurance, for example, could be sold across the board for the sake of the love “you have for your children.” This positioning would not be ownable. And even if it were, the specifics of how Hispanic parents think of their children or their future compared with African Americans, Asians and non-Hispanic Whites would be more powerful than a more general approach. To mind comes the example of the insurance company that had a picture of a girl in her “quinceañera” dress as a reminder of the dreams the parents have for her. That is a very culturally specific message that would not cut across cultures, but that would be more powerful than a general message in reaching Latinos.

Cultural marketing is about connecting the consumer at the level of their cultural traditions and archetypes. Culture is more than interesting idiosyncrasies. Culture is the passed on set of tools for living that humans have found to work in different social contexts. Even when these tools cease to be effective, we humans tend to keep them close to our heart as they are the elements which define who we are. So, for example, fatalism. In a better organized and more predictable society fatalism would not be an effective way of coping with life. Nevertheless, it stays with members of a culture for generations regardless of their geographic and social movement over time.

Cultural marketing consists in understanding those tools for living that are mostly implicit in people's heads and that dictate how they view the world. Ethnographic and other qualitative studies can uncover many of these regularities that marketers can use to better communicate their products, brands, and services. Finding a powerful cultural cue can establish a deep relationship with consumers over many generations. Consider “sonrisas Colgate” or the Colgate toothpaste smiles that have transcended from Latin America to the United States following the descendents of Latinos. The popularity of Colgate toothpaste among Hispanics continues to be strong and much of it has been passed on from generation to generation.

A “total market” approach should not be an excuse for not attempting to establish a strong long lasting link with culturally diverse consumers. It can be detrimental. Cultural marketing is the new marketing. It goes beyond ethnicity to encompass the many different lifestyles that consumers hold dear.

For the keynote presentation on this topic at the Multicultural Health National Conference on October 15, Atlanta Georgia PLEASE CLICK HERE. Please quote the source and reference when using this copyrighted content.

Search Trends in the Multicultural Market

I have many times said that Google is probably the most useful company in the world.  They are making information availability pervasive and usable. They have a service called Google Trends that traces, in relative terms, the prevalence of searches of specific terms and expressions in their search engine. They do not provide actual frequencies but percentages of a total represented by the tallest point in the distribution and that is equal to 100.

I thought it would be interesting to check and see how different searches in the United States reflect the sentiment of those who search for multicultural and related marketing topics. The first search I did was for the term “Multicultural Marketing.” The resulting graph is below:

Surprising and thought provoking, this graph shows that there was a moment in recent history when Multicultural Marketing in the US was very salient. Interestingly as the recession took root searches for multicultural marketing diminished in relative frequency, but then stabilized over time up to the present. It is important to note that Google trends started approximately in 2004, so it is difficult to know what the popularity of terms was before that. What about Hispanic Marketing?

The search incidence for “Hispanic Marketing” had its peak in 2004 and then decreased to relative stability since 2009. The term “Latino Marketing” shows a similar tendency so I am not posting it here. Google reports that there is not enough data to report trends for “African American Marketing” or “Asian Marketing.”

The concept of “Total Market” has become popular in recent times. The problem with this term, however, is that it has more than one meaning and it is difficult to sort the searches for the meaning associated with marketing in general. With that word of caution, the graph shows a surge as “Total Market” has been a novelty in recent years.

Total Market searches reached its highest point at the end of 2008 and has been relatively high until the present day. I thought I should compare all these trends with their relative frequencies against each other.

In this chart the color blue stands for “Total Market,” red for “Hispanic Marketing” and yellow for “Multicultural Marketing.” This graph provides a relative perspective on the prevalence of the three topics. Hispanic and Multicultural marketing seem to have stabilized and run in parallel. “Total Market” however has actually increased in relative interest over time.

It is difficult to make generalizations based on these data.  It, nevertheless, is interesting to observe how the marketing community has shifted its interest from Hispanic and Multicultural Marketing to Total Market.  This is somewhat unsettling to people like me who believe that culturally based marketing is important for touching the emotional cords of culturally diverse consumers.

As I have stated elsewhere, total market approaches may be appealing as an energy and money saving compromise. However, that is likely to backfire; marketing is precisely about reaching large groups of consumers that share something in common with relevant messages and products. Culture is what makes groups of humans unique, because it identifies what they share, including values, beliefs, and perspectives. It is what we are brought up with and what makes us see the world in special ways. Culture influences perception and perception is reality. It is very difficult to have an overarching approach that touches consumers deeply without taking culture into consideration.

