Ethnic marketing: A new trend in e-marketing

by Dan Blacharski

December 11, 2003 —

Conventional marketing school wisdom holds that the "sweet spot
demographic" is everything, whether you're talking about e-marketing or
conventional campaigns. Many large companies, with large budgets, devote
most, if not all, of their e-marketing dollar to focusing on a very
small segment of the population.

Granted, upper-middle-class white men living in suburban metro areas and
who are between the ages of 25-34 probably do have the most money to
spend. But businesses engaged in e-marketing campaigns may do well to
consider other segments of the population as well.

John Benfield, CEO of Coactive Marketing Group, a full service
marketing, sales promotion and interactive sales company, has introduced
some of the largest companies in the world to the concept of ethnic
marketing. The first- and second-generation Hispanic population,
collectively, has immense buying power, despite not fitting into the
"sweet spot" demographic. Not only that, they represent what is probably
the most loyal customer base of all, especially when marketed to in
their native language and with a culturally-sensitive campaign.

Again, demographics will tell you that this population is less likely to
have Internet access in the home. Indeed, most of the ethnic marketing
that does exist is still offline and event-oriented. But e-marketing to
this population is an emerging opportunity, said Benham. "Although
Hispanic interactive usage is not yet significant," notes Benham, "It is
far greater than it was five years ago, and it is not nearly as large as
it will be five years hence." Here's a few important statistics. Four
out of every 10 new Americans are Hispanic, and 85% of the Hispanic
population is clustered in large population centers. Obviously, their
collective buying power is immense, and this represents a tremendous
opportunity for targeted marketing.

And that targeted marketing can turn more to e-marketing under two
circumstances; one, with products that have greater margins, and two, as
that population becomes more acculturated and more likely to embrace the
Internet. "Our belief at this point in time is that the more
acculturated and assimilated the group becomes the incidence of
Internet/interactive usage will increase," said Benham. On
higher-profile items, too, targeted e-marketing to an ethnic population
is much more likely to be effective even at the present time. I also
believe that the greater a product or service's margin is, the more
likely that product will be to promote interactively when the target is
large/interactive sophisticated enough."

In marketing to new Hispanic citizens, simply including a Spanish
language version of a web site or e-mail marketing message is not always
enough. Several large ad agencies attempt to target this population with
little success, simply because their approach is that of an outsider.
Through their MarketVision affiliate, Coactive Marketing specifically
targets Hispanic consumers, both offline and online. Their success is
attributable to the fact that they're the real deal, not just another
Madison Avenue agency with a Spanish name attached to it. MarketVision
was from the very beginning a Hispanic company. In addition, through
Grupo Hacerlo, a Coactive-founded network of Hispanic-owned local
agencies, Benham is able to run a national campaign at the street level,
using culturally-sensitive, local resources.

E-marketing has become a central part of almost every advertising and
marketing push, and e-marketing past the "sweet spot" demographic -
using culturally-sensitive, ethnic marketing - has only just begun.

ITworld