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.

Digital Media Use in the Multicultural Marketplace

At the end of 2013 at the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University we conducted a survey of 735 Hispanics, 647 non-Hispanic Whites, 744 African Americans, and 732 Asians. The data was collected courtesy of Research Now, under the supervision of Ms. Melanie Courtright and Dr. Kartik Pashupati.

One of the segments of the online survey asked about the number of hours per week that respondents engage in different activities. Many of the items measured digital media usage. The data confirms many of the trends we have observed over the past few years and also provide some interesting surprises. As can be seen in the chart below, Hispanics and Asians watch the largest number of hours of streamed videos per week.

African Americans follow in order of weekly time spent and as found in prior research, non-Hispanic Whites use the least amount of video streaming. This picture should certainly send a message to providers of digital video streaming services. And note that this is the media used in English. The amount of time spent in another language is negligible for African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites, and relatively small for Hispanics (half an hour) and for Asians (slightly over one hour per week). The fact that most streaming is done in English may be related to the nature of the online panel, the availability of content, and the fact that English is becoming more prevalent among culturally diverse groups. Still, the key implication is that the new emerging majority is diverse, and is using English language video streaming. This is important because programmers of streaming media need to understand the cultural programming that is relevant to these consumers. The chart below illustrates the use of social media like Facebook. The findings are even more surprising.

That Hispanics spend the largest amount of time with social media compared to anyone else is revealing. As learned in prior studies we found again that cultural minorities were more likely to use it.  In this study we found that Asians and non-Hispanic Whites are using social media less than their Hispanic and African American counterparts. The notion that these new technologies of liberation appeal the most to those who were previously deprived from such means of self-expression is interesting. Also, these findings show the relative sociability of the different cultural groups. The use of social media in another language for Asians and Hispanics is less than half an hour per week.

The picture of the amount of time spent listening to satellite radio is also revealing. Non-Hispanic Whites use this medium the most, followed by Hispanics and African Americans. Asians use it the least, as seen in the chart below.  These trends may be due to the costs associated with the medium and also to the availability of content relevant to these consumers.

Listening to streamed audio on the Internet (like Pandora), presents a different pattern as seen below.

Hispanics are the most avid listeners of Internet radio, followed by African Americans, then Asians and finally non-Hispanic Whites.  The amount of exposure to Internet radio in another language is about an hour a week for Hispanics and about a quarter of an hour for Asians. As discussed in our book “Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer” the cultural affinity of Hispanics to radio appears to strongly transfer to online offerings. And that seems to be also the case for African Americans.

For the purposes of a reality check we asked about the number of hours that these different cultural groups spend talking to friends in face-to-face situations. The most socially engaged are African Americans, they are followed by Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. Asians lag to some extent in English, but in general the levels of interpersonal face-to-face contact is high compared with social media, for example.

Thus the notion that social media is replacing interpersonal contact may not necessarily be correct.  The study of how social media and interpersonal face-to-face contact complement each other appears to be a priority. In this case, however, the use of another language does make a substantive difference as Hispanics spend almost two hours per week talking to friends face-to-face in another language (most likely Spanish, of course), And Asians spend almost an hour and a half per week in interpersonal communication with friends. When another language is included Hispanics are the most socially engaged, and Asians closely match non-Hispanic Whites. The use of one’s native language in personal communications seems to be more relevant than when using social media, and it makes sense. Still the largest amount of interpersonal contact is in English.  Again, we need to caution the reader that the composition of the sample may be responsible for the dominance of the English language, nevertheless the trends seem to be in line with current data and observations of increased English language usage among Hispanics and Asians. Clearly, this trend highlights the importance of understanding how culture and language use intersect and change the identity of culturally diverse individuals. The overall use of the Internet is documented in the chart below:

The overall use of the Internet is very high in general and when added to Hispanic and Asians the approximately one hour they spend in another language, they all seem to use it to very much to the same extent.

This data is robust in that it was collected with quotas for US region, age (18+) in different brackets, and gender. That it may be over-representing those who prefer English is possible.  Nevertheless, the numbers make sense in light that about 30% of US Hispanics prefer to communicate in Spanish, and the rest are a mix of English language preference or no preference.

The trends generally confirm that emerging minorities continue to lead in the use of digital media. While Netflix and Pandora, for example, are doing more in satisfying content preferences of culturally diverse audiences it seems like they could be doing more to the benefit of their own businesses and these audiences are their present and their future.  It is not just having Latin American, Asian, or African American movies and music that can bring increased revenue, but the understanding of non-obvious tastes and preference. A Netflix or Amazon series that reflects the values of Latinos, for example, without necessarily being just for Latinos could be more attractive than a mafia or government affairs theme.

Again, “all marketing is cultural.”

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.

Hispanic Affluence by State - Implications for Marketing

The American Community Survey (ACS) of the US Census Bureau provides important insights into the lives of Americans. Friends of mine frequently ask me about the level of affluence among US Hispanics. Those households with incomes of $75,000 or higher are generally considered to be affluent. What states have higher percentages of affluent Latinos?  How do Latinos compare with the overall population in terms of affluence across States?