Powerful tools like Google Trends can help us understand how marketers and consumers think and feel. Enjoy experimenting with it.

Cultural Marketing, Total Market, How and Why?

This has been the year of the debate over the “Total Market” approach.  The idea is to find a common denominator that different cultural groups can all relate to.  That makes some sense at first glance. After all, most people love their children, enjoy being free, enjoy food and other good things of life.

So, finding an insight that would resonate with most people is possible. But let us think again about the nature of marketing and advertising. What brands want is to establish deep connections with consumers, at a level that the consumer feels like the brand understands them uniquely.

So, while the notion of finding a common denominator may be appealing for the good reason of realizing economies of scale and having a great reach, the brand connection may be lost. Why? Because while we all love our children, the meaning is different across cultural groups. It would be trivial to say that because children are generally loved by their parents, life insurance, for example, could be sold across the board for the sake of the love “you have for your children.” This positioning would not be ownable. And even if it were, the specifics of how Hispanic parents think of their children or their future compared with African Americans, Asians and non-Hispanic Whites would be more powerful than a more general approach. To mind comes the example of the insurance company that had a picture of a girl in her “quinceañera” dress as a reminder of the dreams the parents have for her. That is a very culturally specific message that would not cut across cultures, but that would be more powerful than a general message in reaching Latinos.

Cultural marketing is about connecting the consumer at the level of their cultural traditions and archetypes. Culture is more than interesting idiosyncrasies. Culture is the passed on set of tools for living that humans have found to work in different social contexts. Even when these tools cease to be effective, we humans tend to keep them close to our heart as they are the elements which define who we are. So, for example, fatalism. In a better organized and more predictable society fatalism would not be an effective way of coping with life. Nevertheless, it stays with members of a culture for generations regardless of their geographic and social movement over time.

Cultural marketing consists in understanding those tools for living that are mostly implicit in people's heads and that dictate how they view the world. Ethnographic and other qualitative studies can uncover many of these regularities that marketers can use to better communicate their products, brands, and services. Finding a powerful cultural cue can establish a deep relationship with consumers over many generations. Consider “sonrisas Colgate” or the Colgate toothpaste smiles that have transcended from Latin America to the United States following the descendents of Latinos. The popularity of Colgate toothpaste among Hispanics continues to be strong and much of it has been passed on from generation to generation.

A “total market” approach should not be an excuse for not attempting to establish a strong long lasting link with culturally diverse consumers. It can be detrimental. Cultural marketing is the new marketing. It goes beyond ethnicity to encompass the many different lifestyles that consumers hold dear.

Children’s Influence in the Multicultural Marketplace

For many years I have conducted qualitative research with Latino women and have generally found that they are very willing to yield to their children’s requests for purchases, even if these are non-essential.  I have had the suspicion that this is particularly true of Hispanic women in comparison to other mothers but have not had the quantitative data to explore this idea.

Using data from Experian Marketing Services’ Simmons National Hispanic Consumer Study that was collected in the twelve months ending on August 31, 2012, I created crosstabulations with self identification as Hispanic/Latino, Asian, African American/Black, or White by those who agreed a lot or a little (combined) with the statement “I find it hard to resist my children’s requests for non-essential purchases” and “I enjoy shopping with my children.” The results for both have striking similarities, not surprisingly, perhaps, as seen in the charts below:

I Find it Hard to Resist My Children’s Requests for non-Essential Purchases

I Enjoy Shopping with My Children

Hispanics are quite a bit more likely to enjoy shopping with their kids and also to yield to their requests.  They are followed by Asians who show a similar pattern when it comes to enjoying the shopping experience with their kids, but not so in yielding to their requests for non-essential purchases.  Perhaps the Asian approach to child rearing, which is known to be stricter, accounts for their lack of yielding.  Non-Hispanic Whites and African Americans are less likely than Latinos to enjoy the shopping experience with kids and yielding to their children.

The meaning of these findings is likely to relate to the way in which these consumers interpret their relationship with their children.  In particular, I have heard Hispanics many times articulate the notion that they want their kids to have what they did not have as children.  They have also indicated they feel guilty for not doing the absolute best they can for their kids.

Hispanics are at a stage in their immigration and economic development where pleasing their children and families in general is a luxury they could not afford before. What they do in life is for their children and want them to be happy as they grow up.  They seem to place a very strong value in their sense of fulfillment. Perhaps Whites have become habituated to living in a culture of abundance where kids can wait to fulfill their desires and where shopping represents labor rather than fun.

This data shows that it is not just a stereotype but an actual trend that Latinos shop in family groups and have fun doing so.  Asians show a more complex pattern in which they enjoy the shopping experience with kids, but are strictest in pleasing kids as compared with anyone else.  The implications for marketers are that Latino children in particular can be important influences in the decision making regarding purchases of products and that they cannot be ignored in the overall communication and placement plan.

As we have discovered in other pieces of research, collective decision making is more prevalent among Latinos than among other groups. Thus, the different parts of the decision making process need to be taken into consideration.

The data used here is from Experian Marketing Services’ Simmons National Hispanic Consumer Study and was collected from August 1, 2011 to August 31, 2012. The sample of respondents with children at home contained 2,955 Latinos/Hispanics, 3,645 non-Hispanic Whites, 552 non-Hispanic African American/Black, and 253 non-Hispanic Asians.

Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer

By Felipe and Betty Ann Korzenny
Forthcoming August 1, 2011


This book is about using cultural insights to connect with Latino consumers. It's about marketing strategies that tap into the passion of Hispanic consumers so that marketers and service providers can establish the deep connections they need for a successful campaign. This book provides an understanding of the Latino consumer that goes beyond simplistic recipes.
This highly revised and expanded edition comes on the heels of new US Census figures: Hispanics now account for 53% of the US population growth since 2000, soaring to over 16% of the total population. Corporations are now realizing that they must incorporate Hispanic cultural values into their products, services, and communications.

This edition reflects and responds to the profound changes the Latino market has experienced since the first edition. It considers the way in which changes in cultural identity, immigration, economics, and market synergies need to be addressed in a new relationship with Hispanic consumers.

Twenty-five new industry case studies illustrate the chapters. These case studies show how brands from diverse categories have developed a cultural understanding of their Latino target and created campaigns that established strong bonds.

Selected endorsements:

“Felipe and Betty Ann have evolved their earlier work on Hispanic Marketing into
a new and even stronger work that pushes the reader to become more strategic
and thoughtful when developing marketing platforms for Latinos. The conceptual
framework of Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer
is a thoughtful approach around creating marketing actions that are based on a deep
understanding of Latino culture. The reader is provided the tools to be able to better
interpret the cultural nuances of being Hispanic and how to make more informed
and empathic marketing decisions.”
J. Alexander M. Douglas, Jr., President Coca-Cola North America

“Drs. Korzenny have produced another masterful work that takes us on a historic
Hispanic cultural journey that allows us to understand the heterogeneity of Hispanics
while applying this information to contemporary marketing strategies.”
Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS, 17th Surgeon General of the United States

“My life just got easier. Excellent marketing begins, but doesn’t end with excellent
market research. Excellent market research begins with a clear understanding of
how to ask and interpret meaningful questions. Bravo to Felipe and Betty Ann for
making this abundantly clear in their new book. Reading this helped me clear my
head of some of the old notions I was clinging to. I feel like I’m dating the Hispanic
Market all over again!”
Michael Halberstam, Interviewing Service of America

“As this seminal book notes, smart, good business requires rephrasing the question
from “How can we translate our ad so it reaches Hispanics?” to “What will
be the right motivational appeal to emotionally reach Hispanics?” Fortunately for
us all, Felipe and Betty Ann provide solid, well-researched answers. Everything
starts with the heart. To cite but one powerful example from this book, to Anglos,
Captain Morgan and his rum works fine, but to Hispanics exploitative pirates mean
something else altogether.”
Dan Hill, President, Sensory Logic

“If you’re a marketer looking to better understand the lucrative Hispanic segment, then
this book is for you. Felipe and Betty Ann Korzenny take you on a journey inside
the mind of the Latino consumer and provide you with the perspective and facts you
needed to design more effective and efficient Hispanic marketing strategies.”
Gian Fulgoni, Chairman, comScore

“Noting that there are over 50,000,000 Hispanics in America is one thing.
Understanding how to connect your brand with them is quite another. This book is
filled with marketing competitive-advantage built on cultural connection.”
R. Barocci, Advertising Research Foundation President/CEO

“This essential manual for the field demonstrates how to navigate and leverage
one of the single most impactful demographic and cultural shifts affecting
the US marketplace. The Korzennys' perspective as true veteran practitioners
in the Hispanic marketplace and accomplished academics beautifully sheds
unique light in this updated edition on a comprehensive array of issues including
the most relevant topics discussed in the industry today—from shifting language
and acculturation issues to the digital world of Hispanics. Having spent
the past twenty years researching cross-cultural consumer differences, I found
this a refreshing read. It is equally valuable to the novice and experienced multicultural
marketer as the book strikes a strong balance of demystifying the
complex Hispanic market and offering guidance on honing skills to think differently
and identify culturally driven consumer insights.”
Adrien Lanusse, Director of Global Consumer Insights, Netflix