In order to try to answer these questions I obtained 5 year estimates from the ACS (2006 - 2010) for household income and compared Hispanics with the overall population by State, then created an index of Latinos as a percentage of the overall population in terms of household income. The latter index I thought would help us visualize which States have a larger gap as compared with others.

The following Table contains the States, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with the lowest disparities in terms of the percentages of Latino households with incomes of $75K+, compared with the corresponding percentages for the overall population for each State.  The last column represents an index of disparity.  The larger the index the better, comparatively, Hispanics do in that State.  The index was created by dividing the Latino percentage over the overall percentage of those with household incomes of $75K +.



The above table shows that the States with lower disparities of percentages of households with incomes of $75K per year or more are either those that have generally lower incomes, or those that have unusual economies with higher incomes overall such as Alaska, and Hawaii. Regardless of overall economic trends in these States, it is interesting to observe that Hispanics are generally doing quite well across the board as the proportion of affluent Latinos suggests that generally about 25% of their households earn significant incomes.

The table below shows the States with the largest disparities.




The States with the largest disparities between Latinos and the overall population show a trend similar to that in the above table. In States with higher proportions of high earner households overall, Latinos tend to do proportionally less well, for example California, Arizona, Delaware, Texas and Utah. At this lower end of the disparity distribution, however, even those States that have lower proportions of affluent households also show a sharp contrast when compared with their Hispanic household component. These States are exemplified by Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Montana, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Idaho.

The big lesson is that generally speaking Hispanics seems to be doing quite well in terms of having a relatively high representation of high earning households overall.  There are gaps that are due to economic conditions and opportunities but for marketers, the lesson is clear. High earning Latino households are abundant and their significant presence points to their potential for enhancing the bottom line of many marketers that realize their potential. Be these opportunities cars, homes, recreational vehicles, vacations, travel, education, restaurants, etc. savvy marketers can start taking action when they see that they may not be culturally addressing an important part of the potential customer base.

Taxes, Convenience, and Multicultural Purchases Online

Many local merchants and multiple brick and mortar retailers complain that online merchants have an unfair advantage because many of them do not charge State and local taxes to purchasers. That is an interesting empirical question, particularly in the context of our multicultural society.

Are consumers more likely to buy online to save on taxes, or are they more attracted to online retailers because of convenience?  That is the key question guiding this study.

In the Spring of 2012, at the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication of Florida State University, in collaboration with Research Now, we collected data for our yearly Multicultural Marketing Study.  We asked consumers to tell us how much they agree or disagree with the following statements:

- I purchase products online to save the money I would have to pay for State taxes
and
- If online merchants charged State tax I would continue purchasing online at the same rate I do now

Respondents could agree or disagree on a scale that went from completely disagree (0) to Completely agree (5).

Interestingly, across all respondents the average agreement with the first statement was 2.42 and 2.5 with the second statement, almost exactly in the middle of the scale. These overall trends appear to indicate that paying or not paying State taxes when shopping online is not a major consideration for shopping online. These findings tend to negate politicians’ and brick and mortar merchant arguments that advocate that local merchants would fare better if State taxes were imposed on online merchants.  

The breakdown by major ethnic groups reveals some interesting but mild differences.


Statistically, Asians agreed the most with “I purchase products online to save the money I would have to pay for State taxes.”  Hispanics were second and African Americans and Non-Hispanic Whites were least likely to agree with the statement. Still the differences are relatively small. Frugality may account for some of these differences.  Still, even the largest mean of 2.8 for Asians is still relatively small in the context of the scale and seems to indicate that saving on State taxes is not a major motivation for purchasing online.

The distribution of means for the second statement shows a contrasting pattern:


Even though the differences here are again relatively small, the tendency for non Hispanic Whites to agree more strongly with the statement “If online merchants charged State tax I would continue purchasing online at the same rate I do now” indicates cultural differences in the perception of value and saving on taxes. There was not statistically significant difference among Asians, Hispanics, and African Americans.

In sum, Asians seem to be somewhat more motivated by tax savings when purchasing online, and non Hispanic Whites appear to be more indifferent to online purchase taxation. Still, the main finding is clearly that overall, the impact of State taxing of online purchases is not likely to make a major difference.  Convenience appears to be a major motivation for making online purchases. The cost of fuel and the amount of time that it takes to shop in brick and mortar shops does not appear to compensate for State taxation.  It is unfortunate that brick and mortar businesses may not count on State taxation of line purchases to strengthen their businesses to any large extent. Perhaps the biggest lesson for marketers is that regardless of online taxation brick and mortar merchants need to transition to having a presence online.  Also, the results of this research do point to cultural differences in perceptions of online purchase taxation that can be of interest to marketers in their positioning of their offerings.

The data for this study was collected by Research Now of Dallas, Texas, thanks to the generous initiative of Ms. Melanie Courtright. Research Now contributed these data to the research efforts of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. This online survey included the responses of 936 Asians, 458 African Americans, 833 Hispanics, and 456 non Hispanic Whites. This national sample had quotas for US region, age, and gender to increase representativeness.