“This is the most complete book I have read to date on the cultural and economic
reality of the Hispanic market. It is truly a “must-read” book for anyone in the field
of education or marketing communications targeting Latinos. I congratulate Felipe
and Betty Ann for making this edition such an excellent resource for those of us
involved in the research and analysis of this important market.”
Fernando Figueredo, Chair of the Advertising and
Public Relations Faculty at Florida International University

“This book is a must read for anyone wanting to gain a deep and nuanced understanding
of the new Latino consumer. It is an apt tribute to Felipe and Betty Ann's many years
of experience, both as scholars and practitioners in the field of Hispanic marketing. It
is, without question, the best book out there on the subject of marketing to Latinos.”
David Morse, President and CEO, New American Dimensions

 
“Well beyond the statistics in 2010 Census, this new book leverages the Korzennys’
deep understanding of the Hispanic culture and market and provides both novice
and expert alike with valuable nuggets, practical case studies, and core consumer
insights that underpin the tremendous opportunity of the Hispanic market and
clearly highlight overall impact on the “now” generation of growth markets.”
Cynthia Nelson, President, Todo Bebe

“In their lively conversational style, Felipe and Betty Ann Korzenny provide real live
case studies packed with practical advice that show you how to develop winning
strategies to beat your competitors. Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the
New Latino Consumer , Second Edition is your one-stop source for everything you
need to boost sales, launch new products, and increase your Hispanic market share.”
Charles Patrick Garcia, President, Garcia Trujillo

“Felipe and Betty Ann Korzenny are the preeminent experts on Hispanic marketing.
There is research and there is real world experience – nowhere will you find a more
practical and salient distillation of what it takes to be successful in the Hispanic
market place than in this book.”
Michael Durance, CEO, Call Genie

Click here for Felipe Korzenny’s author profile
Click here for Betty Ann Korzenny’s author profile

Emerging Minorities, Concern for the Environment, and What Marketers Can Do

When I was growing up in Mexico City my father and mother always told me not to keep the faucet running because wasting water was bad. Then they told me not to throw things away because some day I can reuse them. I saved cans, jars, bottles, bags, and was very careful not to leave the faucet running while washing dishes or shaving. And, of course, you would not dream of leaving the lights on when nobody was in a room. That was such a waste of electricity.

Perhaps we were so thrifty because that was the economical thing to do at the time. But we were also frugal because resources were scarce and we did not want to waste them. For example we did not have all the water we needed. They would sometimes cut it systematically at different times during the day. Electricity was a similar problem.

I have noticed that Hispanics coming from Latin America, similar to my youth case, are also frugal with resources even if they have money to buy what they need. I have been curious to know if it is a general phenomenon that Latinos are more concerned with the environment than others.

According to our recent 2011 FSU – DMS Multicultural Marketing study we found that in fact, Hispanics that still prefer to communicate in Spanish are the most concerned with the environment compared to anyone else. Further, minorities are generally more concerned than non-Hispanic Whites after conducting statistical tests of significance. Here are the averages on a scale from 0 to 5 in terms of agreement with the statement: “Humans are severely abusing the environment.”

This belief reflects an attitude of concern for the environment that should be noticed by marketers. Products and messages directed to Latinos and other minorities are likely to have stronger resonance if they address how a company is doing something for the environment, and that their products are green.

It is not intuitive that Hispanics who prefer Spanish are most strongly concerned with the environment. Particularly not to those marketers who do not share their history of environmental chaos and deprivation. Further, Latinos who prefer English, along with African Americans and Asians, share a stronger concern for the environment than their non-Hispanic White counterparts, and that is not intuitive either. It is perhaps that those who have had to live with the consequences of environmental degradation are now turning more conscientious about it.
The lesson of the story is that emerging minorities are likely to embrace green and marketers should make that part of their agenda. Perhaps green is the new “green.”

The data for this study was collected during March 2011. This online sample was comprised of 500 respondents per segment, for a total of 2,500, based on quotas by gender, age, and geographic location. DMS Insights managed the sample and data collection and they graciously contributed their effort to the academic program of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. This study was conducted by the faculty and students of the graduate Multicultural Marketing Communication course offered by FSU this Spring.

How Can Companies Address Cultural Diversity in Marketing

There are companies that have dedicated groups to deal with Latinos, for example. And sometimes they have separate groups to handle multiple minority group. In some cases there is a multicultural marketing group as distinct from the main marketing group. Some companies have had niche marketing units for a while and then have disbanded them. Some recreate them after a while and then merge them into discrete business units. There may not be one recipe for how to organize the marketing function to account for cultural diversity among consumers but the following are important requirements:

1.      First and foremost there must be members of the cultural groups of interest within the organization at most levels of decision making. These individuals should, at least conceptually, be vigilant about issues that affect their cultural communities. Hispanic in our case.

2.      There should be cultural expertise in the organization that goes beyond objective culture to address the subjective culture of the groups in question. Ideally these would be cultural anthropologists that also have marketing expertise. As a minimum these should be practitioners that have some in-depth training about the focus culture, even if they are members of the culture itself. Being a member of a cultural group does not necessarily imply that the person understands his/her own culture. That is because culture is not evident even to its own members. In house cultural expertise used in marketing strategies and tactics can help connect effectively with culturally diverse consumers and avoid costly errors. Also, it helps organizations avoid the assumption of similarity that many marketers tend to make because “after all we are all human.” I have made the point elsewhere that using culture as a connecting mechanism becomes a shorthand for better communication with culturally diverse groups.

3.      As purposeful marketing claims increased importance in the marketplace, organizations are redefining their mission to become better citizens. As the grocery store a hundred years ago had the purpose of serving its community businesses now are coming back to that enlightened point. As a sense of purpose guides the organization the bottom line is also covered. Purposeful marketing requires now that companies act upon the multicultural reality of the United States.

4.      Integrating decision making in organizations will be an increasingly important endeavor. This is particularly true in marketing as Latinos and other emerging minorities cannot be seen as niches anymore but as driving forces of the entire economy. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) can no longer compartmentalize culturally diverse groups as smaller opportunities than the defunct “general market.” There is no such thing as a general market, there are segments of cultural groups compounded by subcultures and lifestyles. These need to be understood in a coherent scheme where culture is part of the segmentation scheme, and where culture is part of the strategic thinking of the company.

5.      The cultural experience of the company needs to be an ongoing effort. Companies need to keep their radar out in culturally diverse communities to understand trends and changes. Executives need to go on ethnographic interview outings to see where and how their consumers live. They need to experience firsthand consumer practices and ways of behaving. It is not just the research/insights group that needs to be in contact with consumers, it is the decision makers. To do otherwise makes the work of researchers and insight gatherers futile because they will not resonate at the decision making levels. Marketing needs to go back to the village, larger now but still a village in a psychological sense.

There does not seem to be a way to ignore the cultural transition the United States is experiencing. Marketers are at the point where they need to strategize and segment in a comprehensive way. Marketing to Hispanics, for example, is not anymore a secondary priority, because that is where the future resides. But a new approach to marketing in a diverse society should be done so that complexity and cultural overlaps are recognized.

The Hispanic Population Numbers Surprising Marketers Again!

We are all waiting for the Census numbers. According to the official schedule we will not know the official number of US Hispanics until April of 2011. Nevertheless I took the time to look at some sources of data to figure out what the growth of US Latinos is likely to be in the next few years.

First I consulted the Geoscape projections for all the US population and Hispanics in 2015. These projections are based on Census data. The projection is that the total population of the US will be close to 323 million people and that of US Hispanics will of about 56 million people then. Well, I was expecting something like that. Then I looked at the Geoscape total population projection for 2010, which I found to be very close to the current count of the US population according to the http://www.census.gov population clock. Both sources said that there are about 310 million people in the US now. I looked at the latest Census data again and found that the US Census Bureau projection for Hispanics in 2009 was 48.4 million. Geoscape projection for 2010 is of close to 50 million people.

I started doing some simple arithmetic and rounded up numbers for simplicity. Let's assume there are 50 million Hispanics in the US now, and there will be 56 million in 2015. The difference is 6 million. Then I substracted 310 million from 323 million for the entire population in 2015. That means that the total projected growth of the US population by 2015 will of about 13 million. If these numbers are anywhere close to accurate, the growth of the US Hispanic population will account for almost half of the total growth of the population of the United States.

These numbers left me thinking about how important Hispanics are to US marketers. A cultural group that accounts for half the growth of the population should make an important part of strategic planning. This is a cultural group that can be addressed by connecting via common denominators in a common culture. Numbers can have some interesting implications.