Online Courses on Multicultural and Hispanic Marketing Communication

Starting the last week in August The Florida State University will offer for the first time, online, a course on Multicultural Marketing Communication. It is available to anyone interested in continuing education or just for the sake of learning. Students in academic programs can get academic credit and those not in academic programs get a certificate of completion. The course is asynchronous, so students can participate when they have the time. Click here for more details.

Also starting the last week in August is our well known online course on Hispanic Marketing Communication now using our new book "Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer." This course is also available to anyone interested. Click here for further details.

We have also added to our online course rotation Account Planning in the Summer. For inquiries about any of our courses and to register please contact: Inquiries@campus.fsu.edu

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

Using Social Media to Understand Social Influence

Social media, or social networking as it is commonly known, is powerful beyond what anyone can imagine by looking at the surface of it. Those of you who have studied social networks can relate to this. Imagine being able to identify those who are opinion leaders, bridges between communities, leaders, and isolates, by looking at their social media behavior.

Social media is about influence and power. Who contacts you the most? How many people contact you? How central are you in your network? What are the topics of conversation in your network?

The metrics that can be derived from studying modern networking sites can be a goldmine for marketers. What are some applications?

• Who is credit worthy?
• Who is an opinion leader?
• Who influences whom?
• What are topics about which different individuals influence others?
• The strenght of community bridges to pass ideas along to other communitities

How many times do we wonder where to place a message so that it has impact? Social networks are more powerful than "one-way" media because they reflect communication behavior. Social media marketing is about communities that go beyond geography.

The moral of the story is that there is a lot to come when it comes to network metrics.

Use of Social Networking Sites Among Diverse Cultural Groups in the US

Social Media Marketing depends on the popularity of social networking sites. In the study referred to in my prior Blog we also asked our large multicultural sample of respondents to "please indicate the social networking sites you visit regularly." We listed MySpace, HI5, QuePasa, Habbo, Orkut, FaceBook, Friendster, Bebo, Classmates, WindowsLSpaces, Xanga, Flixter, Tagged, Netlog, Reunion, Broadcaster, Cyworld, MyHeritage, Friends, Reunited, Linkedin, BlackPlanet, and SecondLife. We also provided the option "none."

The chart below illustrates the preponderance of use of MySpace and FaceBook among these emerging minorities:

The first observation is that Non-Hispanic Whites, as in the prior blog, show a lower incidence in visiting these sites regularly when compared with the other cultural groups. Interestingly both popular sites fare best among Hispanics who prefere English and Asians than among anyone else. Hispanics who prefer Spanish and African Americans, however, are still more likely to visit these sites than Non-Hispanic Whites. Again, it is emerging minorities that are leading the future of the digital era in the United States.

The following Chart illustrates that culturally targeted sites do better among specific cultural groups:

Sites that have a preponderance of particular cultural groups, or who target specific cultural groups appear to do well with them. The International Site HI5 and QuePasa do realtively well with Hispanics who prefer Spanish. Friendster, populated by a larger number of Asian Americans does relatively well with Asians as compared with other cultural groups. African Americans are more frequently regular visitors of Black Planet. Thus, cultural targeting seems to have great potential among those who strongly identify with their culture. Interestingly, none of these sites seemed to do particularly well with Hispanics who prefer English or with Non-Hispanic Whites. In the case of Hispanics who prefer English this may be because there are few sites specifically catering to them.

Perhaps even more surprising is that members of all of these online cultural groups visit social networking sites with regularity as the following chart shows:

This last chart illustrates that very few individuals in any of these groups use none of the social networking sites we listed in the questionnaire. This emphasizes the importance that this new social medium has for most online consumers.

Social networking is growing fast and becoming very popular among most Americans. Emerging minorities, however, are leading the trend. Social Media Marketing efforts can capitalize on this knowledge to establish their brands and territories in these social circles.

The moral of the story is: Go market where people are associating with others, and become part of their socio-cultural identity. As culture is rooted in social interaction, brands can become part of these complex patterns of interaction.

Identifying the core of the new and emergent multicultural society

You have probably heard the expression "I am not from here or there," or in Spanish "no soy de aquí ni soy de allá." The core of the emergent multicultural society in the United States is composed of people who are not from here or from there. Most members of this emergent society, of most cultural minority backgrounds, do not fully share the cultural experience of their heritage, and they do not fully feel part of the traditional "American society." Thus, the cultural ambivalence they experience. It is being in between worlds, and in a synergistic way combining them.

Interestingly when members of these different cultures share the experience of "not being from here or there" they have something in common. It is a sense of being different, or sharing difference. That is what anthropologists (Ruth Hill Useem) have called third culture kids. Third culture because it is not the first culture or second culture that prevail in their minds, but the third culture of the experience of being different and mixing aspects of both.

The richness of the experience of being different appears to be the common denominator of diverse cultural groups in the US. In an interesting way, a country of immigrants has the intrinsic quality of deriving from a "third culture." Perhaps this heritage has been taken for granted in common discourse, and new emergent "minorities" are becoming the core of a new era in which being different is what makes us similar, one more time in history.

Not being from there or from here is perhaps the core of a brave new world.