All Marketing is Cultural

Many marketers still ask the question: What is different about marketing to Hispanics, Asians, African Americans, etc.? Isn't marketing just marketing?

Marketing is marketing but few marketers consciously realize that what they do is cultural marketing. So when they target women with children, they are really addressing a subculture in the United States.  When they address young people they are addressing another culture within a culture. When they target middle class homeowners they are not just addressing a so called "demographic," they are addressing a culture.

There is little awareness of what a culture is. A culture is a set of designs for living that are shared by many people, and sometimes those designs for living are passed on from generation to generation.

Most advertising would not work if it were not cultural. The marketer attempts to connect with consumers who share something in common, but the "demographic" is not what they share in common, it is the way of being, thinking, doing, valuing, and feeling.

Thus, it should not be surprising that to reach out to Latinos, for example, the marketer needs to understand their culture. And that is profound because it goes to the core of who people are. That is what ethnic marketing consists of. It is the understanding of the culture and the contextual issues surrounding it. It is different because the culture is different, but also because it is a lot harder to market to a different culture than to the one you are part of. See, culture is like water for the fish, we are seldom aware of it. We think a joke is funny just because it is funny. Not so, a joke is funny because it is culturally bound. A joke is funny to a group of people who share a culture, and not to others. An emotional appeal is emotional to those who share a common reaction to that appeal.

When the marketer crosses cultures s/he needs to make many assumptions explicit. There is no more obviousness of water to the fish. The fish needs to become aware of the water in order to succeed. That is what has to happen with marketers. They need to step out of the comfort of their own culture to be effective in another. That is why it is so difficult to do cross cultural marketing.

But, all marketing is cultural, and it is hard for many to realize that. So, now, why do we need to make special efforts to market to Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, etc.? Because they swim in different waters.

Cultural Marketing For The 2010's

The decade of the 2010's will require more cultural sensitivity than ever before. Not that cultural sensitivity was not needed much earlier in the US and around the world, but conditions are ripe now for understanding how culture can enhance profits and better marketing.

Cultural marketing is not something nice to do to show good citizenship. Cultural marketing is a profit making enterprise. Let me explain. If we accept that emotion is at the core of selling, advertising, and marketing, then culture is a shortcut for reaching the emotions of many people at the same time. Culture consists of objective and subjective designs for living that are passed from generation to generation. The components of culture are what we are raised with in our early years. We are taught what is right and wrong and what is good and bad. When we are enculturated we are given lessons that become warm feelings that generally persist until we die.

The beliefs, feelings, and values that encompass subjective culture are shared by many people in our culture. That is why marketing to Hispanics as a culture makes sense. It is not so much because of the external manifestation of culture like food and dress, but because Hispanics share so much in common because of historical roots that overlap with religion and language.

Marketing to Hispanics as a culture is a way of connecting with these consumers at deeper levels. It is a way of communicating why a product or idea makes sense from the perspective of the consumer and evoking the deepest emotions that become ingrained in the process of enculturation.

Clearly, the same can be said about almost any other cultural group. Marketing to a culture in cultural terms is about touching those cords that have been instilled in us since childhood. While I understand that eventually marketing will be a one-on-one relationship, cultural marketing is a good interim way to bridge the gap between marketing to the masses (as if they ever existed), and understanding the individual's values and deep rooted perceptions of the world at the most personalized level.

Cultural marketing is a shortcut that minimizes the trajectory and produces results. It needs to be authentic and honest because it is about relationships. It requires that the marketer understands the culture. It is not a matter of making a gesture, it is an endeavor of commitment and dedication. Cultural marketing is not about obvious portrayals of families, soccer, or salsa music but about understanding the underlying perceptions that members of a culture share. While portrayals of soccer, families, and salsa music can be very important as tactical elements, underlying subjective elements of the culture can provide true insights for positioning and strategy.

Cheers to all for the 2010's and the challenge of doing cultural marketing right.

****************************************************************

By the way Cesar Melgoza and I will be doing a Webinar on this topic if you are interested:

"Why In-Culture Marketing is Critical to the Long Term Success of Any American Enterprise" on February 11th, 2010 1:00-2:00 p.m. EST.

Understand why marketing to high-growth segments such as Hispanics, Asians and African Americans is key to securing growth for corporations across industries. Get facts and figures that impact corporate strategy at all levels of management and see why in-culture marketing should be mandatory for most corporations. All proceeds will be donated to FSU’s Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication.

To register or for more information visit http://www.geoscape.com/college_of_business.aspx